Spore seriously sucks. And besides, it's not at all what I am after... I'm looking for light weight climate modeling I can do without one the top 100 supercomputers and which comes with additional animated visual feedback... like an all grown up Sim Earth.

Gah!! Yet another failed negation! Naturally I meant to say that it would NOT be a best seller.

Anyway, I don't really object to the Gaia shtick. It was a hokey way to provide feedback for success or failure. A way to give a voice that was not the simulated people or societies. Doubtless there may be a less kitschy way to do that though...

OK, I know this would be the best selling game in the history of games... but I've been pining for an updated Sim Earth lately. There is so much going on with climate science I think it would be really interesting.

You are right that my characterization of "thought crime" as "muttering to yourself" was completely bogus and trivializing, guilty as charged.

However:

The US is not the most multicultural or well integrated society in the world... I've lived in societies with better & worse integration.

I've never heard the assertion of societies which allow people "to insult groups" causes better integration into that society. Frankly that is more bogus and trivializing than my flippant characterization of thought crime. It's a wonderful example of my assertion that the most Americans have a dysfunctional understanding of Free Speech.

Furthermore, If you think that the public discourse in the United States is some how creating a meeting of the minds or such (and you live in the United States), you are deceiving yourself. BTW, I am US citizen and I've voted in every election I eligible to vote in. So I am not talking about a country I know nothing about.

It least where I live these days "Hate Speech" is a blanket term for that for laws that regulate speech which has the design of inciting men to violence. That and we have laws specifically about glorifying the Drittes Reich or Nationalsozialismus; denying the holocaust; and generally attempting to relive the mistakes of the past. As far as I can tell these laws are pretty useful because to a man all that have been prosecuted have been intent on goading others to do violence, part of violent groups, done violence themselves, or all of the above. And like you, I have a hard time getting worked up seeing those people prosecuted.

I've also lived in the US for nearly 20 years and I am not sure that the tolerance of hate speech in the US has had the result of creating a freer & safer society or a freer or more effective press. As far as I can tell, the laws and public opinion about freedom of speech issues are dysfunctional.

Also I'm absolutely convinced that corporate speech and political speech is more dangerous than hate speech. And the US has completely failed to deal with them... or for that matter even discuss them openly and honestly.

One last thing. It's a far cry from Hate Speech (public speech with a call to action) & Hate Crime (Violence motivated by Bigotry) to Thought Crime (muttering to yourself as women & children cross the street to avoid you)... which is what the parent was referring to and which I think has at least at basis for argument & discussion with regard to US and UK anti-terror laws.

Because the scientific community and the wider internet is already awash with data and extraordinarily well reasoned arguments outlining the realities of anthropogenic climate change. Nothing I post on any website is going to change anyone's mind. It won't because it's become a politicized issue, which deniers traffic in talking points from propagandists and preachers.

It's not that they are misinformed, it is that they have made a decision from a political or religious perspective to deny reality. They push these long refuted talking points not because they are completely convinced of their accuracy or validity but rather because they have an intent to misinform. In truth they have no interest in the facts or the science behind the facts, except to the extent that they view such facts with hostility.

Out of curiosity why are you accusing the Pew Research Center of systematic unethical and deceptive practices?

Do you think they always engage such behavior? Or is it just certain studies?

I'm thinking it's the part where people arrive at a conclusion regarding matters of science from a path dictated by politics and or religion.

I got the impression that was exactly the sort thing Google wanted Chrome to do.

He's also still using DOS

For some reason that storage space business got me more in the film adaption of Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves, than the books. Though admittedly I'm sure I had more RAM in my own computer the last time I read Neuromancer.

They could have easily slipped in another SI prefix...

I did not say ANYTHING about predictions or their validity. What I said was that A DISCUSSION about the prescience of speculative Sci-Fi limited to only what was correct is incomplete and thus less interesting. It doesn't make Neuromancer a bad book or Gibson a bad author. It does make this list disappointing and unworthy.

As it happens, I am a William Gibson fan. I bought first edition hardback copies of all of his books as they were published and I own an Agrippa.

So lighten up a little.

Sorry, I enjoyed Neuromancer as much as anyone. However, you can't talk about what Gibson got right without talking about what he missed... most interestingly he missed the invention of mobile phones and so pay phones make an appearance in the book.

I am not forgetting about any part of the federal budget. Spending American Tax payers money on Americans in America makes sense. Spending it on a string of foreign wars, interventions, coups, invasions, and however they call such things does not.