Slashdot Mirror
Share Your Most Dangerous Idea
GabrielF writes "Every year The Edge asks over 100 top scientists and thinkers a question, and the responses are fascinating and widely quoted. This year, psychologist Steven Pinker suggested they ask "What is your most dangerous idea?" The 117 respondents include Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond -- and that's just the D's! As you might expect, the submissions are brilliant and very controversial."
1. Shaving my back with rubbing alcohol and fire+.
2. Testing for the presence of pheromones in ball sweat by putting my hand down my pants, cupping my balls, and holding my hand over my sleeping girlfriend's face while she slept.*
+ I was going to do this while in the shower with the water running off to the side so I could hop into the water in the event of the inevitable accident
* Danger: She's a biter thus the reluctance to tea bag her directly
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
"The hyper-Islamicist critique of the West as a decadent force that is already on a downhill course might be true" - somebody give this guy a research grant.
Why would you trust a testimonial when choosing hosting?
"Hold my beer and watch this".
"Better light a match to see where that gas is coming from."
"Yeah honey, you do look kind of fat in that dress."
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Taking 8 hits of acid and watching The Exorcist.
Very dangerous idea.
google.slashdot
Reading Slashdot every day is pretty dangerous as far as ideas go. Never know when you're going to read something insightful, scream "Eureka!" and your head explodes like a nasty toliet.
...was putting ALL my assets into Google.
But the bet paid off. And now I can buy my own island. And a death ray.
Intelligent Design. Sorry, I had to.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
This is for the questions that don't have any answers.
Someone hates these cans.
Asking your wife to hold your beer in an underground gas mine so that you can light a match to check if she looks fat.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Well, I'm really busy at the moment, but maybe I'll just check slashdot one more time, just for a quick breather... I'm sure I won't be surfing for too long and will get straight back to work as soon as I've caught up on the news...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
I was thinking of installing the latest Longhorn beta, or playing Russian roulette with an automatic - haven't decided yet.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
They're sitting by the edge of the gene pool.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
This might cause the whole of space/time to explode, it might form a pocket universe, or it might do all sorts of other strange things.
Okay, I definitely nominate this for the most dangerous idea.
Just start sending emails about terrorists and oil on the Moon to your grandma. I'm sure the NSA will pass it on, and in due time the Moon will be toast.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Sorry, couldn't help myself
-Brandon
Ha, good one... I actually knew a guy who, before going to a strip club with me, dropped acid and drank a whole bottle of "cold duck" (some kind of wine). He didn't mention this to me, of course.
So we're at the strip club, and this girl I know is giving me a table dance. Her gorgeous ass is bobbing back and forth in front of my face, right? And there's a good chance she'll come with us later in the evening for some clubbing. I'm happy and content, and all is well.
SUDDENLY! His hand flies into the scene from the left, and he sticks his thumb straight up her ass. She screams and shoots off him like a pershing missle, and sprints -- SPRINTS -- into the dressing rooms twenty feet away. My mouth is hanging open; I simply cannot believe what has just happened. The girl -- strawberry blonde with a surfer hairdo and freckles and the whitest, softest skin you have EVER seen -- is certainly NEVER going to speak to me again. I am in shock of course.
She's barely gone and my knucklehead friend leaps up to the platform where some other poor girl is doing her little pole-dance thing, and starts screaming "they're all SLUTS! SLUTS! SLUTS!" I grab him in a headlock and drag him to the door, saying to the two Giant Navajo bouncers "Uh... I think he's on something, we're leaving, ok?" He's frothing at the mouth at this point. I barely get him outside and he takes off like a psycho rocket.
I spent the rest of the night chasing his psycho tripping ass all over Flagstaff, Arizona, hoping he wouldn't get himself killed, not having any idea whatsoever what was going on. At one point, he drove his head into four or five huge plate-glass windows in a row, all along San Francisco street, causing an enormous uproar (people getting out of bed with their shotguns, etc) and a police investigation that would go on for weeks. Unbelieveably, he wasn't injured at all. Not even a scratch.
I finally got him back in his apartment, and when he called me the next day, all of his clothes had been mysteriously tied in a huge rope which extended from his ankle to his door (or something, he wasn't really coherent when he told me the story), he was stark naked, and there was vomit all over every surface of his room. On the advice of a bartender friend of ours, he got out of town at first opportunity - EVERYONE was looking for him (and me, because they thought he might have killed me or something) -- and I haven't seen or heard of him since.
It was the weirdest-ass thing I ever witnessed.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
2. (August 2001) "Maybe I should drop out and join the Army. Chicks really dig guys in uniforms, and besides, what are the chances we'll be in a war in the next few years."
3. (Shouting to the skymarshall in the aisle across from you) "Excuse me, I dropped my lip balm and it rolled over by you. That's my balm right there. Could you throw me my balm? Oh don't bother, I'll get it. It's okay everyone! I got my balm!"
4. (Visiting family in NYC) "This white hotel sheet sure made a great ghost costume. I'll show everyone how their cousin from Arkansas can party. Wow, I'm almost late for the halloween party. I'd better take a shortcut through this part of the map called Harlem. Oh darn, I think my tire is going flat."
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
This isn't my idea, can't remember where I saw it.
Suppose a virus grepped your Outlook/Outlook Express address book for people's names. Then it grepped all the emails/documents/spreadsheets/whatever on all drives it could reach for those names.
Once it found a document with someone's name, it emails that document to them.
Imagine the chaos as confidential HR memos, payroll spreadsheets, legal documents, and just plain gossip are indiscriminately sent out.
onto a Win XP machine.
Isn't that how the Reavers got started...
Sure they were cannibals, but did you notice how not one of them suffered from osteoporosis?
and I haven't seen or heard of him since.
Sorry about that. I keep meaning to get in touch, but, you know...
Right under Dawkins (yes the first name I clicked) was this guy "KAI KRAUSE"
My first thought was: what if any really smart set of people really set their mind to it...how utterly and scarily trivial it would be, to disrupt the very fabric of life, to bring society to a dead stop?
The relative innocence and stable period of the last 50 years may spiral into a nearly inevitable exposure to real chaos. What if it isn't haphazard testosterone driven riots, where they cannibalize their own neighborhood, much like in L.A. in the 80s, but someone with real insight behind that criminal energy ? What if Slashdotters start musing aloud about "Gee, the L.A. water supply is rather simplistic, isn't it?" An Open Source crime web, a Wiki for real WTO opposition ? Hacking L.A. may be a lot easier than hacking IE.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
Everything since then is downhill.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'll be impressed when I meet a cat that appreciates quantum physics...
Actually, if you give one man all of the power, you have complete and exact political equality with one outlier, which can be rejected as statistically irrelevant. Do I win? Do I get a cookie?
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
I'm not sure if I would describe cat religion as Secular Felinism or the simple belief that if one is a cat, one is a god. Does it count as polytheism if multiple cats believe that they are each the one and only True God?
Dogs, of course, clearly do have religion.
If atheism is a [belief], then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
/repost
//still works
///still true ;P
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Someone call the RIAA. Jefferson clearly stole Mason's lyrics without having obtained the proper copyrights.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
It was the weirdest-ass thing I ever witnessed.
That sounds like a most excellent movie idea. I even have a title for you. "What the hell is he on?"
So when my girlfriend makes me miserable she's making me less appealing to other women, which defends her turf. Damn, women are smart!