Well alright it's 2018. We've got robots driving around Mars crap all over the Solar System. A world encompassing info net we are all connected to. The poles are melting an ignorant venal insane man is president we mapped the human genome Nano crap is happening, and will one day consume us.
The mass of the population is uneducated stupid selfish, and superstitious. We individually have devices with computation power more than all of NASA when we went to the moon,...in our pockets.
You hear that. ...it's in our pockets.
That, and we use it to watch porn send thoughtless messages to people we don't like, and google cat videos. Yet with all this, and more there's 'still' nothing good on TV. Only now there's nothing good on 1000's of channels.
What would Arthur C. Clarke have thought?
4 comments:
I'll tell you what Arthur C. Clarke thought... here it is, plain and simple:
CLARKE: That's how I ended one of my essays on the subject. I
said "Now it's time to play." The goal of the future is total
unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the
present politico-economic system.
-Interview of Arthur C. Clarke with Gene Youngblood
By the way, if you have never read Gene Youngblood's book "Expanded Cinema" (Published by Dutton, 1970) go out and get it. The introduction is by Buckminster Fuller. One of the outstanding works of that period.
Seems we took a turn onto the wrong timeline somewhere. The present politico-economic system is a robotic bug-eyed monster that is feeding on us, and clacking its metallic mandibles in gustatory delight at the exquisite savor of our despair.
Z
I've always had a suspicion that temporal travels of a dark nature have fucked us. ...and are fucking us.
Starting with the JFK hit to all that followed.
Perhaps some corporate elements not happy with the egalitarian future we were supposed to have. Came back, and derailed history in their favor.
As you both have pointed out we were on track for a humane Tomorrowland of some sorts.
I can see how those who profited from wage slavery, and social divisions would have lost out in that future.
Seems they wanted their country back. ...or at least their mega wealth.
Plot for a S/F short story in this.
Definitely a good story in it! After the manner of a GN by Alan Moore, or a lushly illustrated alternate history novel. I’d probably try to work in a few steampunk elements. The question is, just what would the desirable future in the timeline not taken look like?
Z
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