Diary entry September 2059 (A.B. 37)
“The sun released a plasma blast somewhere in September of 2012. I’m unsure of the exact date--the result was a whitewash of all digitally stored knowledge. The upside is that my student loan disappeared. The downside is so did all my iTunes.”
Barring a cataclysmic event that changes the destiny of earth’s inhabitants, the future of technology resembles a Philip K. Dick timeline in which individuals rights will be redefined and then, quickly, abolished. Homes, personal belongings, packages, and the like, will all be privy to the “spy in the sky”—a Googlish nightmare that passes no judgement—leaving that to the latest incarnation of Government’s Gone Wild. Even Superman couldn’t see through lead, but the contents of our lives will be open to perusal by to any Obama, Osama or Dali Lama. At least they cannot read our thoughts—or can they?
Already in the works, in development, and being used is a device that, according to researchers, can read your mind. It’s an easy search—check it out yourselves. In fifty years this Sci Fi bad boy’s wet dream will be able to take images from your dreams and post them on Youtube (or the government owned version of Youtube). The thought police will be in full-swing uploading your Technicolor midnight memories to a base in Hollywood, Calfornia--where editing will streamline the online version for morning consumption.
A perfected cloaking device is already closer to use then even the most cynical nerd could have predicted. The paranoia that somebody is watching you in the shower will become a reality when your friends all get cloaking devices. Like a game of hide-and-seek that you can never win—this “must have cape” that renders the wearer invisible will make us invincible (if it’s bulletproof) in the girls locker room.
Currency will have gone the way of the Dodo bird to be replaced with a debit system. All transactions will become digital and the black market will flourish. Purchases will be made with a swipe of the hand, a drop of spit, or automatic glory hole deposit.
Contact lenses with instantaneous Internet connections will make it impossible to argue with your partner (or child)--as all of the information of the ages will be available in a literal blink of an eye. Also, what you see can be immediately uploaded, thus turning our heads into cameras. We are becoming the eyes of the world. We are also contributing to the demise of the trivia question game show—goodbye Cash Cab.
Cloning, although banned by almost all governments, will become (has become) a prime directive in the private sector. A Jurassic Park will open in Tokyo with the “didn’t they see it coming” escaped Godzilla wreaking havoc. Huge underground laboratories, straight out of Frank Herbert’s Jesus Incident, will be a nightmare of horrors, as cloning experiments in various levels of success—torsos with huge forearms to work on assembly lines, women with breasts all over their body, and a walking phallus—live in squander, slaves to scientists with money on their mind. The future will bring us around full circle to our early colonial days, as slave clones become the Je ne sais quio of the Jetpack Set.
While Terminator seems a cross between moronic and prophetic, the idea of time travel will become a reality by 2059. Which means that it is already real today—because if Terminator travels back in time to the 1970s, then time travel already exists in the 1970s—which means we better start being nicer to Arnold Schwarzenegger—or kill him while he’s still Pumping Iron.
Didn’t you always think it would be cool to be Stephen Hawking, minus the wheelchair and crippling disease? In 2059 we will all control the world around us with the minutest of movement. And of course, when I say “we”, I mean the 10% of the world who doesn’t live in abject poverty and discomfort. But forget them, the future is ripe with new gizmos. gadgets and technological shenanigans that only the most ardent Luddite would rail against.
Diary entry September 2059 (A.B. 37) + 140 days.
“With no global communication, I have no idea how the rest of the world fared. My girlfriend (we’ve been together 59 years and refuse to get married) and I found refuge in a small Northern California town that has been renamed Ecotopia. We’re farming and building homes, and delivering babies—the age defying pills that came about in 2011 have frozen us in time, 50 forever—now, only our children will age. Somebody has talked about trying to build a new time machine that is solar-powered which I plan on hijacking and taking to 1969 in hopes of warning everyone. This is DNA signing off. Take care and godspeed.”
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