Ideas

2005 was a year of ideas, though really, all years are. The Tyee has two articles about the 15 big ideas for the past 12 months, the first covering peak oil; nanotechnology; parliaments-ready-to-govern; pandemics; Web 2.0; minority government; disaster relief (do we need relief from minority governments?) and same-sex marriage. The second article covers international relations between Canada and China; "future proofing" (“an inane and irritating bit of marketing hokum ready to leech any residual value from genuine thoughtfulness and package it as [...] ready-today solutions”); British Columbia's 'golden decade'; the cut and cover method of drilling for Vancouver's new rapid transit line, STV; COPE; and professional hockey's return. The articles are less about ideas than they are about the year's themes, but at least it discusses the ideas behind those themes.

2005 ended with a question from Edge: what is your dangerous idea? I haven't read the responses, but Dave Pollard did, adding what he believed to be dangerous ideas (each individual idea listed here are his wording, but check his article for citations): our civilization is in its final century; nature always bats last; the crowd is always wiser than the experts; the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred; you never change things by fighting the existing reality; show, don't tell; human beings will be happier only when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again; people will listen when they're ready to listen and not before; and no one is in control.