So there you are on the moon, reading The World in 2008 on disposable digital paper and waiting for the videophone to ring. But no rush, because you’re going to live for ever—and if you don’t, there’s a backed-up copy of your brain for downloading to your clone.

In thinking seriously about the negative trends in our future, we're severely hampered by the Hollywood idea of the Apocalypse. That idea, in turn, has deep roots in the millenarianism of monotheistic religions (in which there is an End of Days and it's coming soon) and of 19th Century social movements (there is a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and it's coming soon). Millenarianism has its own problems, not least of which is that people do horrible things to others in the name of clearing the way for their chosen perfect future. But for our discussion here, let's just confine our understanding of the credo to what it has done to our conception of the future.

"What’s the connection between meditation, ecological sustainability, social justice, self actualization, and the protesters at the WTO Convention in Seattle? What were the 60’s all about and what’s the socio-cultural link to now?"

"Instead, let's consider an alternative point of view that runs against everything we read in the daily papers. The alternative is this: The opportunities before us are just as real as the dangers. Our future is not an inevitable slide into poverty and despair. But this does not mean celebrating our inevitable progress into a golden future of endless consumption as described by ad agency flacks. Life is harder and more upsetting than that."

An interview with Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson

A few people have asked me what I thought of Karl Schroeder's recent article at Worldchanging, "No Time for the Singularity."

Ken Wilber shares the premise of "The Many Faces of Terrorism," and what a one person/one vote wordwide democracy could unwittingly lead to....

The future of humanity is often viewed as a topic for idle speculation. Yet our beliefs and assumptions on this subject matter shape decisions in both our personal lives and public policy – decisions that have very real and sometimes unfortunate consequences. It is therefore practically important to try to develop a realistic mode of futuristic thought about big picture questions for humanity. This paper sketches an overview of some recent attempts in this direction, and it offers a brief discussion of four families of scenarios for humanity’s future: extinction, recurrent collapse, plateau, and posthumanity.

We asked technology innovators, luminaries, and users what the Web might be in five to ten years.

Technology Review presents 10 technologies that we think are most likely to change the way we live.