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What if the laser didn't blow up the satellites? What if all the laser did was gently "push" the satellite down in to a decaying orbit from a higher orbit? The force would come from the heat generated upon contact. It wouldn't be immediate, or fast, by any means. It might take years, and thousands of 'hits' over time, but would that work over time? Maybe it might work better on smaller pieces of junk than larger satellites, but even that would be a help. Just a thought.

Do you have any idea how dangerous free energy would be? All oil is purchased in US dollars, regardless of where it came from, or where it's going. So if you want to buy oil, you first have to buy US dollars. This artificially inflates the demand (and hence the cost/value) of the US currency. If the demand for oil declines as much as we dream of it, so too does the demand for the green-back. Since we've moved most of our manufacturing off-shore, the price of consumer goods would sky-rocket as the value of the dollar plummets. Economic chaos. The good news is that it would likely repatriate a whole whack of manufacturing jobs... But then China would find themselves in big trouble, wouldn't they? So it's in the best interest of the 2 biggest economies in the world to keep everyone burning oil and paying for it with USD. Don't buy it? Just ask Venezuela and Iraq how their experiments with selling oil for Euro's instead of dollars went.

The LHC was not responsible for the internet. *sigh* History lesson: The early versions of the internet were created by the US military as a back up communications system in the event of a nuclear attack which would create an EMP. It was based out of universities like Cornell, which then used the technology to coordinate shared research projects. As such, more and more universities joined in. By the early 90's, most undergrad students had email accounts, and were telling their parents how great it was, saving all sorts of money in long distance phone calls, and it was so much faster than "snail mail". Even then, it was text-based system, and so not very user-friendly for the average person. The graphical web browser changed all that, and began the introduction of the internet in to the mainstream. The LHC takes advantage of the technology originally started on the SETI project, where users downloaded a screen saver that crunched numbers while the user wasn't active. Once downloaded on to thousands of computers, it became a powerful supercomputer. In conclusion, the LHC has taken advantage of the best of the internet, from collaborating on projects in real-time around the world, to using the internet as a super-computer to crunch large amounts of data. It is not, however, responsible for any of these developments.

What about some of the other high-end capabilities? Like gaming modes which show ALL of the screen coming from your console, instead of the slightly zoomed in picture that most TVs deliver. Or the ability to control a computer or laptop connected to the set via HDMI cable with your TV's remote control? Or up-converting? Come on, guys! do your research!!

As for the question of what if we didn't age/die, an excellent fictional account would be Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. In it, the technology exists, combined with global warming and sea level-rise. The population spikes up, and all kinds of political and economic havoc ensues. People enter in to indentured service for decades in exchange for their anti-aging treatments. The gap between the rich and poor nations widens and wars and terrorism are commonplace. And as for those people who are living to 200 years and more? They face all kinds of psychological problems related to aging, memory, chronic deja vu, and the like. I highly recommend this series.