hindu.com: It was a genetic breakthrough that made us capable of ideas in the first place, says Seth Lloyd, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “Ideas have had their impact for good… But one of these days, one of those nice ideas is likely to have the unintended consequence of destroying everything we know,” he writes in one of the brief essays included in ‘What is Your Dangerous Idea?’ edited by John Brockman (www.landmarkonthenet.com).

The title draws from the question posed to the readers by ‘Edge’ (www.edge.org). And the responses fill the book, as ‘a celebration of the ideas of the third culture’. The ‘dangerous ideas’ are not about harmful technologies and WMDs, but about statements of fact or policy evidenced by science, which are ‘felt to challenge the collective decency of an age’. [ read more ]