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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That's an incredibly prescient piece of writing, to see that clearly what would happen in the next 14 years and to write it down so un-ambiguously and tersely. Who is our present day Bertrand Russell?

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It's me, I'm the smartest man on Earth. I'm still waiting for people to catch up. I find it strange to predict the next 14 years when the world is exploding with Africa/Asia literacy and the internet mainstreamization, and the technology. It's like trying to guess the flow of streams, with the waves beating. In 1935, it was a smaller scale of events. It doesn't matter, anyway. The world doesn't need more ideals and high-level thoughts, people function less than they think at that level, and there is progress enough, it needs empathy and respect, and fixing the bottom, for a more cohesive whole. These days I worry about what Africa will be when pacified, since it seems to be the major change, with internet, and they have a different culture, and they got shafted a lot, it seems. Africa is 1.1B people, US+Europe, so with our level of education, it'd be a crazy actor. http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ourworl... People rave at the impact of major works, but the impact of achieving literacy in one generation, and opening all these infinite doors to half of humanity, this is a major event, and you can predict it just as well as you can predict the path of an engulfing ouragan... I'm in such a poetic and verbose mood. Alright, I give up the title. Another day.

Chris Hedges writes alot about this nowadays. His background as a war reporter for nyt gives him a bit of a radical perspective, but like much of modern social commentary, it makes me depressed reading too much of it.

Joe Bageant (RIP) is really good too, and he can be funny aswell. Hedges is never humorous.

We should add Chomsky to the list, although I can't stand reading his stuff. I'm sure it's good what he writes, but he is just too high-brow for me.

Chomsky is obviously strongly influenced by Russell, he's usually on the mark but takes 25,000 words where Russell takes 500 or so to make the same point and much stronger.

Chomsky's output before the mid-70's was very highbrow, but most of it subsequently is very readable and straightforward.

Not loved by all, but maybe George Monbiot

Stephen Pinker. Just about the only person from a humanities field that left me in awe of his intellect when I saw him speak.

Michel Houellebecq?

I'd go with Alain De Botton. I like Sam Harris too but a lot of people hate him. He's not a philosopher per se but he's willing to have strong opinions about controversial issues.

>he's willing to have strong opinions about controversial issues.

So is Rush Limbaugh. A lot of people are, in fact. Being today's Bertrand Russell should require a bit more than that.

What about Richard Dawkins ? (good science reputation, strong media presence)

He's more of a symbol, especially in atheist circles, than a great scientist. His "bout" with Wilson is pretty depressing.

Noam Chomsky ?

surely he falls easily into the "cocksure" category

How often does Rush Limbaugh take on his critics in an open debate? Sam Harris regularly accepts invitations to debate his opponents and usually wins the debate in my opinion.

Furthermore, he sometimes changes minds -- including his own -- based on those dialogues. Limbaugh just preaches to the choir.

Sam Harris's book on free will was quite naive--he missed a lot of the key points of today's debate, while being fairly emphatic as though he had just discovered something crucial. I certainly don't hate him, but he remains a dilettante, to me.

Good choice. And if he were still alive, Christopher Hitchens.

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