[snaps fingers]

Can't believe this near-miss: I mentioned in my talk that i've seen in the New York Times (among many other places) how transhumanist ideas are getting an increasingly serious hearing. Well, on the chore-packed day of my talk, i only gave the paper a quick scan. But it turns out that on that very day, the science column featured on the Op Ed page was titled Computers vs. Brains, and starts this way:
"Inventor Ray Kurzweil, in his 2005 futurist manifesto “The Singularity Is Near,” extrapolates current trends in computer technology to conclude that machines will be able to out-think people within a few decades." They go on to be skeptical (part valid, and part silly: "we can already create a human-level computer by having a child" -- huh?). But they're positive about aspects of brain<->computer research. And the bigger point is that the ideas are filtering out, getting respect, being debated, changing the culture. I could multiply examples endlessly, but this one was too made-to-order to pass up.