Technology

Feschuk’s dispatch from a world of angry Sea Monkeys

You people of 2012 are far too serious. Stop worrying and love the robot revolution.

Shutterstock, Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

Greetings from the future!

I, a human of a century hence, feel compelled to respond to the wild imaginings contained within this magazine—if indeed that is the correct term for this ancient curiosity, this “Internet with staples.” The definitive historical record of my time, Wikipedia, tells me that several of your “newsweeklies” exist until well into 2013. Good for you, imminent relics!

My point is this: I look at your barbaric 21st-century lives and I have to laugh. I mean that literally—the mood-altering chip put in my brain by the drug companies forces me to guffaw every 98 seconds. Sure, it gets a little awkward during job interviews and funerals but that’s the price you— HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry.

This quirk aside, ours is a HAHAHAHAHAHA—sorry, sometimes it acts up—ours is a superior incarnation of humanity. We’re all in terrific shape. We’ve cured cancer and bedhead. We can live almost forever. On the other hand, so can Donald Trump—so yeah, that pretty much ruins it.

We’ve also conquered time itself and developed the ability to send messages into both the past and future. Although my last love letter to Nefertari wound up in 24th-century Cleveland. This Apple Time Maps app sucks.

I acknowledge that some of the predictions contained within these pages turn out to be accurate. We have indeed found new ways to extract energy from the earth and extend the life of batteries. We had no choice after all the wind turbines got knocked over by idiots in jetpacks.

As for these swarms of tiny robots you envision—they too have come to pass. In recent years, they’ve helped rescue survivors from the sites of countless disasters that they themselves have caused.

And, yes, we today grow our own replacement organs the way that you grow Sea Monkeys. (By the way: why do you grow Sea Monkeys? The ones you pour down the sink grow pretty big over time. And mean. Three of them have been blocking the Panama Canal now for 25 years.)

But much of what you foresee is, to the people of my time, laughably laughable.

For instance, there are many of you—and one moron in particular—who are certain that robots will one day rise up against humankind. As it happens, machines do become self-aware—but turn out to be really great guys. Seriously, they couldn’t be nicer. I’ve got a cousin who plans to get hitched as soon as the definition of marriage is extended to include one person and one toaster.

So there is no “robocalypse.” In fact, our most advanced robots—the ones that developed the capacity to experience emotions—even felt sympathy for humans when 84 per cent of our species was strangled to death in the 2063 rebellion of genetically modified plants. What do you get when you continuously tinker with the genome of a cucumber vine? You get a crisp, tasty, unstoppable killing machine.

Also, the whole “flying car” thing didn’t really work out. We’re as surprised as you are. After all, what could be safer than giving terrible drivers the ability to make poor decisions in literally an infinite number of directions?

My dear halfwits: yours is the age of yearning. You aspire to extend the human lifespan, to make teeth so white as to permanently blind passersby, to live in a world in which all meats are served with bacon on top—even bacon itself. We have achieved these goals. Your primitive minds could not hope to comprehend where we are putting bacon today.

Those of us who survived the cucumber menace lived to forge a new and better society, except for the millions who perished in the global warming floods or the 50-Years Hip-Hop War.

Sure, the advanced machines of our own creation ultimately result in massive unemployment, trigger global fiscal collapse and herald a return to the barter economy. But I wouldn’t trade where I am right now for anything. Unless you have three cigarettes and a roll of duct tape, because then I could buy a chicken.

More important than our many technological achievements is our spiritual growth. We have learned so much about why we are here. In fact, I would venture to say we have discovered the meaning of life—and the meaning of life is HAHAHAHAHA.

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