yo yo yo. Is it about convincing anyone? This thread has gotten too long, haha.
I think I have a couple of things to add. I hold back because I did not want to convince anyone of anything.
Here is my story: I have actually thought about how the changing 'civilization' will affect the human race and a few books and groups have came up on that matter.
What Inviltrist is talking about is some bioengineering stuff. Well, I view it with bioengineering with suspicion, as a general rule. I think their analysis levels are too rudimentary, there is a lot more for them to do. So, I would rather take the talk about the bioengineering components later on. Bear with me for a moment.
First, I want to talk about science fiction. About old science fiction. Asimov's books have covered a lot of different ideas that span our society. He introduced some ideas to the general public. Two of the most famous ideas were of the 'thinking robot,' some of which might have *biological part.* And there is the Foundation series. I think this thread has touched both of the ideas within those series of books.
The basic idea behind the Foundation series is a math model of how societies evolve. It is the idea that Asimov took, played around with it, and wrote some good books. But let's leave the science fiction aside. Here we talk on topics such as what is the best society. We use some ideas that we have on how societies operate and play with them in our minds. We simply 'model' on how our societies will change in time. Sometimes it works, but if the model does not work out in practice - well, failure is an option that some groups have to go through.
Everything else aside, I just wanted to bring this point out - we can actually *model* the societies we live in, in order to access how are things going to work out. And then this model has to have a socialogical component and be put in practice. I don't want to dwelve on it now, but I might add a few notes about it.
The thread is actually going back and forth between how a society will (or should?) behave and that of the individual. That is what we call 'success' in the society and 'successful' society. Remember this. We assign what is good and what is not good. Thus, we assign options that are 'failing.'
I am fairly abstract, so here is one example. A class arguing whether European-style democratic socialism or American-style capitalism works better. But the class forget to decide on how to measure 'better.' Next thing you know, since people did not agree on this basic definition, everyone is querreling with each other. Not understanding what is the point of the other person. Well, some of them might refer to success as 'better industrial average output' and some might refer to it as 'better average social health.' Or whatever. If you are like me, you'd call success 'better beer.' I am still searching for the place with the best beer, I will have to do some more travelling 
Time to move from the society to the individual, though.
The singularity. That is what Invilstrist started the thread about. I was suprised that I did not see this term. As computer science evolved, people asked themselves what is going to happen to the human. The human as both as society of humankind, and the individual human. This includes the mechanics of cognition and emotion. The bioengineering is just one component of this bigger picture.
The technology heritage is constantly being enlarged. We like technology - unless you are a hermit and don't user internet - but then you would not be playing IC. We are adaptive and learned to use tools for our good, and then we learned how to invent better and better tools. Some of these tools might soon be part of us. Implants in the brain, or gene selection. You name it. Somebody is probably working on enlarging our ensabmble of tools.
The question becomes - what do we do with all this technology that will soon be available? Or do we really want it?
It is been interesting to see your reactions. I can't give the answer to that question.
But I can drink a beer 
still...
I am all-in on electrics.
