Science Fiction is the jazz of literature.

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 very fabric of our time.

The measure of (mental) health is flexibility (not comparison to some 'norm'), the freedom to learn from experience ... to be influenced by reasonable arguments ... and the appeal to the emotions ... and especially the freedom to cease when sated. The essence of illness is the freezing of behavior into unalterable and insatiable patterns.

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

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.

The village is coming back, like it or not.