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Excellent thought provoking post Len! Never knew that about China,.. Also reminds of of something I posted a short time ago. It was about what was better ...white vs blue collar work. The analogy of the abnt & grasshopper gives thought? Interesting to see other thoughts on this???

Very interesting message. China has a lot more people than we do, also India. What is going to happen to these people? I'm not worried for myself. I'm worried for my grandchildren. I think what will happen is that we will adapt. Our ancestors survived the industrial revolution. Our grandchildren will survive the cybernetic revolution. At least I hope they will.

Education becomes crucially important, especially in technology and the sciences. Most of the high paying jobs by the end of this century probably don't exist at this moment. That's because industry will have moved off-planet by 2100.

For those of you who are pessimists at heart, check out the website "Clusterfuck Nation: view link by James Howard Kunstler, who also wrote "The Long Emergency" about a post industrial city in upstate New York.

He's a persuasive writer who thinks the US is already on the slippery slope to a post industrial world. His 2010 predictions view link are enough to make you want to just pull the covers over your head as the world disintegrates in slow motion. It start out: There are always disagreements in a society, differences of opinion, and contested ideas, but I don't remember any period in my own longish life, even the Vietnam uproar, when the collective sense of purpose, intent, and self-confidence was so muddled in this country, so detached from reality.

I think he has a point.

Nonsense. I got part way down the blog and I hit the word "lying." Whenever some throws that word around, I know it's more of the same old, same old, same old ----bull. What is especially disgusting is that it's evident Kunstler thinks his readers are so stupid as to buy it.

He is correct about one thing. There seems to be no coherent sense of direction, but I think it's less a sign of decline for the US than it is a sea change for Humanity.

Looking backward from 2100, only two events will matter in 2010:

VSS Enterprise, the first spaceliner flies. While the Enterprise's flights will be modest (much more vertical than horizonal), later spaceliners will be intercontinental and orbit by the end of this decade. Interestingly, the ISS may have been saved because commercial space flight is coming so fast.

With at least two teams struggling to confirm organic life on Gliese 581D 20.3 years away (the planet has liquid water. All that needs to be found to confirm life is evidence of oxygen), one can reasonably expect confirmation this year. The discovery will be the most important achievement since Columbus reached the West Indies in 1492.

Interestingly, most of Europe dismissed Spain and its New World explorations as silly and irrelevant until three pirate ships led by the French pirate Jean Fleury intercepted two Spanish vessels that they thought carried fish because the ships sailed unarmed with only skeleton crews. The last thing Fleury and his men expected was so much bullion aboard the ships that if the ships had carried the normal complement of men, they would have been submarines. Needless to say, THAT got Europe's attention. And, as they say, the rest is history.

The moment life is detected on Gliese 581D, the clock begins ticking. It would take 25 years for Cortez to find the Aztecs and hit the jackpot. I don't think it will take that long to hit the 21st Century equivalent: confirmation of an interstellar civilization. Try 10 years (2020).