You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now.

Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction.

Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us.

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up.

The fundamental premise of sci-fi is not spaceships and lasers - it's that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents.

It is a paradox of Life that all species breed past mere replacement. Any paradise of plenty soon fills to become paradise no more.