I think the future will judge this as a time of great confusion. Scarcity, the fundament of our economy, is becoming obsolete. Danger, the most powerful of human instincts, is largely irrelevant. Our technology gives us so much power that most decisions we make are no longer "can we?" but "should we?". We are more isolated than ever, and our nascent internet social models are rarely enough to sustain more than superficial relationships.

This is not true everywhere, but in most of the western world it is. Social change lags behind technological. The information age has done wonderful things, but I think we will be remembered as the first people to deal with the end of "natural" in any meaningful sense, and of a time spent struggling to find a replacement that is built, not handed to us by circumstance.