@New Caesar,
I doubt it's cool to respond to my own post...but I guess I'll take a stab at it.
I firmly believe that the future of humanity is space. After all, we need more worlds to ruin (just like we ruined our Earth), and more living space for our ever growing population. Of course it's one thing to talk about colonizing the galaxy, while unfortunately it's a whole 'nother thing to actually DO it. Is there any possible way we can pull ourselves together and reach for the stars? I think the only way we can unify humanity under one cause is force, and forcible governing is usually associated with dictatorships. Yes, I'm proposing a world dictatorship,but not an absolute one. I believe a constitutional dictatorship would work quite well as a universal government. This sort of iron-fisted yet controlled state (or world, in this case) would, I believe, propel us outwards. From there, I would argue that different factions of humanity would pursue different technologies, maybe even become sub-species of man. Therefore, it is relatively difficult to say exactly where we'll go from space. Maybe "we" as a species won't even be a relative term anymore...
Anyway, that's my comment to my own discussion. I'm hoping you all will pitch in.