If you could know everyone's secret thoughts...
The vote for the UK to Leave the European Union was a surprise to me. 17 million people voted Out. This got me thinking, not so much about European politics but about secrets and voting and hidden thoughts.
So what if we had a secret ballot of thoughts every night, if the last thing you did before bed was share your thoughts with some being or machine which collated them all, and in the morning presented you with the new facts: "Good morning. Lilies smell foul. The car is where we prefer to pick our noses. A fish finger sandwich is actually a terrific food. Enjoy your day."
Or would it be more sinister? "Good morning. We would all kill if we thought we could get away with it. It's safe to ignore the poor. Most wars only affect foreign people. Have a good day!"
If there was a 'Rather Not Know'button on the wake-up call, would you press it? Or would it be preferable to carry on believing that everyone else thought broadly as we did?
Like in so much of the science fiction I read growing up, our society operates on a big gulp of Rather Not Know, a lot of the time. All those stories about people living under sunny domes unaware of the people in the hills, who likewise have never seen a dome (HM Hoover's This Time of Darkness is fantastic for that) - is this us? We'd rather not think that a big chunk of the population has an opinion wildly different to ours, but of course, from Marmite to Manchester United, it's a fact. And today we can't ignore it.
Now we have to work out if the dome people and the hill people can work together.
I hope we can, and on that note, I think I need a fish finger sandwich.