Comments on: Biweekly links for 01/15/2010 http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/biweekly-links-for-01152010/ Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:56:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: John Sidles http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/biweekly-links-for-01152010/comment-page-1/#comment-26629 John Sidles Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:12:34 +0000 http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/biweekly-links-for-01152010/#comment-26629 With regard to the topic "The Future of Science" ... and recognizing that this topic is closely linked to the "The Future of the Planet", perhaps followers of Michael's blog will be interested to take a look at McSweeney's Quarterly Review #32, which is a theme issue on life in the year 2024. One interesting story was Sheila Heti's <i>There is no time in Waterloo</i>, which is (broadly) about the Perimeter Institute (it includes a credit to Sean Gryb, Aaron Berndsen, Julian Barbour, and Lee Smolen). Another interesting story is Jim Morrison's <i>The Netherlands lives with water</i>. Both stories are pretty dystopian; they amount to to a future in which science has evolved into theorem-proving to such a degree that free will---in young people especially---is extinguished by the resulting constraints upon imagination (Heti's story). Then a whole bunch of people drown (in Shepard's story) as the world heats up and the oceans rise. Ouch! Surely we can do better than <i>that</i>. Can't we? ------ @periodical{***, Author = {Jim Shepard}, Journal = {McSweeney's Quarterly Review}, Pages = {189--212}, Title = {The {N}etherlands lives with water}, Volume = {32}, Year = {2010}} @periodical{***, Author = {Sheila Heti}, Journal = {McSweeney's Quarterly Review}, Pages = {147--157}, Title = {There is no time in {W}aterloo}, Volume = {32}, Year = {2010}} With regard to the topic “The Future of Science” … and recognizing that this topic is closely linked to the “The Future of the Planet”, perhaps followers of Michael’s blog will be interested to take a look at McSweeney’s Quarterly Review #32, which is a theme issue on life in the year 2024.

One interesting story was Sheila Heti’s There is no time in Waterloo, which is (broadly) about the Perimeter Institute (it includes a credit to Sean Gryb, Aaron Berndsen, Julian Barbour, and Lee Smolen). Another interesting story is Jim Morrison’s The Netherlands lives with water.

Both stories are pretty dystopian; they amount to to a future in which science has evolved into theorem-proving to such a degree that free will—in young people especially—is extinguished by the resulting constraints upon imagination (Heti’s story). Then a whole bunch of people drown (in Shepard’s story) as the world heats up and the oceans rise.

Ouch! Surely we can do better than that. Can’t we?

——
@periodical{***, Author = {Jim Shepard}, Journal = {McSweeney’s Quarterly Review}, Pages = {189–212}, Title = {The {N}etherlands lives with water}, Volume = {32}, Year = {2010}}

@periodical{***, Author = {Sheila Heti}, Journal = {McSweeney’s Quarterly Review}, Pages = {147–157}, Title = {There is no time in {W}aterloo}, Volume = {32}, Year = {2010}}

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