Great mambo chicken and the transhuman condition: Science slightly over the edge

As he searched the physics literature on the long-term future of the universe, Dyson noticed that the available papers on the subject shared a certain strange peculiarity. “The striking thing about these papers,” Dyson recalled afterward, “is that they are written in an apologetic or jocular style, as if the authors were begging us not to take them seriously.”

It was not a proper use of your time, apparently, to imagine what might or might not happen to the universe some billions of years down the road—a prejudice that was rather surprising in view of the fact that many physicists nonetheless lavished huge amounts of recycled paper, time, and attention on what had happened billions of years in the past.