Attack on anonymity is the endgame for the powers that be. "It's just like a license plate! You have nothing to fear if you aren't doing anything wrong!" I fully expect the same regime to eventually come to the US. SOPA was just the first attempt.
I think it's unethical for us to not pursue gene editing. Why bring children into this world with greater susceptibilities to disease? Also, if people want to go a step further and alter traits like appearance and athletic ability that should be their choice. It is their genetic material.
Find yourself a configuration management server such as Puppet, Chef, CFEngine etc, and learn to automate system deployment and management with it. I use Puppet CE as my main automation tool.
Use Python/Shell for tasks that are not well suited for a configuration management server. Usually, this is when procedural code makes more sense than the declarative style of Puppet manifests. Interactive "wizards" (i.e. add domain users accounts to a samba server, and create home directories for them) and database/file backups are my usual uses for these types of scripts.
Fabric is a useful tool to use with python. It allows you to send SSH commands that you put into functions to groups of servers in bulk.
I also use python for troubleshooting network issues. It has libraries to interact with all manner of network services/protocols, as well as crafting packets and creating raw sockets.
Look into PowerShell if you work in a Windows environment. Everything from Microsoft is hooked into PowerShell in their newer versions.