[michaelawill]

Always cool to hear what Stephen has to say but there isn't anything most of us don't already know in the article.

[tybris]

but it's the first time someone didn't make it sound scary.

The future is going to be relatively great. Just like the present is great relative to the past.

[Silentio]

There are about 3 billion people on Earth to whom your statement doesn't necessarily apply: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/397-eliminating-...

[kragen]

In purely economic terms, a lot of those 3 billion are a lot better off now than they would have been a century ago. The top of the list, Namibia, has US$5500 or so per-capita purchasing-power parity GDP. If your income is US$5500 per year, you're already pretty far up Maslow's hierarchy.

Of course, just because someone isn't starving to death doesn't imply that they aren't miserable; probably most people reading this comment know somebody in a rich country who has committed suicide.