It’s the future now, officially. Well, pretty much. So what the fuck happened?
When I was a kid, I used to think about what sort of stuff we’d have to play with by now. Personal spaceships and hoverboards and the like (I was a kid, what else would you expect). Except none of that has happened yet and we’re still driving around in regular old cars and I still don’t understand how skateboards work, nevermind flying ones that hover slightly off the ground. I fully blame TV for this, and also my tiny little idiot brain, because it isn’t capable or intelligent enough to invent such things. Fuck you, Brain. You thick bastard.
Of course, certain things do ‘feel’ like the future. This very internet ‘feels’ like the future and to a large degree it is. I can’t imagine life without it, and after a few days without it most people my age start climbing the walls or clubbing each other dead like cave-people. I have an iPhone and whilst it isn’t perfect, it looks and feels and acts like the future. Compared to, say, the Nokia Brick I had back in the day, the iPhone is a futuristic space phone from Space that does all sorts of spacey things. We have all sorts of stuff like this, objects that both enhance our lives minimally or in ways we don’t even notice. They fill gaps that didn’t exist 15-20 years ago. Or so I imagine…I don’t ever remember my Mother bemoaning the lack of an internet-enabled device that allowed the owner to speak to people all over the world whilst also watching porn on the toilet. When I get an email pop up I don’t think ‘ooh, that’s fantastic, that this small mix of plastic, metal and circuits is able to do this’, I just think ‘why did I even sign up for this newsletter?’ or ‘what do they want?’.
Where things have sprouted up to fill a gap we weren’t aware of, they haven’t gone far enough yet. My mp3 player doesn’t link to my mood, and play suitable music yet. It doesn’t automatically switch on and play soothing music into my ears whenever I’m stuck getting irate, listening to a thoroughly dull person witter on at me. It could also double as an alarm, for when my heart finally packs in out of laziness, it could detect that happening and react to it, letting people know I’ve just died and I’d like them to do something about it. Or it could play some Motorhead as it notices I’m starting to thump my last few beats, to jolt me back into life with a shot of musical adrenaline.
Death, too, seems far too prevalent in today’s society. Not for the old, infirm or generally under-healthed, but for those times when a promising young person (say, me) just drops dead for no real reason. Doctors should be able to skip back a bit, revive me (or whoever, preferably me) and have another go, atleast trying to figure out what the problem was.
(Please don’t let me die).
It’s the boring things that should have changed, rather then the things we didn’t even know we needed. Things like ironing. It’s dull as shit and everyone hates it…yet we’ve had to do it for years, in some form or another. Yes, the actual ‘ironing’ appliances have improved over the years and become more fancy, but in my mind that’s not enough. In this age where consumers will shell out fairly large amounts of money to save themselves time and effort, why do things like Irons still exist? There must be a better, quicker, lazier way, surely? As a race, have we not evolved past beating our own precious clothing with hot, heavy metal objects to get the creases out? I’m being lazy and pedantic, but I can’t think of a worse way (beside repeated painful sodomy) to waste a few hours than being stood ironing clothes.
Where things have improved, they’ve improved in pointless ways. Sure, dishwashers mean you don’t have to clean each individual dish yourself…but then you have to clean the dishwasher. And actually own a dishwasher. A personal slave is probably more financially viable, and you don’t have to clean those. Or, keen to avoid any accusation of racism (because people get jumpy when you say the ‘S’ word, even though I didn’t mean it that way) how about a Robot Butler? Even though they don’t exist. Why don’t they exist? This is the future, after all. This is the exact type of problem I’m facing.
Everything looks dull still, too. If you see a video clip from say, the 1970′s, the world still largely looks the same now as it did then, aside from the grainy-brown filter that video cameras used back then for some reason. Nowadays, in the future, I’d expect more chrome. Chrome everywhere. Chrome houses, cars, cats, pavements. I want my shiny future world, all slippy and slidey that I have to walk around in wearing shiny future suction shoes. What the f**k, scientists and designers? Where is it?
Whilst I’m on the subject, where the hell are the automatic doors in my house? The ones that go ‘whoosh’ then I walk past. Sentient ones that I can taunt, and argue with when they’re unruly or moody. Ones that will, if I treat them well, open up an escape route through my house in case of a fire whilst simultaneously fighting the flames. They could even rescue my Robot Butler.
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