Well done team, all looks great, now the fun really starts

If you are interested in this project you may also be interested in one about the future of drugs called, funnily enough, drugsfutures.

www.drugsfutures.org.uk

Can you discuss topics online through this blog? If so i don't see any categorisation in place?

If this is the discussion room then it does seem alittle too open-ended. Initially certain suggested 'topics of discussion', by the organisors, would have been better to get things moving.

I think the thing that will have the greatest impact on all members of society in the future is the way in which we handle information. People are advantaged by rapid easy access to relevant information. However, privacy is as important and should be as easy. I suggest that the privacy issue is the natural domain government, but that to date it has not taken a leading role. Our government has identity card plans, but they do not fit this requirement. I would like government to sponsor a competition to find the best ideas and implementations for privacy control and keep them at the leading-edge. I think we also require actively policed laws with extremely harsh penalties to dissuade those that would try to take advantage.

I dont think privacy will ever be easily implemented until there are greedy people around. What I would like to see by 2025 is a discovery of a gene/something that controls the dishonest nature.. and then we can send in the nano-biotech squad and take them out.. (a world without politicians or extremist freaks).

Hi! Its great to see people commenting on the blog and we will keep posting news and updates on the project, and stuff relating to the stories in the sciencehorizons pack.

If you want to chat about your views on the future of science and technology you now can, using the forum, but it is important to remember that the feedback we give to government will come from the results of face-to-face group discussions using the pack, so make sure you request a pack, have a discussion and send in your results online or by post to make sure your views form part of the formal feedback to government. Thanks.

I love the idea that we could ‘fix’ the bad people with technology and I suppose that such a thing looks ever more likely as we now have drugs for many psychological disorders. Yes a ‘nice’ drug would be great, but how do we decide what merits its use. Most people would agree that a serial killer should get ‘fixed’ but what about the marginal cases; how do we decide, I am sure that it would be contentious.

Why is it that we can’t make individual submissions? I don’t know any people that I could have this sort of debate with and I suspect that there may be many people in this position. Could sciencehorizons perhaps provide a notice board to help us find each other in our regions?

Am absolutely gob smaked that anybody could take a Government sponsored discussion about the future of science seriously. Lets fact it every time the government actually trys and do anything at all technical it all goes belly up, arrives late, if at all, usually isnt fit for purpose, and costs way over budget.

Future vision not a chance, thankfully we have companies like Microsoft, IBM, SUN, HP et al to actually make stuff that works.

Ahhh.  the future of Science and Technology is launched at the Royal College of Art for Invited RCA students and media only.

In reading other articles from the BBC I find the best way to stimulate a discussion is not simply by saying, "okay now discuss something" but rather provide a controversial perspective and get people's reactions to it. As someone mentioned before, having 'topics' are very useful to guide the conversation. Otherwise I find it difficult to truly discuss the future of technology in any coherent or orderly way.

Also, I would be curiuos to know the success of face-to-face group discussions. I usually find it's hard to get people to go out of their way for something unless it of some personal gain.

I like the idea of sciencehorizons and I want to see it work, so these are just some things to think about in getting it going.

The discussion scenarios appear to be more about the social effects of introducing technologies that are currently being developed. It doesn't appear to have a great deal to do with science - does the government understand the difference between the two?

Over at the blog Framing Science, I have a post up detailing what past research indicates as the value and impact of a project like Science Horizons.  

http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/01/uk_launches_new_horizon_public.php#more

Er.. how do you initiate a new topic in the forum?

Thanks for this post.

A very smart and diplomatic answer. It’s really appreciable and

general.

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