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The Onion in 2056
agonist writes "Has anyone seen The Onion in 2056? I accidentally ran across it after clicking on one of the hyperlinks in my weekly Onion email." It's been awhile since we link The Onion. Always good for numerous laughs.
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Satire.... meant to be funny.... not to predict future accurately....????
The Crimson Dragon
The Onion is kind of like Saturday Night Live. Hilarious for the first season and crap ever since.
Sure, since 50 years ago (1955), it was pretty much like it is today...well, except for the Internet, the Cold War and Globalization
Globalization has been happening for several hundred years. Start with China's and Spain's silver trade for one. Nothing new, just no one noticed it until recently.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The Globalisation was already happening then. Had been for centuries, actually. The difference being that back then, it was called colonisation (or Imperialism, if you may). The Cold War? Yeah, is if the world today is much different. The Internet? That might be the biggest news of these three. But it hasn't made the world that much different (neither will hovercars). Mutants? World peace? No change of this scale is ever going to take place in just 50 years.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
One story they missed, though, is that even in 2056, some slashdot geeks still don't have a sense of humor.
Fer chrissakes... so it's in Flash... turn off flashblocker for 5 friggin' minutes and read some of the stories... they're quite good.
I can literally hear my computer huffing and puffing to keep up with this page, because the temperature-controlled fan turned on as they rendered.
Ahhh, I remember the good old days of...
:(
"Russian Scientists aboard Mir conduct experiment on effects of terror in space."
and
"Area man confused by buffet procedure."
Sure a little politics is humorous, and the American Civil War (Bush/Gore 2000) and Holy Fucking Shit: America at War was really really great. But now every single time it's: "Bush is an idiot, hee hee, Iraq whatever, blah blah blah." Yeah, we get it already.
Haven't read it in over a year... just died out of my rotation naturally...
"Semi-People" Magazine features "50 Hottest Mutant Bachelors"... ...classic.
Those wacky humanoids.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
For those entirely missing the point, the problem is the old maxim that over time the usefulness of proprietary software (and also proprietary plugins) drops inexorably to zero.
A simple example - I'm running a 64-bit version of Firefox on Linux. There is no Flash plugin available for this platform, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it because only Macromedia make the plugins (yes, I know you could reverse-engineer the thing...)
So, I can't see the content, now in 2005. What will it be like in 2056? What are the chances of Macromedia still producing a plugin or supporting a 60 year-old technology? Flash content has an unknown lifespan completely out of your control.
HTML is an open standard. There are free programs available now which can parse it. When you use HTML you can be sure that in the future there is a very good chance of it still being accessible because even if the standard falls into disuse you can still go back and read the open spec and recompile / reuse the free code out there.
Flash in 2056? It's true irony...
Take heart. They're really only upsetting you and about four other Sleshdot viewers. Everybody else doesn't care.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I'm disappointed - the only people named on slashdot are "John Doe" 1 through 200. Shit - how do I get this loser/fucking moron/asswipe to sue *me* sometime before the year 2056?
Maybe this will work: Merkey - you're a fuckwad loser, a poser, and a total asshole. Sue me. PLEASE SUE ME!
OK, so you don't get the joke. BUT. Aside from that, you are quite simply wrong. Look at 1955 compared to today. Try taking someone from 1955 and explaining to them what the internet is. Email? TV was new an emerging technology then. GPS. The cold war, the Vietnam war, the farce going on in Iraq right now. The Berlin Wall, HIV and AIDS, breast implants, lasic eye surgery, reality TV, Starbucks, cellphones.... It would all seem like ... well, an edition of the Onion to them.
Now think of 1950 compared to 1900.
A lot can happen in 50 years. Things that we probably wouldn't even understand now.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
> Flash in 2056? It's true irony...
I actually took this to be part of the joke. web content out of control, contributing to the hellishness of dystopia.
more accurately, I didn't take it as a direct slam on Flash, but rather a statement on how we seem to move toward complexity instead of simplicity. (cell phones are a good example.)
gadgets gone wild, you know.
So you've been reading The Onion since the "first season" then? You realize that was in 1988, right? You're from Madison, you went to the UW and have been around since the beginning, huh? And that's when they reached their peak?
/grew up in WI, moved to NYC, thinks the Onion is hilarious.
Or maybe you meant 1996, when the website launched? And your contention is that everything from '97 on is shit, huh? Maybe you should read through their archives and think about that.
The Onion can be uneven, sure, but that's what happens when you take chances with your comedy. Sometimes things fall flat or perhaps more accurately, not everything connects on a comedic level with everyone. It's possible being from the midwest or having grown up in Wisconsin would help you connect with some of the comedy. Or, ever since they've moved to NYC, I've noticed some of their jokes are more directed at people there, so it'd help if you lived there.
Just because you don't find a particular joke hilarious, doesn't mean that there isn't a group of people out there who do. Never underestimate the hilarity of The Onion, even if you aren't in on the joke.
Any time they quote a price, it's given in Yuan - which is not a bad bet. :-)
The era of a dollar-dominated world is ending.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton