The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

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.

Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as ‘enlightenment.'

Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?

Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases

There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.