There's a lot going on in this thread that could be responded to. Overall though, I get the impression that people here will probably cope better than the average person might. I've had similar conversations on other forums, and they often devolve into me trying to explain to people that the "super ridiculously advanced future techs that humanity could never have developed without secret help from aliens" have sometimes been around in one form or another since the 1800s.
Personally, my big moment of "future shock" happened about 10 years ago when I first walked into a mall and saw
one of these (on a board, not a truck.) When I saw that...I stopped in my tracks, and basically said to myself, "Ok. That's it then. We're in the future now." Since then I've pretty much been of the
Where's my jetpack? school of thought. Though at this point I suspect that the jetpacks might not ever really be commonplace because they might be displaced by, say...continent-to-continent teleportation.
Global telepathy is likely to be a game changer. I don't really see anyway, short of the destruction of modern civilization, for that to not happen. Others have pointed out the increase in communication speed. Telepathy seems like a logical extension of that. We already have
brain to computer interfaces. It's basically just a matter of refinement before somebody figures out a practical way to transmit audio and video too. Once people can pay a couple hundred dollars for an implant that allows them to record anything they experience to internal hardware and transmit it to others via a wireless network...just apply existing concepts like youtube, livestream, craisgslist...and let your mind go wild.
What happens when the majority of the human population is connected via a real time computer/brain interface? Add in transmission of emotion, thought and tactile sensation while you're at it.
Total game changer.
Anyway, just to respond to a couple quick points mentioned by others, we went from the human aerial flight in 1903 to the first man on the moon in 1969. We've had a bit of a lull in space travel lately, but just two months ago
Voyager 1 left the heliosphere and passed into interstellar space. If 66 years was enough time to go from first flight through
air to landing on the moon, I wouldn't be surprised if it's enough time to go from interstellar probes to interstellar human transport, or even teleportation.
As to sex with robots...
this is a robot. Here are two
talking to each other. Here's one
walking. Now, after watching those (or at least
the first one. It's short.) now go watch an asimo video from ten years ago, extrapolate the difference and try to imagine what they'll be like ten years from now. Keep in mind it's the Japanese making these things.
And as for people thinking they won't be alive to see these things happen
Biological immortality and youth regeneration may have already been invented. Oh, also
lost limb regeneration. It might not be much longer before someone on their deathbed can take a pill and have a brand new "20 year old" body in weeks.
Add in star trek holodecks
(they're working on it) and matter replicators
(yeah, working on those too), and it might not make a huge different whether the 2012 spiritual ascension scenario happens. Humans might create their own ascension via technology.