I like Ray. Been reading him for...well, not to date myself, but been following this guy for decades (I even own a Kurzweil synth from about 1990). He has written several fascinating books, invented some earth shattering technologies, and made some startling predictions (and has not, so far as I know, been wrong - only too conservative).
We've talked economics in the past, and I have made mention of the economics of abundance and the fact that the shift from one economic paradigm to another (agricultural to manufacturing, for example, or manufacturing to information when folks lament about the loss of the manufacturing base in the US) is a simple, and un-destructive, reality that is always accompanied by "sky is falling" rhetoric.
Here is a recent piece by Ray Kurzweil printed in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103326.htmlMaking the World A Billion Times Better - washingtonpost.com
