My 11 year-old son recently got accepted into the SOAR program at school, which is an after school group that focuses on engineering, flight and space.  We were both thrilled.

I was reminded of a conversation a couple of weeks earlier that we had in the car.  Out of nowhere on the way to a hockey game, he says, "You know dad, when they invent a teleportation device, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs," obviously referring to people who are employed in the massive transportation industry.

Stunned, I bemusingly said "I suppose so".  Then I thought for a second and explained that I thought that if they did invent it, it might actually create jobs because of all the opportunities it could create.  Imagine American farmers being able to feed people all over the world by just zapping the food there.  Perhaps if you could teleport anywhere on earth, then why couldn't you teleport to other planets.  Then we talked about how once we better our understanding of the laws of propulsion we can explore the galaxy similarly to how they do in Star Trek and Star Wars.  We spoke about how many of our most impressive inventions began as science fiction ideas in TV shows and movies.  We spoke about how God probably didn't just put us here in the middle of this massive galaxy alone with nobody else...unless it was our job to popuate the galaxy.

I guess it was better than just going over the power play.