The judges have made their decisions...and we can now (almost) reveal the winners of this year's essay contest, which asked: "How Should Humanity Steer the Future?" We had 155 entries this year and we're awarding 16 prizes. Thank you to everyone who entered, read the entries, commented, and voted for their favourites.
This year, we're doing something a bit different with the announcement of the big winners. We're inviting you to tune in to a live webcast of the award ceremony, where you can join FQXi directors Max Tegmark and Anthony Aguirre as they reveal the top 3 prize winners. Our first prize winner will walk away with $10,000, and our two second prize winners will each take home $5,000.
The event: The FQXi Essay Contest Award Ceremony 2014
The time: Thursday 21st August, 1pm EDT
The place: Here
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This is also your chance to quiz the winners, so please post your burning questions below. To aid you in framing your questions, I have permission to reveal the panellists...but I cannot yet tell you which of them has won first prize, and which two are runners-up. You'll find out -- as will they -- tomorrow at the ceremony!
So congratulations to our panellists, who between them have won the top 3 prizes. They are listed here in alphabetical order:
Daniel Dewey, who wrote about "Crucial Phenomena"...
Sabine Hossenfelder, who told us "How to Save the World"...
Jens Niemeyer, who outlined "How to avoid steering blindly: The case for a robust repository of human knowledge".
Please post your questions and comments below (or tweet them to @FQXi).
We've also been busy announcing the names of our six 3rd place winners ($2,000), five 4th place winners ($1,000) and two special prize winners ($1,000) on twitter and Facebook. You can check out the list of the winners who have been revealed so far here. Congratulations to each of them for providing some thought-provoking reading matter.