I enjoyed reading this... seems to me a part of the human dilemma stems from our (relative) inability to think of our choices as having consequences beyond the short term... the whole "be here NOW" approach is great in some senses, but we tend to forget how developments (scientific, technological) we embrace as "great" in the one-year, five-year and even longer term might not be so good in the 100-year, 500-year sense.