In the future, all cultural production will be the work of googlezens who voluntarily enrich the collective (“the Goog”) with videos of their pets, cover versions of favorite songs and similar forms of personal expression. There will be no need for for-profit enterprises in the Goog, as all industries will be more efficiently managed by Google Industries. Google Food and Google Housing will provide for googlezens in exchange for their creative work and good behavior, and the Goog will be kept secure by the vigilance of the robot soldiers of Google Defense and the algorithms of Google Security. Outside the Goog perimeter various luddite terrorists may threaten the peace and stability of the collective, but in with solidarity and faith in the Founders the Goog will prevail!

Why do people think these Malthusian problems always have to have a happy ending? The most likely way we will resolve our limits to growth is the way they are always resolved in nature: via a population bottleneck. These are probably the last days of homo sapiens, and what will emerge on the other side of the bottleneck are transhumans better adapted to a global technological civilization. This is how evolution works, but we homo sapiens have been so successful of late that we've forgotten just how harsh and indifferent this process is to our notions of justice and equality. The fact of the matter is that there is no obligation and little likelihood of feeding the 9 billion on our destabilizing planet; the important thing is that and advanced core of technological civilization run by transhumans survives and flourishes. It doesn't seem to me that primates from the Olduvai gorge have much future, but a more intelligent and adaptable posthuman species should be able to multiply and expand into the Cosmos indefinitely. I find this exciting and wonderful, but then I'm one of those crazy people who understands that the universe is an indifferent and alien place that has zero concern for our human values.

Readers of Slashdot, you need to ask yourselves what is more important: servitude to corporations who have zero loyalty to anything but their own bottom lines, or being members of an educated civilization which values critical thinking and creativity. If corporations start dictating educational policy and turning universities into glorified vocational training schools, we will have taken a giant step backward toward a feudal society. Repeat this again and again until you understand it: EDUCATION IS NOT JOB TRAINING! CITIZENSHIP IS NOT CORPORATE SLAVERY! Until you really appreciate this fact and act upon it, you will be nothing but a glorified cubicle serf. Without free, critical thinkers there can be no real progress, and we’re all living in a shiny, high tech Dark Age.

We're going, don't worry. There are huge challenges to overcome, but sex in space is not one of them. A new Space Age is dawning, and it's global this time. We're going because we have no choice; the colonization of space is necessary for our survival, and for our material and spiritual renewal.

I feel sorry for younger generations who never knew the spirit of Apollo or the cosmic consciousness that was dawning in those early days of the Space Age. They have been given little to aspire to and a rather limited sense of their own future. But this condition is not permanent! I believe a new cosmic religion can overcome this spiritual malaise, and I'm here to spread the word that such a religion exists -- it's called Cosmism!

Look up at the stars tonight and reflect on what they mean; listen to them, and see if you hear their call. I believe the time is coming when many are going to hear that call again -- and this time they will heed it, and the adventure that it brings will last for aeons.

thecosmist.blogspot.com

"There is no way back into the past; the choice, as Wells once said, is the universe—or nothing. Though men and civilizations may yearn for rest, for the dream of the lotus-eaters, that is a desire that merges imperceptibly into death. The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close. Humanity will have turned its back upon the still untrodden heights and will be descending again the long slope that stretches, across a thousand million years of time, down to the shores of the primeval sea." —Arthur C. Clarke

Given that two things drive human civilization above all others -- war and sex -- I have concluded that a new space race and space hotels offering the possibility of sex in zero g may be our best hopes of getting off this planet. The only other thing I can think of that could provide the right motivation is religion, which is why I'm in the process of founding a new cosmic religion to inspire new generations of cosmic missionaries to reach for the stars. See thecosmist.blogspot.com for more information.