2059: The Future

It is the year 2059. The residents of the US have a big problem. Computers are now so advanced that everyone has a microchip embedded in their head, which is a super-fast computer, with unlimited disk space and super-fast Internet. And the Internet itself has advanced as well, becoming 3-D, and incorporating virtual reality. Every one can ‘tour’ Paris from the comfort of their house, or can ‘visit’ Disneyland from the safety of their living room. Nobody goes out anymore, all preferring to ‘go to school’ from home, ‘work from home’, or ‘take vacations’ from home. Consequently, all hotels became quickly unnecessary, unneeded, and were forced to shut down about 30 years ago. Everything basically went downhill from there.

Houses’ values skyrocketed, with those valued at 100,000 dollars becoming worth about 5 million. This was because nobody ever moved house. Why should you, with all you would ever need there in one house? If you wanted food, you’d ‘call’ a food delivery service from your head. A business conference call? No problem, you can make it from home. Is there a movie you want to rent or a family game you want to play? Don’t worry, you can rent movies from your house, and can connect microchips with your family to play a virtual game.

All generations live in one household, because housing is too expensive. This however, leads to children trying to oust their grandparents or parents, because the children don’t yet understand money and how much houses are worth, and they don’t like living with their family for the rest of their lives.

If you thought that Americans were fat or obese 50 years ago, think again. Now, the average American is about 350 – 400 pounds. This is because all they do is just shuffle around in their houses, from the chair to the bathroom and back again, eating whenever they feel the slightest urge.

Since Americans are sitting inside, they don’t get to see their neighbors, or go outside to grill. Sure, they can do these things virtually, but virtual reality lacks reality. If you were to go virtually camping, sure you get all the smells and feelings, but it lacks the authenticity of the real thing.

Scientists are no longer trying to develop the world of science; they just sit back, growing fat. Doctors and hospitals are no longer needed, only big ‘homes’ where you go to live for a while when you are terminally ill. People are dying much younger nowadays, as they aren’t getting any exercise, so their hearts are much weaker than they used to be.

Almost everyone is out of a job, as machines now do things that were once done manually. We have one robotic mail courier for the entire US, for there are so few snail-mail letters being sent. The president is elected for life, and stays almost his entire life indoors, carrying out all the executive orders. We have robot cops, robot senators and jurors. But the robots don’t get to do anything, as all of these things can be done from our handy-dandy little chip, without moving anywhere.

Our nation is in a huge crisis, one that probably will never be resolved. It can all be boiled down to one sentence:

We (Americans) are big fat lazy overeaters and don’t care about the fate of the US as long as we have our food on one knee and our life in our heads; it’s a shame that something wasn’t done about it fifty years ago, when we still could have altered our fate and prevented at least a little bit of this catastrophe.