Once again, WorldChanging Ally #1 Bruce Sterling is holding court on the state of the world at the WELL, in the public "Inkwell" forum. Readers without WELL membership can send in questions via email. As always, our own Jon Lebkowsky is the moderator.

This isn't a "Chinese century," or anything so corny and fearsome. The Chinese have got maybe 25, 30 lively years in the sun before they run into the weirdest demographic problems on the planet. That doesn't even count their restive land-empire and the pervasive corruption problems they have. We ought to be crossing our fingers for the Chinese people, rather than sitting in some neocon bunker plotting their demise.