I'm sure different people use it in different ways based on their experience, but "blockbusting" was a tactic created and used by real-estate businesses, not "black people." It was neither invented nor particularly helpful for most black home-buyers. Real estate folks made a crap-load of money though off of convincing people to sell low in fear of new neighbours, and then jacking the price to others moving in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

My favourite example of missing future changes is Mary Shelly's other book, The Last Man (1826). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

It's not great, but interesting for a number of reasons. For one, it inspired dozens of "apocalype-plague" movies like The Omega Man and such. The other grim element is that everyone in book dies of plague (spoiler, except the Last Man), but all the characters are based on people in Shelly's real life who had actually died and left her alone – her husband, her children, friends etc. Yikes.

One of the most interesting things about the book though is that it is set in a Europe 400 years in the future. And Shelly, writing in 1820, totally missed the coming Industrial Revolution. So in her 2100 the only new technology is a few hot air balloons. One result of this lack of technology is that without germ-theory the plague of the book is a totally uncontrollable force with no hope of controlling with any medical science.

Of course forward-looking writers miss things. We can't foresee the future. And preoccupation with the events of today (like everybody you know dying) are a reasonable excuse for focusing on the story instead.

A difference here is that you seem to be proposing that others' rights should be restricted to prevent you from committing a crime. i.e. Clothes (or lack of clothes) might make you want to rape people.

The case in question (way up above all the curious "stop talking about free speech" spam) seems to be one where a person was threatening to break the law by hurting people himself, not provoking some crime in others.

I'm no constitutional lawyer, but I do see a difference between concern about this person's threats and your concern about your susceptibility to raping people.

I'd suggest perhaps closing your eyes all the time and imagining people dressed in calming clothes. This might be a less restrictive solution for everyone. You won't commit a crime based on your lack of self control, and the rest of us can get on with life.

Will there be more spam now?

Imagine if there was a wind-turbine on every billboard. We'd be done. (And they'd pay for themselves.)

I'd say that WalMart is getting close to a monopoly in towns I've visited where a few years before there were hardware stores, grocery stores, fabric stores etc, and a somewhat functional downtown, and now there is ... Walmart. It's not the only place you can buy things in the country, but it has pretty much driven some whole towns out of business.

There's anecdotal evidence for you.

Man, I was changing a flat on my bike the other day and ran into that neutron damage thing. I decided to walk.

(This comment has nothing to contribute really.)

Interesting question. What use would this study be for Nasa? Why would they pay for it?

Nasa is one of the concrete government programs that has programs that are designed to run for decades. Space does not have an election cycle or quarterly reports. They build real things that have to be shepherded for years to get to the point where they can get results. That long-term vision might make a study like this useful.

If the economy collapses, engineers aren't going to be making much use of Hubble any more. So a few bucks to look at this, even as simply a potential future funding barrier seems ok by me. And yeah, like this costs as much as making a nice CGI video of the next Mars probe.

The simple solution to all concerns raised here is... huge taxation of the elite, and spend it all on cool Nasa stuff! They left that part out of the report.

Only Rich People can travel quite quickly and easily.

Try getting citizenship in Iceland, or getting past the immigrant holding-camps in Australia, or over the border separating Mexico from the North, or moving from Africa to most of the European countries.

It's a curiosity of the corporate-libertarian economic model that capitol is multinational, but labour is stuck with the economy their dealt. That's part of the problem that this study seems to address. The elite do not have to care about the majority, because they and their offspring will be able to run from the worst of the problems for the longest – probably. But unless the elite are forced to see themselves at risk, and lose some of the benefits of their elite status, they will oppose change, and with their concentration of power that will cause problems for everybody.

Pretty creepy stuff. Maybe some elitists will read this study and save us! Or some other plan....

I don't want to spend time carrying groceries because I have to do more important things like drive to the gym. Wait....

Cars designed the way Americans live. It is a unique lifestyle that has lasted less than a hundred years. It may well change in less time than that and be a historical curiosity. It is difficult to change it right away, but I do think most of us will live better as we drive less.

I've admired these folks – known only by their cheeky "Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI" name – since I first read about them 25 years ago. Their actions made the world a better place to work for change.

They brought to light (along with the Senate Church Committee hearings) that in the name of fighting terrorism (they used to call it "extremism") the FBI was functioning as a terrorist organization. The FBI itself used to define terrorism as using violence or breaking the law for political ends. The FBI did that. Their Cointelpro actions were illegal, and for political aims. They should have been investigating themselves.

But these folks did it for them! I thank them, and only wish I ever had the chance to contribute something so damn cool.

They say in the video they could have dozens of them operating together. Did anybody else think of old TV shows, and prepare to panic?

The Rover, "a floating white ball that could coerce, and, if necessary, disable inhabitants of The Village, primarily Number Six."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_(The_Prisoner)

If they come back to Earth like that old Venus probe, we're in trouble.
http://bionic.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Probe
(Yeah, I remember these episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man from when they came out. I strongly suspect they were not as good as the Prisoner.)