I wouldn't care that much if DRM allowed me to actually use the files I purchased.

As an ex-member of Audible, in order to actually listen the books I bought, I'd have to get an mp3 converter, get it to accept the codec I pieced together from Audible's software, which then would change every few months, rendering the old "hack" useless. Now I just pirate everything and save myself a few hours of work.
I'm not that much into piracy and I wouldn't mind paying $15 for the privilege of having someone read a book to me, but going through all the hassle just so I can open the files on the OS I want in the player I want doesn't sound like a worthy investment of time.

Same principle applies to ebooks. When I want to re-read the tome on corporate marketing I bought seven years ago, I head over to the study and pick it up. If I buy an e-reader with its own proprietary format now, will I still be able to read the book after a decade has passed? I'm not too sure, I kinda envision myself browsing the web for a kindle-to-google-glasses-converter.

Revolution seems like a surefire way to end up in another totalitarian nightmare.

I'd be more interested in economic research that dares to leave the mainstream of market theory and private parties. Even accounting for all that is wrong with capitalism, it does a pretty good job evaluating goods and services and providing decentralized incentives for people to engage in the economy. Of course, some of these incentives suck and the pricing mechanism tends to ignore social, environmental and future costs and effects.

Still, there should be a way to take all that we know about economics, game theory, psychology, etc., and distill it into a useful groundwork of a sustainable, scalable and fair economy that can be tested and validated on a small scale. After that, if people want to, they can still pick up torches and pitchforks, or simply move to a place that doesn't use 18th century economics as its M.O.

Considering that we're in a pretty tech-savvy crowd, disruptive innovation like this shouldn't seem too outrageous.

Imho, mind uploading seems the most reasonable of all, given that we'd "just" have to figure out how to translate our neurological wiring into bits and bytes and/or artificial neuronal networks. Extinction isn't too inconceivable, but unless induced by some extraordinary strong event, e.g., an asteroid turning the whole planet uninhabitable for us, I don't think we'd manage to destroy all humankind with the typical tools of dystopian sci-fi (war, pollution, etc).

It makes me wonder what would be most interesting to have, though.
Teleportation, assuming reasonable energy costs per use, might be useful to solve transportation problems and make a global economy easier to grow and sustain, and the same could apply to FTL-travel, considering all opportunities for space exploration and new industry. This begs the question, however, whether massively increasing productivity in our current economic modus operandi would really be an unequivocally good thing. I'd rather wait until we sort environmental and social problems out and arrive at some sort of M.O. that matches the elusive criterion of being both efficient and humane.
World peace sounds a bit vague. Is a society with an all powerful and wealthy overlord and a pacific, yet impoverished population considered peaceful? If so, I could envision multiple scenarios in which war might actually be preferable to living in impotence.
Extinction would be pointless, unless we manage to turn ourselves into something other-than-human first (which might be interesting as well) and get rid of the flabby rest; that leaves me with immortality, to which some of the aforementioned criticisms still apply - power staying longer in the hands of those who hold it, making it harder for progress to occur - but it would also fulfill the selfish need of staying alive, allowing one to learn and master more skills, experiment more, and so on.
So, all in all, I think I'll keep rooting for Aubrey de Grey and >150 year lifespans and leave mind uploading to those who think one version of themselves isn't already enough. And anyone interested in "augmented" masturbation, of course.

Is that really comparable, though?

If I upload my mind, I'm essentially making a copy of myself, no? Sure, I have somebody to continue my legacy, when I'm gone, who will be able to act as I would in the same circumstances, but he's still existing separately to my own consciousness, so I don't find that prospect particularly enthralling, compared to, say, putting my own brain into a tank and connecting it either to new and disposable bodies or some sort virtual interface.

The Scary Startup - Are you overwhelmed with the complexity of Lean Startup Methodology? Is finding a real business model just too hard? Stop trying, build a free platform with mass appeal, brand it as threatening to the big players and sell for imaginary valuations! Coming Q3 2012, $29.99 Hardcover, $39.99 Kindle Edition with missing pages and no graphics.

While I'm still unsure how they got their investors to accept a $500M valuation (Series B, was it?), going into a meeting thinking "Yeah, $2B for a popular photo sharing app platform sounds about right" must take some cojones. I probably couldn't sell Instagram for $200M, I wouldn't even know where to start.
"So, we have this platform and our users are totally committed to the experience and not just using it because it's hip...and we all know that social media startups tend to stay popular and don't crash after a year or two...and crap, we can totally monetize that thing, like print photos on mugs and stuff...that's like an instant $80M/year right there, minus the cost of the mugs, of course. So, whaddaya say, two billion?"

Partner as in "business partner". My girlfriend is actually quite fond of my plans to help George Soros take over the world and force everyone to renounce Jesus and sing Marxist hymns in broken English.

I tend to dedicate specific aliases to specific groups or topics. There's one for political discussions, one for cynic posts about the tech industry, one (each) for private community groups and a bunch of half-heartedly separated nicks for free forum accounts and the like.

While I don't lie about my personal positions when I'm directly asked, sometimes, especially in the US, it's advantageous to have googling your name not result in your potential partner/investor/exec thinking "Oh, so he's an atheist communist who likes to trash the Web2.0 VC fund my brother has a stake in.".

Well, that's kind of the problem. Regulation of externalities implies that you can only sue after the misdeed already happened - and that's still assuming an ideal scenario where regulation is actually effective and collusion doesn't occur.

A smart way of dealing with external effects would require the party in question to actually care about the effects, and that's pretty hard to pull off when the only incentive we have is profit. For the record, I don't believe abolishing private property and creating a tyrannical one-party government is the solution, so don't play the communist card, but I think one could make a pretty decent case that economic value should include things like environmental stability, scientific progress and general well-being, not just goods and services that can be purchased individually.

They might underestimate our military capacity, though, if they see what passes for entertainment around here.
The ensuing moment of surprise should give us enough time to take the most pressing action, i.e., change our FB status to dead.

First we have an old guy who talks to an invisible man explain to us how Marxism is unrealistic, now 21st century tech is used to teach us 7th century philosophy. I think I'll be starting a new religion which proposes that we're in fact living under bizarro-God who delights in random acts of chaos and irony and the real one is in charge of another universe.

Then you just won a bunch of money, which you're likely to lose soon afterwards, too, at least statistically.

Why not fantasize about predicting the next major political/economic/tech trend and buying the right option at the right time?
Or coming up with the right idea for a tech startup, finding a skilled, fun, yet nerdy enough co-founder and miraculously securing necessary founding at the right second?
Or, if those aren't any good, hanging out at a local business lunch only to find out that this chairman of some large European firm is looking for someone able to change the GUI on his ERP suite to match the visual feeling of Dwarf Fortress, and will hand out handsome amounts of equity to whoever gets the job done? (change this to match your unique skills, obviously)

None of these scenarios are likely, but considering that we're talking about extremely rare asymmetric returns on investment here, why not go for something that leaves you with an actual feeling of achievement and a decent story? And even if your investment of some time and money doesn't lead to quick millions, maybe you'll find contacts, learning experiences or discoveries that can prove valuable in a more moderate way.

Winning the lottery kinda feels like using a money cheat to me. Sure, if everyone else is cheating or the game is horribly balanced against your favor, it might seem tempting, but I'd still feel like I'd missed out on the real experience of prevailing after some struggle.

I don't think that the kind of species we are is the problem here. Capitalism prides itself on setting good incentives, but some of the real incentives that are created are just destructive and wicked, as is demonstrated nicely in this story. You can't just assume that people using massive amounts of tech and labor for their own self-interest is going to be just fine for everyone, as long as we put a bunch of regulations in place. I'd really like to see more research into alternative economic systems, I feel like it's time to move on to something smarter.