We are engineers. We are not trapped by the present. We invent, design, and build new things. Extraordinary things! 

There are no FailedScienceFictionProphecies - just slippage in the schedule. The dead science fiction writers sited their utopias on or around the millennium just because that was a nice round date. But there was really no magic about that date, and there's no cause to feel glum about where we are now.

2001 may have come and gone, but the OrionProject is still plausible. The .com bubble burst, but the Internet is still here. Our social systems are in a mess, but we can build new ones if we set our minds to it. Here we are on the verge of QuantumComputing. We have OpenSource tools in abundance. We have wiki and we're working into an InterWiki world. MolecularNanoTechnology and artificial biology are within our grasp. There is lightning at our fingertips.

Sure we have a bunch of small-minded nits in control of most of the governments, corporations, and media - but when was that ever different? My engineering brethren and sistern, TheBottleneck is no big deal for the likes of us. HypnoCracy cannot harm us. The VotingMorons cannot stop us. Not even the sky is the limit for us. TheSingularity will come so long as we make it come. 

We need only dedicate ourselves to NewBeginnings, fresh starts and open minds, and we will find ways. Nothing is impossible - indeed, if you follow the reasoning in WhatDoesHaltingMean, not even the HaltingProblem is impossible.

We are at the dawn of a new century full of possibility. We have big shoulders to stand on - dead giants - Tesla, Einstein, Fuller, Roosevelt. The exponentiating wind of progress is at our backs. Now is not the time to whimper at the halting steps of the little men around us. Now is the time to seize all these opportunities by the scruff of the neck and drag them into reality.

My friends, do not focus on what has not happened. Focus on what we can make happen. It is all up to us - and what grand challenges we are blessed to confront! -- PeterMerel