By Cal Hansen (new Staff slave)
YEAR
2000
If there's one thing that 1960's and 1970's
sci-fi has taught us, it's that 2000 is the future. Well, here we are, but where
are all the wonderful sci-fi has promised us? Aside from some cool inventions
(the two-chambered bong, for instance) we were... well... duped. Here we examine
what we were lead to believe the future would be like as opposed to how it REALLY
is.
SCI-FI PROMISED...
BUT
WE GOT...
A space-station run by a computer
named HAL that goes crazy and kills everyone. A space station named MIR run by
Russians that falls apart and kills everyone. Rocket cars that are really cool.
Some guy who welded a JATO rocket to his piece of shit car and packed himself
into a cliff 300' feet off the ground. (Darwin Award winner) Laser guns that destroy
everything in sight. Laser pointers that every asshole in America brings to the
movies to ruin it for everyone else. A manned voyage to Mars in 1999 would reveal
a colony of bald people with weird costumes living in crystal houses. A beach
ball looking probe lands on Mars to reveal... dirt. We will be able to rebuild
people, better faster, stronger than before (for a mere 6 million dollars). Scientists
spend billions growing a rat with a human ear on its back. A utopian state where
everyone is killed at age 30 in a festive celebration. Florida, a state that everyone
moves to at age 90. Computers that still take up full rooms, but have a myriad
of cool flashing lights and whizzing gears, used to predict the future. "Gameboy."
The invention of robots will eliminate the need for human labor. The invention
of the internet, cell phones, faxes and computers eliminate the possibility of
free time. Infiltration by a number of body-snatching aliens who will pose as
normal citizens until they're caught and killed. Infiltration by a number of illegal
aliens who pose as normal citizens until they're caught and deported. Due to the
lack of food and the number of people, the people are fed "Soylent Green,"
something that turns out to be people. McDonald's. (Which is made of...?) People
will invent cyborgs that look and act like real people (or at least Yule Brenner).
People invent little electronic pets that you keep in your pockets and have to feed. Whee.
If you ask us, we were lied to. We were led to believe that the future would be a wonderous place full of cool technology and endless bounty. We really don't give a shit either way, but where are our cyborg-women?