85 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

I wish I had an invisible force field. I’d use it all the time, especially around people who spit when they talk or get too close to my personal space. In fact, I’d probably need a shield quite a bit if I also had a phaser to play with.

[thefirstimmortal]

On Star Trek, they use tractor beams to retrieve damaged shuttle crafts. I think if that technology were available today, it would be used primarily by boring people to keep their victims within range. I’m glad there are no tractor beams.

[thefirstimmortal]

If people had long-range sensors, they would rarely use them to scan for new signs of life. I think they would use them to avoid work. You could run a continuous scan for your boss and then quickly transport yourself out of the area when he came near. If your manager died in his office, you would know minutes before the authorities discovered him, and that means extra break time.

[thefirstimmortal]

Before all you Trekkies write to correct me, I know there is no such thing as a Vulcan Death Grip even in Star Trek. But I wish there were. That would have come in handy many times. It would be easy to make the Vulcan Death Grip look like an accident.

“I was just straightening his collar and he collapsed.”

I think the only thing that keeps most people from randomly killing other citizens is the bloody mess it makes and the high likelihood of getting caught. With the Vulcan Death Grip, it would be clean and virtually undetectable. Everybody would be killing people left and right. You wouldn’t be able to have a decent conversation at the office over the sound of dead co-workers hitting the carpet. The most common sounds in corporate America would be, “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a bigger raise, but... end”

And that’s why the future won’t be like Star Trek.

[thefirstimmortal]

Much has been written-too much, really-about the technology for making workers more productive. What we really need is technology for helping workers goof off without detection. There’s a much bigger market for that. Look at the numbers. For every boss who wants to make you work harder, there are a dozen employees who want to prevent it.

[thefirstimmortal]

In the future, there will be a huge market for technology products
that help workers goof off and still get paid.

Naturally, most of the new goofing off technology will be disguised as productivity tools, just as the current ones are. Employees today goof off with the telephone, e-mail, Internet connections, and their computers. It all looks like work to the unsuspecting employer.

[thefirstimmortal]

My clothes should sense danger and electrically stimulate my leg muscles so I run away before I even know what the problem is.
I want transmitters in my clothes to tell my house what room I’m in at all times. I will walk from room to room like Moses parting the Red Sea, the lighting and temperature adjusting to suit my personal preferences. The people who are already in those rooms won’t like it one bit, but Fm sure Moses had his critics, too. You can’t let the opinions of other people get to you.

I want my clothes to have a fake Batman-like muscular torso and head coven. That way I’ll look more like a superhero.
And I want a cellular phone built into the head cover so I have yet another way to insult gullible Induhviduals to their faces without fear of retribution.


Me: You’re the most gullible imbecile I’ve ever met.

Induhvidual: What did you call me?

Me: Shhh! I’m on the phone.

Induhvidual: Oh, sorry.

[thefirstimmortal]

I want my clothes to have stealth technology so I can avoid all the people who ask for my help. I want stealth technology that is so good, I can walk into a car dealer’s lot carrying a tub full of cash and not draw any attention. I want to absorb radar so I can speed without getting caught. I want to leer at attractive women without detection. I want to sneeze on the buffet and blame the guy behind me.

[thefirstimmortal]

In the future, we’ll all use sophisticated Bozo Filters to prevent idiots
from communicating with us.




The Bozo Filter would be software that checks incoming e-mail and weeds out the ones that are worthless. The worthless ones always have tell-tale signs. The filter would easily find them.
For example, when I get an e-mail message that has fifty other addressees and the phrase “I thought you might be interested in this,” I want my software to delete that message immediately. And I want the originator of that message to be added to my list of people who are forever banned from my electronic kingdom.

[thefirstimmortal]

In the future, technology will continue to make our lives harder and
many of us will be delighted about it


I love computers. To me, computers are like tangerines, in the sense that I can’t make a good analogy about either one of them right now. But if I could, it would involve a clever point about how computers are fun even though they create a lot of work.

[thefirstimmortal]

In the future, scientists will learn how to convert
stupidity into clean fuel.

Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity.

The challenge will be in figuring out how to control this bountiful resource. I predict that the energy companies will place huge hamster wheels outside of convenience stores and offer free lottery tickets to people who spend five minutes running in them. The hamster wheels will be connected to power generators. This plan will produce an unlimited supply of cheap power.

[thefirstimmortal]

I predict that wind power will finally become a viable large-scale energy source, but not because of better windmill technology. We will discover more wind, the flapping of people’s mouths.

All that’s needed to harness this wind is a critical mass of people and a controversial topic. I predict you’ll see windmills near Macintosh-user group meetings.

[thefirstimmortal]

If you think about it, human beings are the worst possible creatures to have access to powerful technology. It would be much better for everyone if, for example, fish were the ones with all the technology They wouldn’t be able to push the buttons with their little fins. No humans would get hurt, and the fish would be able to brag about their great stuff until eventually it all turned into protective barrier reefs.

But it’s not a perfect world, and fish don’t own all the technology. Humans do. That’s bad, because technology magnifies the ability of one person to have a big impact on other people. If that doesn’t scare you, then the next time you see professional wrestling on television, look at the crowd shots and ask yourself if you’d like those people to have a bigger impact on your life.

There’s no required safety testing for technology. I think that’s because the danger doesn’t seem obvious to the casual observer. That’s what futurists like myself are for-to scare the bejeezus out of you for no useful purpose whatsoever.
Now let me get on with that important work.

[thefirstimmortal]

Television is our biggest threat as a species, but not because of the sex and violence. It’s because Hollywood pipes an endless stream of impossibly attractive people into our consciousness.

It’s awfully hard to get naked in front of someone who has just watched Body Shaping on ESPN ... especially if your partner points the remote control at you and starts clicking it desperately. Nobody needs that.

[thefirstimmortal]

If television doesn’t ruin our ability to mate, the conversations about technology will. For the first time in history, it’s possible to have a conversation with someone who speaks the same language and yet have no idea what the topic is. The problem is mostly with men. Women are better conversationalists, and they tend to contain their talk about technology. Men have less verbal awareness. We’ll keep yammering about things like subsecond response times, Cpu cycles, and bandwidth until there’s blood-shed.

[thefirstimmortal]

Technology allows us to put more of our lives in the hands of engineers every day. This might not scare those of you who work in nonengineering companies, but personally, it’s enough to make me wake up screaming every night. I know a lot of engineers.
We all know that big companies make economic decisions about the trade-offs between price and safety. That’s understandable. It only gets scary when you realize that engineers are the ones who are making those calculations. And engineers don’t like people. In my nightmares, just before I wake up screaming, I hear the engineers talking:


Engineer #1: This solution will work, but it will be more dangerous.

Enginee #2: How much more dangerous?

Engineer #1: I figure a thousand people would die. And most of them would be strangers.

Enginee #2: Is there any way we could modify it ... you know, to kill more strangers?

Engineer #1: Wow, you hate strangers, too?

Enginee #2: Who doesn’t? Plus, I figure there’s a good chance that you’d be killed doing the modifications.

[thefirstimmortal]

Sometimes I fear that I will forget all of my passwords and my secret codes and some large organization will keep all of my money because I can’t prove it ever belonged to me. My driver’s license and passport will be useless, because toddlers will have the technology to forge that kind of thing on their little “Forge-n-Learn” toys.

So one day I’ll find myself in a heated argument with a banking representative in which I try to explain that I really am stupid enough to forget all of my secret codes. I won’t know whether I should make an eloquent argument, thus jeopardizing my claim of stupidity, or a really stupid argument, thus proving that I’m correct about how stupid I am. It will all be terribly confusing and frustrating.

Eventually, I’ll become a pathetic homeless guy, wandering around muttering, “Was it gb7k99 or was it gB7k99. I’m sure the ‘B’ is capitalized!”

[thefirstimmortal]

Technology also allows us to get very angry and abusive with people who can’t punch us in the nose at that very minute. That is bound to be a dangerous situation, especially for scrawny people like myself. I never hesitate to question someone’s parentage or offer obscene dining suggestions by e-mail. I cleverly calculate the precise amount of insult that will make someone think about tracking me down and beating me up, but not mad enough to actually do it. The trouble is, it’s a fine line between being almost hunted down and actually hunted down. That’s why I sleep in the attic most of the time and leave a dummy in my bed. (I don’t call her dummy to her face. I mumble so it sounds like “honey.”)

[thefirstimmortal]

When it comes to physical toughness, there are two types of people:

There are people like me . . . and then there are people who can beat the crap out of people like me. The latter have always been bullies. As children, it was their responsibility to administer the wedgies and noogies to all of the other children. This taught the bullies responsibility. They learned to control their power.

Those of us who were on the receiving end of the wedgies and noogies never learned to control our power, because we didn’t have any. Until now. E-mail allows us to lash out at the people we consider stupid while leaving plenty of time to run away if things get out of hand.

[thefirstimmortal]

In the future, computer using men will be the sexiest males.

I think it’s a Darwinian thing. We’re attracted to the people who have the best ability to survive and thrive. In the old days, it was important to be able to run down an antelope and kill it with a single blow to the forehead. But that skill is becoming less important every year.

Now it only matters if you can install your own Ethernet card without having to confess your inadequacies to a disgruntled tech
support person.

It’s obvious that the world has three distinct classes of people, each with its own evolutionary destiny:

1. Knowledgeable computer users who will eventually evolve into godlike non-corporeal beings who rule the Universe.



2. Computer owners who try to “pass” as knowledgeable but secretly use a hand calculator to add totals for their Excel spreadsheets. This group will gravitate toward jobs as high school principals and operators of pet crematoriums. Eventually, they will become extinct.

3. Non-computer users who will eventually grow tails, sit in zoos, and fling dung at tourists.

[thefirstimmortal]

Obviously, if you’re a woman and you’re trying to decide which evolutionary track you want your offspring to take, you don’t want to put them on the luge ride to the dung-flinging Olympics. You want a real man. You want a knowledgeable computer user with evolutionary potential.

And women prefer men who are good listeners. Computer users are excellent listeners, because they can look at you for long periods of time without saying anything. Granted, early on in a relationship it’s better if the guy actually talks, but men are not deep. We use up all the stories we’ll ever have after six months. If a woman marries a guy who’s in, let’s say, a retail sales career, she’ll get repeat stories starting in the seventh month and lasting forever. But if she marries an engineer, she gets a great listener for the next seventy years.

[thefirstimmortal]

With the ozone layer evaporating, it’s good strategy to mate with somebody who has an indoor hobby. Outdoorsy men are applying suntan lotion with SPF 10,000 and yet, by the age of thirty, they still look like dried chili peppers with pants. Compare that with the healthy glow of a man who spends twelve hours a day in front of a video screen.

[thefirstimmortal]

It’s a well-established fact that computer users are better lovers. I know this is true, because I heard an actual anecdote from somebody who knew a woman who married a computer user. They reportedly had sex many times. I realize this isn’t statistically valid, but you have to admit it’s the most persuasive thing I’ve written so far.

If there’s still any doubt in your mind about male computer users being sexier, consider their hair. Male computer users tend to have two kinds of hair:

1. Male pattern baldness-a sign of elevated testosterone.

2. Unkempt jungle hair-the kind you only see on people who have just finished a frenzied bout of lovemaking.

If this were a trial, I think we could reach a verdict on the strong circumstantial evidence alone.

I realize there are a lot of skeptics out there. They’ll delight in pointing out the number of computer users who wear wrist braces, and they’ll suggest it isn’t the repetitive use of the keyboard that causes the problem. That’s okay. Someday those skeptics will be flinging dung at tourists. Then who’s laughing? (Answer to rhetorical question: everybody but the tourists.)

Henry Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. (This was much catchier than his original motto: “Thick glasses are the ultimate aphrodisiac.”) And Bill Clinton once said that knowledge is power. Therefore, logically, according to the government of the United States, knowledge of computers is the ultimate aphrodisiac. You could argue with me but it’s hard to argue with the government. Remember, they run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two about satisfying women.

[thefirstimmortal]

I think we can logically conclude from the video evidence that the accounts of unidentified “visitors” are true. The question is, Where did they come from?

The popular view is that the strange creatures travel from a distant planet. This assumes three things about these creatures:

1. They are capable of intergalactic travel.

2. They are capable of finding us in the vastness of space.

3. Their stealth technology makes video images of their ships look like grainy pictures of ashtrays and garbage pail lids.

This seems plausible to me, but you must compare this theory to the only logical alternative: The strange creatures live on Earth, but they are hiding most of the time.

Ask yourself this: Is it easier to build a spaceship capable of intergalactic travel or hide behind some trees? I think you can see where I’m heading with this. If not, let me back up and put it all together for you.

You might have noticed that the world is full of people who are much smarter than other people. For example, the average IQ in the general population is 100. If you remove from the sample all of the people reading this post, the average drops to maybe 40 or 45, tops.

[thefirstimmortal]

Other futurists predict the world will become increasingly polarized into technology “haves” and “have-nots.” The part they get wrong is that the “have-nots” will be the lucky ones.

The “have-nots” won’t spend hours a day trying to keep their stuff working. They’ll be sitting on the porch sipping lemonade and whittling little animals to give away as gifts. Meanwhile, I’ll be trying to figure out why I can’t get five peripherals to work on my SCSI chain. And I’ll be doing it in the dark.


We techno-buried people will envy the rocking chairs of the simple people. We’ll thirst for their lemonade. And we’ll hate the little carved animals they keep giving us on special occasions (although I won’t mind them too much if I can burn them for heat and light).

[thefirstimmortal]

Scientists tend to put the most energy into the areas that interest them personally. That makes it easy to predict one upcoming scientific break-through:

In the future, scientists will create a powerful and legal aphrodisiac. I base this prediction on the fact that most scientists are horny, hetero-sexual men. What do you think they’re working on?

[thefirstimmortal]

Arousal is a function of chemicals in the body. Scientists are getting very good at controlling those chemicals. Before long, we’ll have a good idea exactly which chemicals cause which reactions. And since horniness is a naturally occurring condition, it will have no side effects, except for high online service charges.

The scientists will be clever enough to disguise their discovery so it can be approved by the FDA and become widely available. I predict that the new aphrodisiac will be marketed as an antidepressant. That’s not too much of a stretch, because it’s difficult to be horny and sad at the same time.

The beauty of calling the aphrodisiac drug an antidepressant is that anyone can act depressed, thus qualifying for the drug. It’s not as if your doctor is going to tickle you to see if you’re lying. And if she does, you might want to see if her diploma is signed.
The warning on the antidepressant drug’s label will say something like, “Might cause amazingly high levels of arousal. Avoid alcohol, vacuum cleaners, and farm animals.”

No other marketing will be necessary. Unfortunately, new sexually transmitted diseases will keep springing up every year. We’ll have a population of incredibly horny people who are afraid to have sex with one another.

The solution is virtual reality.

[thefirstimmortal]

There are lots of other buttons on my remote controls. They have names like Fetch, Matrix, DISC DECK ANT, FAV, INPUT, and MEMO. I don’t trust myself with this much power. I’m afraid I’ll hit the wrong button and turn off the life support systems on the Russian space station. I don’t want that on my conscience, so I leave those buttons alone.

[thefirstimmortal]

The satellite dish has added a lot to my viewing pleasure. For example, I can watch the movie Broken Arrow at just about any time of day for only three dollars. I’ve seen it 700 times so far. There are other movies, too, but they don’t interest me. I don’t want to feel like the system is a waste of money, so I watch Broken Arrow whenever I can.

You can also watch sports from all over the country, with the exception of your local teams, which are blacked out. This is handy if you’re traveling, but only if you’re willing to take your dish with you and install it in your hotel room. That’s the only way you’re going to see your favorite team, no matter where you are.

You can’t beat the picture clarity on a satellite system. It won’t help you with any of the network television shows, because you can’t get those on the dish, for some legal reason, unless you live in the wilderness. But you can watch the Howard Stern radio show on F! channel. I think it’s important to have full digital clarity when you’re watching a radio show I already forget how I lived without it.

[thefirstimmortal]

Virtual reality technology is also being developed primarily by horny
males. You might notice a pattern in these technical developments.
Historically, the true purpose of every invention is disguised.

Fire

Seduce women
Stay warm while seducing women

Printing press

Print Bibles in order to
impress women


Virtual reality
REAL PURPOSE
Go on dates with women
Look at women who are prettier than the ones in your house
Watch other people seduce women
Imagine what it’s like to seduce women

Women are largely oblivious to this scientific motivation, and that’s probably a good thing. It gives women more time to run the world.