Crazy Ideas Archive

This one proved too contentious for my editors but I’m including it here as a bonus article so you can decide for yourself. “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Thomas Paine. I want you to stop talking about ‘Global Warming’. The toothless phrase has become too glib, too cosy, too easy to argue against. In fact, thanks to human psychological quirks like the Backfire Effect and Confirmation Bias, ‘global warming’, as a catchphrase, has actually become counterproductive. It’s meaning and use has morphed from a simple factual description into a banner announcing political allegiance. It’s interpreted as a virtue signal that turns off as many people as it engages, a prompt to just stop listening. It’s become divisive in an area where cooperation is paramount. We need something less confrontational, that better reflects the reality and the dangers we currently face. ‘Climate emergency’ won’t do. It might be the Oxford Dicti...

Like 'Goodbye Global Warming', 'Flying Starfish' didn't tickle the editorial fancy either. Not contentious but possibly a bit too similar in style the the previous Apollo anniversary articles perhaps. Again, I'm including it here so you can make up your own mind. Nearly 400 million years ago, a 3 foot long half-lizard, half-fish pulled itself out of the ocean and went for a walk on a muddy, equatorial shore. Lurching forward on limbs more fin than foot and dragging its tail along the ground it continued on for about 45 feet and then… And then we don’t know. That short, indistinct trail of prints and tail are all that we have, preserved now in rock at the edge of the island of Valentia off the East coast of Ireland. The creature was a tetrapod. Evolved during the Devonian period, it was one of the earliest known animals to leave behind the warmth and safety of the sea to brave the unknown danger of the harsh, dry land. These proto-amphibians became the ancestors ...

I hope you’re reading this on some obscure history blog sometime in t he  22 nd Century, smiling wryly at my lack of foresight as you Hyperloop across Mars,  past Calrketown, Saganville and New Bezos on your way to Muskbury. I really hope you   are because I’d like nothing better than to be proved conclusively wrong with this crazy idea – maybe Space X won’t get us to Mars. If they don’t, it wouldn’t be the first time the space dream has come crashing to earth. This article –  ‘Paper Rockets’  and the one that follows –  ‘The Interplanetary Marshmallow Test’  – were published in the British and US Mensa magazines to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing. Though different, they have some overlapping themes and language so I hope you’ll forgive any similarities. A giant, 50 metre tall rocket with the lifting power of four Saturn V’s, fully reusable and capable of putting 500 tons into orbit every flight. B...

You can tell Elon Musk was probably the kind of kid who would have aced the Marshmallow Test. The test goes like this; put a small child and a marshmallow in a room. Tell the child they can eat the marshmallow now but if they wait they can have 2 marshmallows when you get back. Leave the room for 15 minutes. The children who wait – the ones who can forgo one marshmallow now for two later – generally tend to do better in life. That’s the idea anyway. The test’s conclusions are disputed but the ability to postpone instant gratification in favour of a long-term goal is certainly an important life skill – for a species as well as an individual. Image: NASA Leaving Earth and colonising space – whether that’s orbiting space habitats, the Moon, Mars or elsewhere – is, effectively, an interplanetary marshmallow test. A species that can look past short-terms costs to the long-term benefit wins. They win in the only way the Universe cares about – by staying alive. There’s no guarantee humans are...

 “Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let, fifty cents.”                                                                ‘ King of the Road’ Housing prices have changed a bit since Roger Miller wrote those lyrics in 1964. A 2016 New Yorker article suggests an average apartment rent in the mid 1960’s would cost the equivalent of $500 per month in today’s money. Anybody looking at an average rent of €3,500 in San Francisco or £1,600 in London might be envious. 19th Century red brick terraces may not become part of the modern city but the idea behind them may help alleviate the housing crisis while simultaneously improving the tarnished reputation of the tech giants. The distributed working and consequent emptying of the inner cities that information technology promised never happened (just like that paperless office). Instead, t...

“Almost every sentient being who ever lived belonged to a society that doesn’t exist any more. Why should we be any different?”                                  Alastair Reynolds. The one thing history tells us about civilisations is that they fall. The bronze age collapse left centuries-old Egyptian, Babylonian, Hittite and Mycanean civilisations with their cities in ruins and their peoples scattered. The glory that was Rome was snuffed out by barbarian swords and even the original British Celtic culture was extinguished by those Johnny-come-lately Angle and Saxon immigrants. Babylon’s Ishtar Gate (Pergamon Museum, Berlin) was constructed 2,500 years ago. It’s builders probably   believed – much as we do – that such a rich and powerful civilisation could never vanish. Whether you call it archaeology or grave robbing, one of the few ways we have of discovering how those ancient peoples li...