What Are You Optimistic About?

vix86 writes "Last year's "World Question" from The Edge was "What is your Dangerous Idea?" So to kick off the off the new year: As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic. Science figures out how things work and thus can make them work better. Much of the news is either good news or news that can be made good, thanks to ever deepening knowledge and ever more efficient and powerful tools and techniques. Science, on its frontiers, poses more and ever better questions, ever better put. What are you optimistic about? Why? Surprise us! "

Comments

Last Year's

[quanminoan]

If you missed last year's discussion here on the most dangerous idea you should read through it. There were some pretty interesting ideas...

Re:Last Year's

[arun_s]

To me, the most interesting question by far in EDGE has been the one on 'What do you believe to be true even though you can't prove it?' There were some really cool answers that year, e.g. this hilarious (but equally insightful) one from Leonard Susskind.

Unsurprisingly

[Anonymous Coward]

about finally getting laid! YAY!

Energy

[Scareduck]

I am optimistic on several major points regarding energy over the long term:

1. That mankind will wean itself of fossil fuels. This means massive increases in renewables, energy transport, and improved nuclear fission reactors/processes (breeder reactors and thorium fuel cycles, and ultimately, fusion).
2. Part of this process will be radical improvements in efficiency. Examples include stored thermal heat exchanges (underground water tanks for summer cooling and winter heating), coal gasification instead of conventional coal-fired power plants, hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and so forth.
3. Industrial civilization with continue and even thrive as a result, even unto the "developing world" countries of India and China.
4. As a result, anthropogenic climate forcing will cease to be an issue.

Yes, I know, I'm off my meds this week.

The defeat of the Neo-Cons

[fishyfool]

Just thrills me to death. It makes me optimistic for the future of the United States and we the people.

Re:The defeat of the Neo-Cons

[Dachannien]

I'm just hoping that the tax-and-spend liberals aren't our only alternative.

Re:The defeat of the Neo-Cons

[Loco Moped]

Put in another way: the one-party monopoly is over,

I'm sorry, but how is it possible that someone smart enough to post on /. can't see that there IS ONLY ONE PARTY? It's been that way for years. It's a GAME, folks - you know, like football, where the teams pretend to hate each other, then go out for beers together after the game. Which playbook they follow depends upon what color jersey they're wearing today. THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME AGENDA, just different ways to reach the common goal.

And the loser is always the same (us peons, aka citizens, aka disposable interchangeable taxpayers).

Re:The defeat of the Neo-Cons

[yolto]

As opposed to the spend-and-spend "conservatives" we've had lately?

Re:The defeat of the Neo-Cons

[SRA8]

OK, they are different on small matters like their *approach* but no different to the big picture. Democrats may achieve their means through media manipulation and public humiliation rather than evesdropping & secret killings. Democrats prefer open death via sanctions rather than Republicans/Neocon secret death squads, etc. But at the end of the day, they all sell out America to greater powers. Speaking of Iraq, President Clinton presided over the genocide of our age. From 1992 to 2000, almost 1,200,000 Iraqis were killed due to the genocidal sanctions on everything from pencils to milk. Granted, they were largely a cause of Bush I's destruction of Iraqi civilian infrastructure (water purification plants, electricity plants, etc.) But Clinton did not have the political will to save these 1.2Million lives. Either he didnt care or he was powerless to do so. Regardless, the last 16 years has been a mockery of "Never Again." Finally, lobbying -- definitely on specific issues one party or another may favor an issue. A bridge to nowhere. Aid to peanut farmers here or there. But i'm talking about the big picture of old power and money. These things never change.

Re:The defeat of the Neo-Cons

[drsmithy]

But you must agree that Clinton presided over 1.2Million Iraqi deaths. He could have stopped it at any point, but didnt.

The bloke running Iraq could have stopped it as well, resulting in something significantly closer to a win-win scenario. Why aren't you putting the blame where it belongs ? Why are you assuming if the sactions hadn't have existed, those same Iraqis would have survived ?

The difference between killing 1.2Million Iraqi's via sanctions or killing iraqi via an invasion and inevitable civil war are not different in my book.

Then your book needs revising. There is a vast gulf of difference between people killed in a poorly planned, poorly executed, selfish, short-sighted *invasion* and people killed because their dictatorial ruler wouldn't give them food that he already had or could easily (and legally) have obtained.

I will not argue the relative uselessness of "sanctions", but to suggest they are not a vastly more humane approach than war is just ridiculous. Sanctions, at least, have the _possibility_ (however slim it might be) of reaching a solution without needless death, destruction and mind boggling amounts of wasted money. That both war and sanctions are bad alternatives, does not make them equal.

(And before you go off on some politically partisan rant, bear in mind I'm not American, so attacking me with American-centric political ad hominems is going to be a complete waste of your time.)

Is science that optimistic?

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

The major drive of science in the last century was war. In this century it seems some of the most important science will be in trying to resolve the issues caused by our "optimistic" science of the past 100+ years. What I hope for the future is that we succeed in saving ourselves from ourselves. I'm not optimistic.

What I'm always optimistic about!

[Pao|o]

This year's the year I'm getting laid! I shall be no virgin anymore at the age of 27!

I'm Optimistic the Edge will spell check in '07!

[XxtraLarGe]

From the web page:

I am pleased to present the 2007 Edge Question:

What Are Yot Optimistic About? Why?

All kidding aside, it is interesting to see that the "world's greatest minds" are optimistic, when reportedly so many other people are already down on 2007.

well....

[rucs_hack]

That if I wax lyrical on slashdot and other sites for long enough, naked ladies who lust after Unix coders will emerge spontaneously from the interweb.

Space

[LordoftheLemmings]

I'm optimistic aboout the space program. With the new commercial intiatives, and some real goals for the moon and beyond, I'm hopefull that 2007 will be a good year for space.

Uh, yeah...

[Otter]

As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic.

Somehow, I'm thinking the person who wrote this doesn't actually work as a scientist...

And for those of you who do -- get back in the lab! Wasn't taking a day off for Christmas enough for you? You can watch football while your gel runs.

Re:I'm Optimistic the Edge will spell check in '07

[Mad Tea Party]

I forget who it was that once said: "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."

bullshit

[Bobtree]

Science is a tool of impartial curiosity, not optimism.

The human race starts to decline

[Flying pig]

Yes, that's right. And no, I am being serious. Forget all this garbage about colonising other planets. Stephen Hawking's views on the subject don't matter - he is a physicist, not a biologist or an ecologist or an engineer, and has no idea of the impracticalities.

Our species is turning into a major problem for itself. It is subject to all kinds of ecological problems caused by population pressure exacerbated by the growing food and energy footprints of part of the world. What we actually need is to start to decline in numbers as a species, and fast.

We, as a species, will lose nothing by it. As Stephen Gould has pointed out, human beings of 30 000 years ago (when the population was tiny) were just as intelligent as those of today, they just lacked the means of recording and developing information that allow cultural development. If our population could somehow be knocked back to, say, a hundred million tomorrow, the survivors would be all the better for it.

Global warming would not be an issue; the population could relocate to environmentally benign areas without displacing others. No Middle East problem; there would be enough land for all in Palestine (you can view the entire Middle East conflict as ultimately being a war for land and hydrology.)

Of course, if I was one of the human beings who died for this to happen, I would not be very happy about it, at least at the time.

So this is my strange, twisted ground for optimism; we look ever closer to a plague or other factors which will reduce our population, and paradoxically this will best ensure the long term survival of human beings as a species - assuming this to be a good thing.

Note for Creationists - I know you don't believe that there were human beings 30 000 years ago, and personally I don't give a shit what you think.

Re:The human race starts to decline

[Lord Ender]

So you read the Asimov novel where an entire planet was populated by a small number of people, each with a huge plantation and an army of robots to work it? That planet sucked.

Higher population drives technology. Technology empowers humanity as a whole. That's a good thing.

Also, your idea is not going to happen. Evolution states that every gene does whatever it can to make more copies of itself. Your idea goes against the fundamental principles of LIFE. You lose. Game over.

Re:The human race starts to decline

[niktemadur]

So you read the Asimov novel where an entire planet was populated by a small number of people, each with a huge plantation and an army of robots to work it? That planet sucked.

That planet was Solaria and the novel was "The Naked Sun", the second Elijah Bailey / R Daneel Olivaw detective story. The premise in quite intriguing. A man is found murdered in his plantation.
It couldn't have been a human, since there is no contact between people, as the population is reproduced in vitro and every person is raised alone with his "army of robots", so the very thought of human contact is found repulsive in this culture, let alone violent contact. Out of the question.
Then again, it couldn't have been a robot, as they are bound by the Three Laws Of Robotics. Nuff' said on the matter.
So who did it?

Check it out, it's a good read.

Re:Stem cells to cure baldness.

[Peripherus]

I predict that one year after baldness is cured, men will start shaving their heads.

A Choice

[Gamefreak99]

I would like either:

1) DRM to be ruled illegal
2) The RIAA and MPAA to explode

I'll take either, both would be icing :)

Bigelow

[benhocking]

Of the commercial enterprises, Bigelow has me the most optimistic. They launched Genesis I in 2006, and are scheduled to launch Genesis II in "early 2007".

Anthropogenic Global Warming

[benhocking]

I'm optimistic that in 2007, the majority of AGW skeptics will finally be convinced that the problem is real. (Or at least convinced to a reasonable level of certainty.) In 2006, we saw Bill O'Reilly accept it as reality, as well as the Bush Administration (although they had tacitly accepted it as reality as early as 2001, their support of the science behind AGW was strengthened in '06). Even ExxonMobil has begun changing their tune.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards fixing the problem. Luckily, several scientists/engineers have already moved past that first step, but it's nice to see many of the skeptics finally coming around.

Additionally, I'm also seconding the GP post, although clearly all of that won't happen in '07 (nor did the GP post claim otherwise).

I am optimistic about...

[niktemadur]

I want to post before I go to edge.org and read the article.

1. The ever increasing number of people who are converting to the latest generation solar energy to heat their homes. The trendsetter in the United States is California, where these homes are not only self sufficient, but feed their excess production of electricity to the grid, thereby receiving a check from the energy companies. As more people convert, three things will go down: equipment costs, energy costs and environmental impact.

2. People like Richard Dawkins fighting to stem the tide of fundamentalism, finding that everywhere they go, there are many who were previously cowed into silence and are now ready to stand and speak up, even in the so-called bible belt.

3. The clear and shining example, or should I say beacon, set by a country like Ireland, who turned their country around in ten years and made it the most prosperous nation in Europe, a process that included implementing free education at all levels to its' citizens.

4. The swift kick in the pants to the complacent and increasingly irrelevant United States mass media, supplied by the new independent journalism of the blogosphere. The media should be about keeping transparency going, and now they are under a scrutiny they have only been used to applying and not receiving.

And finally:

5. The ever increasing cross-disciplinary dialogue in science, as exemplified by the fruits of NASA's Origins program, which is helping to create a coherent map of knowledge while not getting in the way of specialization in research.