What Should We be Worried About?

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Drawing from the horizons of science, today's leading thinkers reveal the hidden threats nobody is talking about-and expose the false fears everyone else is distracted by. What should we be worried about? That is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"-The Guardian), posed to the planet's most influential minds. He asked them to disclose something that, for scientific reasons, worries them-particularly scenarios that aren't on the popular radar yet. Encompassing neuroscience, economics, philosophy, physics, psychology, biology, and more-here are 150 ideas that will revolutionize your understanding of the world.

• Steven Pinker uncovers the real risk factors for war
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi peers into the coming virtual abyss
• Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek laments our squandered opportunities to prevent global catastrophe
• Seth Lloyd calculates the threat of a financial black hole
• Alison Gopnik on the loss of childhood
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains why firefighters understand risk far better than economic "experts"
• Matt Ridley on the alarming re-emergence of superstition
• Daniel C.Dennett and george dyson ponder the impact of a major breakdown of the Internet
• Jennifer Jacquet fears human-induced damage to the planet due to "the Anthropocebo Effect"
• Douglas Rushkoff fears humanity is losing its soul
• Nicholas Carr on the "patience deficit"
• Tim O'Reilly foresees a coming new Dark Age
• Scott Atran on the homogenization of human experience
• Sherry Turkle explores what's lost when kids are constantly connected
• Kevin Kelly outlines the looming "underpopulation bomb"
• Helen Fisher on the fate of men
• Lawrence Krauss dreads what we don't know about the universe
• Susan Blackmore on the loss of manual skills
• Kate Jeffery on the death of death
• plus J. Craig Venter, Daniel Goleman, Virginia Heffernan, Sam Harris, Brian Eno, Martin Rees, and more