Six predictions for tomorrow

1 January 2001
And Matt'll tell you why they're all wrong.

1. In the future sex is free and easy

I'd contend this isn't even a prediction, given the same is true today so long as you ask politely. And sex isn't difficult so long as either (a) you have a reasonable percentage of the full complement of limbs; or (b) your accomplice is on top.

2. In the future we live on the moon

A lump of rock with negligable mineral deposits? We're more likely to live on state handouts. There's no air, no water, no aliens. No bars, no beaches, no women. Mind, with free and easy sex and the pert breasts that lower than Earth gravity would surely encourage, lunar life might have it's good points (two of them).

Of course, this is given the moon even exists, which any sensible thinker doubts.

3. In the future global conspiracy is uncovered

Which global conspiracy would that be then? Conspiracy One: Everyone who's seen a UFO has their mind erased. True, because in this case "everyone" equals "zero". Conspiracy Two: Our lives are controlled by bankers in Switzerland. You can tell I know this is true because I take severe steps to protect myself. I mean, they aren't going to kill me with the size of my overdraft, are they?

In an international community of six billion people engaging in free and easy pillowtalk (among other things), how long do you think secrets are kept for? Ah, but I forgot -- in a world of casual fucking you're wanting to make things sloppier still, so you wouldn't know. Take it from me, there is no conspiracy.

We're just all pretending there is.

4. In the future what went around, comes around

Only not as much. Consider: Assume that the amount of badness or goodness you perform comes back to you, in exactly equal measure, from a non-human source in some following lifetime. Given that one can never remember their past life (or lives), so we're going to have to average karmic effects across the whole of humanity.

Also assume that population growth will continue much as today: that is, upwards. So the amount of goodness/badness thrown back at us by the yin-yang action of the universe, per head, is going to less than the amount performed, per head, originally.

The benefit of hypermalthusian growth is that our actions have no pushback. The downsides are crowding, disease and starvation.

As an aside, this also explains why in periods of war actions of great bravery or cowardice are much magnified: population shrinkage, you see.

5. In the future the revolution is not televised

You're telling me that sex, space and global conspiracy aren't worth even a single made-for-tv movie? And don't tell me you still believe in revolutions. For every revolutionary there'll be three who aren't: One selling the produce of a world ignoring change, and two others buying it.

We're a fragmented society. We live in communities that never even talk, let alone stand shoulder to shoulder, brothers and sisters against the imperialist scum. Give me a break, I'm sure you'd rather watch the football.

6. In the future I still love you

I could say I won't because you'll be old, because I'll be moonstruck with pert young body parts. I could say because I'm striking out to find aliens on the moon, that the government have been covering this up for years, and you - yes, you've been helping them, I know you have, the voices told me.

I could say it's because I must inflict terrible things on you because you trod on a snail in your past life, said snail being an incarnation of god on Earth, and I am an agent of the cosmic balance. I could say it's because you're dull. Because you sit in front of the television, flicking from channel to channel looking for the end of the world. Searching for disease and fire and war, desperately hoping, at the stroke of midnight, for some kind of New Year's resolution to occur, which it won't. Watching for news of volcanoes and floods and death, news which isn't there, whilst outside the window people die of starvation and of obesity on opposite sides of the same fence. Whilst aliens take New York and the bankers perform a synchronised coup, with Swiss precision, in every government of Europe. Whilst mankind takes to the streets asking, nay demanding that you, yes again, you do something, anything, about the state of this world we live in, in your capacity as Man, as someone who can really do something, really achieve something, if only you tried. If only, if only you tried. Which you don't, so I won't love you. I could say that, all of that, and quite truthfully too.

But really it's because you don't have enough legs, and I'm bored of going on top.