Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau, author of Radical Evolution, made a challenging presentation at Future Salon last night. His topic: the future of human nature.

Joel feels we're within a decade of a threshold moment for our species.

DARPA is funding psychokenesis experiments where monkeys move objects with their thoughts alone. Soon you'll be able to buy memory pills that bump your kid's SAT scores up a couple of hundred points. Whales and dolphins never sleep; why should we? We have a long way to go and a short time to get there.

Joel posits three scenarios. (1) Heaven, Ray Kurzweil's boundless optimism. (2) Hell, Bill Joy with weapons of knowledge-based destruction. Facing off to these technodeterminists is Jaron Lanier, who supports a scenario of Prevailing through human ingenuity. It's co-evolution.

Humans are pattern seeking, story-telling animals. Our stories don't work very well any more.