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A review by rinnyssance
What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night by John Brockman
2.0
For those who aren't familiar with Edge.com, annually they ask their very smart members a profound question and prompt them to write essays with their answers. Every year there is a one to two page response to the answer. Some better than others, some related to one another, some completely left field. Some you might agree with, some you may've never even heard of. All about the same in profundity or mundane babble annually. Some years they are published on Edge's website and others they are compiled, edited and published in a book. I don't know why, but it happens. This question, a very good one, happens to be one that was published as a book.
It's not that I don't like edge.com's effort to show us what smart people think. It's not even that I don't like the concept of the book or the question per se. It's just that a lot of the essays aren't worth reading. This book would have been much better if just a few contributors were posted and wrote a proper in-depth report on what we should be worried about. All the essays are just dangling opinions, prompting you to look up more for yourself. Some even babbled on for a page until the final paragraph let you know the premise of their argument. It's just a waste of reading time and energy.
You will definitely learn some new things reading this book, but you'll learn them on your own. There's no way that you'll truly enjoy this book if you want to learn something or leave feeling like you've enriched yourself. All this book does is give you more work to do.
It's not that I don't like edge.com's effort to show us what smart people think. It's not even that I don't like the concept of the book or the question per se. It's just that a lot of the essays aren't worth reading. This book would have been much better if just a few contributors were posted and wrote a proper in-depth report on what we should be worried about. All the essays are just dangling opinions, prompting you to look up more for yourself. Some even babbled on for a page until the final paragraph let you know the premise of their argument. It's just a waste of reading time and energy.
You will definitely learn some new things reading this book, but you'll learn them on your own. There's no way that you'll truly enjoy this book if you want to learn something or leave feeling like you've enriched yourself. All this book does is give you more work to do.