Well . . . actually . . .
What impresses you when you travel to 2048?
The profound tranquility, punctuated only by the skittering of cockroaches.
How friggin high the tides are and how I now own a desirable beach-side residence when it was four miles inland and 100 feet above sea-level.
The arctic ice cap is but a faded memory as are the polar bears. After being out of power from 2009 to 2033, the Republican majority in 2035 passed a Consititutional amendment requiring the use of the new Diebold Record-a-Thought technology where the voter looks at a ballot, his retinas are scanned, and his preferences are recorded electronically and he never knows exactly who he voted for.
I’m impressed with the teleportation exercise bike on which you input your destination, and when your cycling speed reaches 30mph, you instantly appear wherever you want, thus ensuring no more traffic chaos, and a relatively fit population.
•Huh. It turns out we can win a nuclear war, and survivors were the lucky ones.
•Damn Liberals…bunch of white-haired old farts trying to make everything like they remembered it in the good ol’ days.
•PanAm’s on strike again. Like I can’t find another bus line if I wanted to.
•Looks like a good year for Fox—they canceled their new season’s lineup almost an hour after they announced it to the press corps. They actually completed a few episodes to release this time. (The Simpsons is still on, though…geez, anyone else remember when they still had backgrounds and audible dialogue?)
•More mass protests over the new solar plant, I see. (At least they waited until after sunset before the self-immolations started up.) The militant albedoPlus-ers are getting worse: I guess they’re taking lessons from the NIMBYs honking about all that aluminum being used within fifty miles of a school (as if those they don’t have it hard enough—I think I saw a poor kid still hauling MOLLE webbing at hir bus stop yesterday. You expect a student to carry hirs fifty pounds of books, personal security devices, and personal hypoallergenic meals in outdated equipment like that?).
Miniluv doubleplusgood.
That or
l0l m1n1luv 15 73h r0xx0r
The Straight Dope will become promoted to minitru, given up its task of fighting ignorance in disgust after [newspeek | 1337 speak] takes over we decided to just screw with everyone and rewrite history, making it more crazy and disjointed every revision. “Unca Cecil” will be considered God-King-Emperor and the SDMB initiation rituals will be required coming-of-age tests.
If she didn’t, though, the terrorists will have won!
I guess while the thread takes a turn towards dark humor, 72% of the American population thinks the world is less than 6000 years old, and that anti-gravity is a ‘trick of the light’, and doesn’t really exist.
Selectively polarizing glasses and earplugs must be worn when going to the liquor store to cut down on all the glare from the High Def/Hi Fi/WiFi packaging the alchohol comes in. (Low Carbs, Low protein, Low Hydration, AND FREE INTERNET ACCESS - It’s a MD 20/20 for the YEW GENERATZION! [does not contain real fruit])
Damn dirty apes.
“Phantom of the Opera” is still running on Broadway and the West End.
There are little wind turbines EVERYWHERE. They’re noisy and everyone longs for the good old days when cities were quiet. They’ve all forgotten how noisy traffic used to be.
I will be impressed by the hue of the glass that makes up 95% of the surface area of our planet. A pretty shade it is…
After eleven straight presidential losses, Republicans, having officially changing the party name to Fiscalists, finally come to their senses and exorcise the remaining die-hard racists and bigots from the party, removing all social inhibitory planks from its platform as well. Conservatism is all but dead, becoming synonymous with troglodytery to a public increasingly cognizant and wary of the promotion of ignorance as a silent tool of mass oppression.
Religion still exists and its practice is as prevalent as it was in the early 21st century 40 years earlier, but its influence in politics is virtually non existent. Politicians now keep their religious beliefs to themselves.
Serious talks are underway to work out the details of a global currency.
Palestine exists as an independent state, but tensions remain between it and Israel, as Palestine, a poor country with little resources to spare, is constantly pressured to abide by the agreement of 2040 to reimburse Israel for cost of relocating the former Jewish Settlers to within the borders of Israel proper.
Iran, having annexed Iraq 25 years earlier, and 5 years later renaming it Iraqistan, now has a vibrant and open economy with intellectual and relative religious freedom. Shia Islam is still the state religion and encouraged, but its repressive fundamentalist aspects are looked upon as quaint and not enforced.
The people of Iraqistan, children of returned refugees from the days of the Iraq/American war, are generally poorer and less educated than those of Iran, and provide the lion’s share of the low-skilled labor force for the Iraqistani petroleum companies, of which there are many, also serving as maids, housekeepers, cooks, and nannies to well-to-do Iranians. Drilling, refining and prostitution are now the only self-sustaining industries in Iraqistan.
The AU (Arab Union), formed in 2032, is in long-term and contentious negotiations with the EU to broker a peace deal that would end the continuing genocide in Turkey, an EU member state.
In 2021 China lands a manned ship on the Moon. The US makes three manned landings the following year, six more over the next five years, and sets up a mobil, permanent station, which leads to ongoing hostilities and saber-rattling between the two countries. Russia sides with China in the dispute.
In 2042 the US sends a 13 member crew to Mars in the largest space ship ever built with nuclear propulsion engines. During the journey, an engineer accidentally (so the published account states) dies by oxygen poisoning while testing the nitrogen/oxygen mixture of one of the evac suits. All other members arrive and land on Mars safely and on schedule. A manned outpost still runs today, with another mission planned.
Computers are faster and lighter. Keyboards are no longer necessary because of improved technology perfecting speech recognition. The desktop computer is a thing of the past as all computers are now mobile. The internet is accessible anywhere, but isn’t free.
Still no flying cars.
That should be: After eleven straight presidential losses, Republicans, having officially changed the party name to Fiscalist,…
Corrected for clarity.
Mmhmm, I knew someone would say that. Irrelevant. The man on the street did not expect the internet.
Bret Favre is still not sure whether he’s going to retire at the end of the 2048 NFL Season.
Well, I for one, welcome our new simi…
Never mind
I’m wondering what we’ll discover (like asbestos and Lawndarts)
Whoda thunk bottled water was the source of all allergies?
That Cellphone radiation was GOOD for you?
Starbucks is a carcinogen?
That would impress me. And it could actually happen.
Same answer as above
Ah. “Nobody expected the Internet” except for the people who did expect it. Gotcha.
Sorry, a snark opportunity like that doesn’t come by every day. 