How do we handle the future?
I meant to link this yesterday, but it didn't happen then - so I'm making up for it now. Glenn Reynolds linked to this essay by David Brin on our possible futures, given that advances in science and technology seem likely to put a nanofactory in the hands of the rich soon, the middle class a little later, and then...what? It's an interesting question that a lot of SF writers and futurists have taken a stab at, and Brin has a lot of interesting things to say about progress and how human society handles it. RTWT.