In his lecture, Asimov predicts sexual, racial, and age equality. In America, all three of those have been mostly achieved, at least in the economic sector. Sexually, America has almost reached the goal of equality; women (while there may be dispute over wage differences) have almost all of the same job opportunities as men. While "stay-at-home moms" are still numerous, it is no longer an expected role for women. In fact, women are even reaching ahead of men in education, as the female presence in colleges is beginning to become a majority. Racially, economic equality has been almost achieved through affirmative action and other programs. This equality, however, does not necessarily extend into the social environment, as Asimov expected that it would. Age equality is also close to achievement; people of all ages are able to hold any position in companies. Experience is often favored in management positions, and youth are more likely to be hired in the hopes that they will be in that position for a long time, but these are purely logical decisions for businesses - they do not have anything to do with discrimination against one age group or another.
The difference between the equality that I have described above and the equality envisioned by Asimov is this: he expected that not only would different groups be economically equal, they would then follow to become considered equal in all other areas of life. On the social stage, racial equality has definitely not been achieved. Neither has social equality been fully achieved for women. Additionally, Asimov predicted that these would be world-wide changes, which is not true, especially among the less developed nations of the world.The worldwide population control is the best example of this. While the birth rate in America has decreased from the 1970's, it was not by a unified, decided effort to do so, as Asimov expected must occur.
His predictions, though not achieved in the time-frame that he expected, are well along in their development, and are certainly noble goals to strive for. All of the things he expected would happen out of necessity have not been forced to happen, but should be worked for by the developed nations of the world so that we don't end up in the hellish future that Asimov predicts if changes are not made. Population control most especially should be striven for, as it will help to solve other issues in the world, many of which are created by an overload of people.
Asimov's humor is very amusing. His great storytelling ability allows him to switch extremely effectively between a somewhat comedic story to a very serious issue. His humor seems to be based around the blindness of humanity - it simply presents to us the inherent silliness and stupidity in human nature, which manifests itself in our daily lives but that we often overlook. The story that he starts with is the most obvious example, as he discusses the struggles he faced simply getting himself to the lecture. Later, he discusses how he came to conclusions which seemed to everyone else to be ingenious but were really quite obvious. The people Asimov's stories about his writings all have something in common; they have a tendency to always simply takes things for granted, overlooking the details in order to come to a quick and convenient conclusion.
Asimov wants to encourage us to delve deeper, to ask questions as a philosopher, to not take the easy answer as it is. If we begin questioning those answers that are so quickly offered, we may see that they do not hold up to a stiff analysis. By refusing to simply accept them, we can become exceptional thinkers, what some would call "geniuses" for coming up with radical ideas that no one else has seen. And this does not require a huge amount of knowledge; it simply needs an inquisitive mind that is not afraid of challenging accepted ideas.
The questioning described above is simply the use of critical analysis. Asimov, as one who has no fear of radical ideas, uses critical analysis on all of the simple answers to the questions bothering humanity. He discusses the answer that most people provide to solve the energy crisis.
"There are always people who think that all we have to do, after all is abandoned, all this foolish technology that we've made ourselves slave to, and go back and live like our ancestors and live close to the soil with the good things of nature."
Most people would simply accept this for what it is, filing it away as a last resort if the world they know collapses. But Asimov examines this fact-claim critically. And in doing so, he realizes the major flaws associated with it. He is able to see that this plan would be ineffective due to the enormous increase in population from the days of our ancestors to our own time. By employing critical thinking, Asimov achieves "genius" status. The biggest idea that one can take from his lecture is to follow his footsteps in that aspect of his life. Do not accept things for what they are on the surface -- think critically.
