Why I Believe That This Will Be The Most Innovative Decade In History

This is true. Note that the A-bomb situation may very well still spiral out of control over the next 20-40 years. Too often we get lost in arguing immediate benefits or drawbacks and lose the plot on the bigger picture.

Suffice it to say that I don't understand how these local group dynamics will do anything except exacerbate the state's interest in controlling what the population knows and thinks. I imagine "good" effects, like promoting altruism, will be encouraged. "Bad" effects, like pointing out gaping problems with civil liberties and calling for massive peaceful political change, will be stifled.

Also note that traditional ideas of small groups have them all being in the same geographical place. This is no longer true, and this alone might have greater ramifications than any of the other technological changes do. We could very well see (medium-term) a re-introduction of the clan and lots of associated desultory and internecine warfare. Or just general chaos and instability. Beats me, I'm just an internet commenter. You should know what kind of track record we have :)

The point I'm trying to make isn't really associated with an exact period of 40 years. Looking back on these kinds of discussions, many times people who watched trends and worried about underlying philosophical problems got it right -- but only after decades or perhaps centuries have passed. Usually things come along and all the old folks say it's terrible, all the young folks think it's awesome, and not much is accomplished. Fundamental changes also fit into this pattern, but the problems never show up in any reasonable amount of time for people to remember who gave the warnings. So we forget. I could use a lot of examples, but the arguments against the ratification of the Constitution of the United States come to mind. All of the arguments against the structure were panned as being wild absurd fantasies: that there would be a standing army, that the government would consistently overspend, that the federal government would take more and more control from the states, and so on.

They all turned out to be true, but the "winners" of these arguments lost in the short term and weren't around to see how prescient they were. As these trends continue it's the rest of us, many generations later, that have to deal with the problems that were easily foretold at the beginning.

So it might not be 40 years. Might be 100. As long as we agree that these predictions are real problems whether they happen next week or in 2200 we can carry the discussion forward.

Yes, we must deal with it. Yes, there are examples in various formats from the past but nothing directly applicable. Drawing inferences and finding a common ontology would be difficult in the best of times. No, it is not especially scary. I said I was pessimistic, not that I was afraid of anything. So we're living in the latter days of the Roman Empire. It's just a thing that is part of our existence. No, this isn't the first time the world has been rocked with change but the change today is occurring at a much greater rate than ever before.

Like I said, I'm not sure we disagree on much. Apologies if it wasn't clear from my comment what my point was. Historical analogies are much more difficult to draw than at any time in our past, philosophical underpinnings of the way governments and groups of people work need to be applied at the principles level and not the policy level, and dozens of trends kick off each decade which will have major impacts down the road. Nothing to fear; this is just where we are. Understanding the problem and talking about it helps gain a common understanding for the required adaptation that will eventually arrive. Evolutionary adaptation can be very painful to experience.