Feschuk - The future and why we should avoid it killer robots, the apocalypse and other topics of mild concern

The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

Copyright 2014 Scott Feschuk

1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, info@accesscopyright.ca.

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Edited by Cheryl Cohen

Cover art and design by Dave Murray

Interior illustrations by Dave Murray

Text design by Carleton Wilson

Printed and bound in Canada

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cataloguing information available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77162-033-8 (paper)

ISBN 978-1-77162-034-5 (ebook)

To our future overlords, be they robots, monkeys or Clintons

Introduction

The future!

It sounds so great and exciting until you give it some thought. Thats when you realize that the presentthe time were living in right nowonce was the future. Look at the calendar: politicians and futurists once forecast that this very day would exist as a utopia in which poverty would be eradicated, the races would live as equals and Nicolas Cage would no longer make terrible movies. The children of the children who were our future would be busy being their future. Or something. Point is: by now, life should be awesome and leisurely and you should be wearing a spacesuit and high-fiving your wisecracking robot sidekick. Except instead your dishwasher is broken, your goddamn iTunes wont sync up and right now youre reading this book on a toilet in your bathroom instead of where you should be reading iton a toilet in your hover car.

Somehow, our priorities always seem to get mixed up. The future never seems as futuristic when its the present. We should be flying to work with our jetpacks. Instead, were focused as a society on producing 427 different Coke products, including Caffeine-Free Diet Vanilla Cherry Coke Zero for People Named Donna. Have you shopped for dishwasher detergent lately? Deciding on a university is less mentally taxing. Powders, liquids, tabs, gel packs. Not long ago at the grocery store, I came upon a grown manthirty, maybe thirty-fiveholding two boxes of Electrasol Gelpacs: one lemon-scented, the other orange. And then he, he sniffed them. Our eyes met. Were we warriors in ancient Japan, the code of honour would have demanded that he kill himself on the spot. But we are twenty-first-century Canadians, a civilized and humane peopleso the chore fell to me. Its for your own good! I yelled, beating him with a Swiffer. No life is worth living after that.

Think of the brainpower employed by companies like Gillette, a division of Procter & Gamble. Think of all the scientists and researchers with high-quality educations and protractors who devoted years of their lives to developing the razor manufacturers 2014 breakthrough devicea handle that pivots slightly. Gillettes Fusion ProGlide razor with FlexBall Technology is so powerful that it allows capital letters to be placed in the middle of made-up words. It also apparently responds to facial contoursunlike our old razors, which, when confronted by anything other than a perfect 90-degree angle, simply exploded into flames. The people behind the development of the FlexBall could have been working on a cure for cancer or for whatever makes Billy Corgan sing like that. Instead, they went to work each morningday after dayto devise a razor that, by the companys own best estimation, shaves facial hair one-fortieth of one millimetre shorter than before. So now men all around the world can wait an extra six seconds before they shave again. Thanks Gillette!

Because of the human imagination, the future will always amaze. Because of every other aspect of humanity, the future will always disappoint.

The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

Reason No. 1: Gadgets

You can tell that the pressure has been getting to the people at Apple. The value of Apple stock seems to drop every time the company goes several minutes without completely reinventing how humanity communicates. As a result, executives preside over launch events at which they perhaps just ever so slightly overplay the significance of the iPhones screen icons changing marginally in appearance or, whoa, the pixels are now 12 percent more pixelly??

Indeed, Apple keeps encouraging us to get more and more excited about less exciting products. The iPod was revolutionary. The iPhone was cool. The iPad was neat. To be followed by the the the iWatch? Really? Isnt that a bit like the inventor of the wheel encouraging his audience to get pumped for his next groundbreaking creation: the hubcap?

This is not to entirely dismiss the potential of the iWatch. Analysts foresaw the device appealing to consumers who want all the convenience of what their iPhones already do, but with the added benefit of giving Apple another $200.

Okay, fine, the iWatch sounds redundant. But it may also be the best of what Apple has in the product development pipeline, which doesnt bode well for future announcements

Apple CEO takes the stage to unveil companys new offering for the not-too-distant future.

CEO : Welcome everyone! Weve got some exciting news to share with you today.

[Twitter buckles under the weight of exclamation marks from Apple faithful.]

As humans, we yearn to be connected. To friends. To family. To appliances, vacuums and casual sportswear. Apple knows this. We get it. After all, we are the company that created iSnuggie, the first fleece blanket with oversized sleeves and WiFi.

I want you to close your eyes.

I want you to picture your toaster. Youre probably thinking, My toaster is fine. It does the job. Why on Earth would I want my toaster to do more stuff?

But what if I told you that your toaster could do more stuff?

[Wild applause and multiple orgasms from the Apple faithful.]

Ladies and gentlemen, Apple is on a roll when it comes to forever changing the way people live, work and stare blankly at things.

Last year we unveiled iCap, which used sixteen precisely calibrated sensors to finally take the guesswork out of detecting hat head. I am proud to announce that we have now shipped in excess of twenty million units of iCap 2, which does pretty much the exact same thing but has a little propeller.

Six months later came another Apple game-changer. And I hope you dont mind me taking a moment to brag because, despite all the catch-up work done by our competitors, I can still make the claim that only iCouch allows you to update Facebook using your ass. Take that, Google Heinie.