David Brin has a number of short stories on his website. I just read [Stones Of Significance]. But that began to change in the Atomic West, when several successive generations arrived that had no personal experience with hunger, no living memory of invasion or pillaging hordes. As fear gradually gave way to wealth and leisure, our more natural temperaments emerged. Especially a deeply human fascination toward the alien, the outsider. With each downward notching of personal anxiety, people assertively expanded the notion of citizenry, swelling it outward. First to other humans - groups and individuals who had been oppressed. Then to manlike species - apes and cetaceans. Then whole living ecosystems... artificial intelligences... and laudable works of art. All won protection against capricious power. All attained the [Three Basic Material Rights] - continuity, [Mutual Obligation], and the [Pursuit Of Happiness]... I did not want all the creativity in the cosmos to reduce to a vast, self-organizing stew, rapidly discovering every possibility within a single day. For one thing, what will we do with ourselves once we use it all up! What can come next, with real-time immortality stretching ahead of us like a curse? In effect, it will be a second Singular Ity - even steeper than the first one - after which nothing will ever be the same.

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