The Future’s not what it turned out to be

Whilst we wait for big babies to blow up the world and the Earth’s crust to eat itself, maybe we should wrench ourselves away from our Facebook feeds for one last go at fixing things.

I’m pissed off at the future! Not the future that is to come, but the future that was to be. The one we’ve actually ended up with today.

When I was a kid, the future was meant to be fricken awesome! Mankind had matured, planets had been conquered, the laws of physics had been mastered, the Earth had been saved, disease and death had been dismissed and technology had been tamed.

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But Sci-Fi lied. We were cheated.

Welcome to the 21^st Century kids. Welcome to 2017. Welcome to a world on the brink; welcome to an eco-system out of synch; welcome to a planet plundered and ravaged almost beyond repair; welcome to a humanity gleefully racing towards mutual self-annihilation whilst determined to major in mindless mediocrity.

Welcome to Idiocracy.

Hey! What are you mister?

‘I’m a has-been undeserved TV celeb and a ruthless real-estate con-man billionaire, that was born with a massive gold spoon stuffed in my mouth, out of which nothing but drivel flows – and the spoon’s still there too.

‘I have an ego the size of the hole in the ozone I don’t believe in, hands the size of the prick I am. I’m self-obsessed, and couldn’t give a curried shit on a diarrhoea day about anyone else. I am so old I’m out of touch, am so childish I crave constant attention, and I believe diplomacy is best practiced with fists – preferably nuclear-tipped ones.’

Perfect! You can be the leader of the big loud-mouthed place with the most powerful destructive forces in existence locked in a flimsy briefcase. And whilst you hoard all the big bananas, feel free to obsessively ensure no one else even grows a grape.

Not that grapes or bananas are gonna help anyone. Because if the bomb won’t get us, business will.

Booming business is great we all think. Good for the economy, good for jobs, good for our illusionary bank accounts, good for national pride.

But one’s pride is another’s envy. And a third’s oppression.

Make stuff. Sell stuff. Get everyone to spend stuff they don’t have. A financial meltdown looms. Doesn’t matter. Spend more. Buy more. More, More, More! Let’s create more stuff that no one needs. That serves no purpose. But we can make us want it. The latest phone. The latest car. The latest dress. The latest whatever.

That’s all great. Except that we’re asset-stripping the planet whilst we’re still on it. Anyone notice that? It’s like you’re ripping up the floorboards and chiselling from the walls of your own house to make stuff to put in the home that won’t exist for much longer!

We’re producing more than we need with less than we have. And the figures don’t add up. Something’s gotta give.

But it won’t matter, because the world will come and go, but we’re so transfixed to screens that give us such an overwhelming deluge of pointless nothingness, that we really won’t be aware of what’s occurred until a status update pops up – ‘Planet Earth is Dead’.

Then we can pretend to feel worthy by selecting the sad face emoji and changing our profile pic to one of a floating blue marble in space – an image that was supposed to remind us how important and how insignificant we all were at the same time.

I’m talking to you. I’m talking to the man in the mirror. I’m talking to the world. I’m talking of a future that’s still yet to come. I’m talking of a hope that’s still yet to be harnessed.

I came across something wonderful recently, a Native American saying: ‘You don’t inherit this Earth from your parents, you have it on loan from your children.’ That puts our responsibilities into context doesn’t it?

If you think the future has been written, fortunately there is still time for a re-write. C’mon people, let’s drop the sticks and stones, hit the keyboards together and collectively create a better tomorrow before it’s too late.

Set Sci-Fi right again. Please!