If you look at the past and the near future you realize that nothing has changed and everything has changed.
People are people with the same emotions and basic needs as early man.
We have always laughed when we were happy and cried when we were sad. Sometimes we laugh so hard we cry and cry so hard we break out and laugh. There have always been rich and poor, tall and short, sane and crazy, good and evil, and countless other dualities throughout time. Relationships have always been and will always be based on trust. Communities, whether small towns of the 1920s or electronic communities of the late 1990s, all had commonalties, if they were to flourish, such as a common purpose, shared values and a focus on knowledge sharing for the benefit of the community.