Suggesting a Steem question of the year for 2025

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw

For most of two decades, something that I looked forward to reading every year was the Edge question of the year.

Each year, the site's editor, John Brockman, would propose a question to a whole bunch of interesting thinkers and then at the beginning of the year he would post their answers on the edge.org web site. It would normally be February or March before I found time to read all the answers.

One of my favorite contributors every year was Freeman Dyson, another was Daniel Dennett, and yet another was David Chalmers.

Unfortunately, Brockman stopped posting questions in 2018. Every year after that, I still miss reading the insightful answers that his correspondents used to provide.

Here are the questions that Brockman asked from 1999 through 2018:

• 1998: What questions are you asking yourself?
• 1999: What is the most important invention in the last two thousand years?
• 2000: What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?
• 2001: What questions have disappeared?
• 2001: What now? (a response to September 11, I suppose. I don't remember this one.)
• 2002: What is your question... why?
• 2003: What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them? - GWB
• 2004: What's your law?
• 2005: What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it? <<--- My top-5
• 2006: What is your dangerous idea? <<--- My top-5
• 2007: What are you optimistic about?
• 2008: What have you changed your mind about? Why? <<--- My top-5.
• 2009: What will change everything? <<--- My top-5
• 2010: How is the internet changing the way you think?
• 2011: What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?
• 2012: What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation?
• 2013: What should we be worried about?
• 2014: What scientific idea is ready for retirement?
• 2015: What do you think about machines that think? <<-- My top-5
• 2016: What do you consider the most interesting recent [scientific] news? What makes it important?
• 2017: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?
• 2018: What is the last question?

Since Edge left the playing field, I thought it might be fun to propose a Steem annual question. I've adapted one from a response by Alun Anderson as an answer to the 2018 question. Anderson asked,

Are people who cheat vital to driving progress in human societies?

So, borrowing the idea: Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to answer the following question before January 1, 2025 and to post your answer using the tag #steemq2025.

If you don't like my question, feel free to craft your own.

I'm a fan of AI for many purposes, but I'm not interested in reading LLM prattle on this topic. Human responses only, please^😉.

Thank you for your time and attention.

As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading"

*** Unless it looks like an AI wrote it ***

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Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

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^{Pixabay license, source}

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