Change

Change is either institutional or chaotic.  The changes of the last century have been institutional  mostly as an evolutionary process guided by the current economic system.  A time traveler from 1895 would be totally lost in our current environment, but would be able to conduct business in much the same manner:  Have someone pay him a wage for a skill or his time, which he can then exchange for food, clothing, and shelter.  Magazines, newspapers, and advertisements have been digitized  but essentially offer the same services as they did 120 years ago.  We can hold in the palm of our hands access to the world's libraries and all the information on the internet, and use that capability to play Angry Birds.  Our physical infrastructure continues to change and that change is accelerating while our intellectual progress is muted by our inability to change the institutional predispositions that guide us today.  While the world is on a chip of silicon, poverty, war, and ignorance pervade our collective consciousness.  Change will necessarily come because the current system is not sustainable for tens of thousands of years.  Change that is outside of our current system is going to be chaotic on Human time scales.  Which is not a bad thing.