We will no longer be alone in the world, our new alien friends won't arrive in a flying saucer but come from within. Computers smarter than ourselves will quickly become integrated in physical ways with our bodies. For the first time ever in history a type of immortality is completely within, if not ours then our childerns' grasp. Of course, the first thing that goes in a civilization that has discovered the keys to immortality through genetic and nanotechnologies is our humanity. You can't be human and immortal at the same time.
Death is a defining parameter of the human experience.
Teillard de Chardin, the French philosopher laid down the plan for the future evolution of humans years ago before he could of grasped the technical path forward. He was a mystic who believed humans come from souls, outsourced from a universal light, a tendency inherent in the fabric of the space-time continuum for the generation of life from chaos. He saw human beings as just the latest stage in a lifecycle. Sure, it sounds goofy. But I'm not new ager, I'm just watching the road ahead as the acceleration presses me back into my seat.