Let's assume that GCC is real and deadly. Taking the word of scientific consensus, we change massive parts of our global economy to meet the threat and, sure enough, nothing bad happens.

Aside from the fact that, due to human nature, many will argue it was never going to happen anyway, what have we accomplished? Yes, we have saved millions of lives. We have avoided massive numbers of refugees and the destruction of coastal cities. But we have also, for the first time, let a new group of people decide by consensus what the policy should be for the rest of the population. Are we sure we want to do this?

We've went through a time in our history where groups of clergy ran a great part of western civilization. While I know that it's popular to demonize them today, at the time they were the smartest people the world had to offer. They made decisions mostly on what they thought to be a higher cause. And significantly, there was consensus.

Things didn't work out too well for folks that disagreed in those days. They were called heretics, amoral. They were told to get with the program. They were not accepted by society. Dissent was not tolerated. What we found was that even though the church was created to take care of spiritual needs, once it got into politics it became just another political player, jockeying for power and playing hardball with the rest of the rulers.

People are tired of ads. They hate them on TV, they hate them on the web. They're tired of those stupid customer loyalty cards that every business has nowadays. They're not stupid: they know those cards help the businesses a lot more than they do the consumers. And they're going to get tired of digging, moderating, boinking, slapping, skirting, poking, winking, and whatever other synonyms websites can come up with to try to get folks to participate. Right now, there's a headlong push to get people involved in these Web 2.0 sites, but for every true convert, there are a hundred folks that just drop by to see what everybody else is doing. They're there because of habit, not because of bells and whistles.

As for me, when I was in my 30s I stopped thinking about my time as either being "working" or "not-working" . Those names simply do not make any sense. It's like when you went to school and thought your time was either "learning" or "not learning". Once you grow the heck up, you realize you should be learning all the time. There should never be a time when you are not learning — what, are you planning on becoming a squash? The same goes for working — you should have some point in life, some purpose. Sure, your 8-hour-day might not relate directly to that purpose, but if that's the case, then you should be spending your free time making sure you get that fixed — going to night school, getting certified, whatever.

Do we have a National Telescope Agency to handle research by telescopes? Do we have a National Ocean Agency for all science that happens on the ocean? Then why have a Space Agency that owns all space science?

I've been in web programming ever since the web came out. I tell folks, half-jokingly, that I should have gotten into online pornography: that's where the money is. I wouldn't start an online Hustler magazine — that's not my style — but I do think that any online media company has to consider the power of the human form in selecting their content. There is a reason why there are sites called "Hot or not" are hot. We suckers will troop over there regularly to get a good look at what the other monkeys are getting.