But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy.

If an outsider perceives 'something wrong' with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask 'what mistake am I making?' before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong.

Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.

The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

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.

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.