Imagining the future

I came in quite late to this discussion on the Benford & Rose site, maintained by Gregory Benford with evolutionary biologist Michael Rose.

I'm not sure if all my maunderings made good sense. The issues raised in Greg's original contribution go very wide indeed. He starts off worrying about the greater commercial success of fantasy (compared with science fiction), but segues into issues about the future of Western civilisation itself. A lot there to respond to.

More generally, it's a fascinating site. I see that somewhere on the site someone has reviewed a friendly debate between me and Greg from a few years ago. I'm not even sure I'd still subscribe to the views I expressed then (I suspect that Greg's views may have changed a bit for different reasons; he seems more pessimistic these days). Interesting to revisit it, though.