Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Onion in 2056

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

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.

11 of 387 comments (clear)

  1. At least Jim Anchower is still there by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 1, Interesting

    But why do people think that 50 years from now is going to be so significantly different from now? The Middle East is now a peaceful group of countries? Hovercars? Actors are now mutants and considered attractive?

    50 years from now it's going to be pretty much like it is now with a few more conveniences, but we aren't going to see a wholesale change in the world as is frequently supposed by so-called futurists.

    1. Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there by Netsensei · · Score: 2, Interesting

      50 years from now it's going to be pretty much like it is now with a few more conveniences, but we aren't going to see a wholesale change in the world as is frequently supposed by so-called futurists.

      Global warming, pollution, shifting global powerbalance (china and India establishing as major world powers!), massmigration, falling birth numbers in the western world,...

      I'd say, in fifty years I'll still be working to get some money on the table while our asian overlords decide which kind of rice we should eat the day after that. What I am saying: the western world is already over it's top. We shouldn't be surprised to wake up one day and notice that we aren't the center of the world (anymore).

    2. Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there by interiot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because history is speeding up rapidly. Because the US and Russia have only been superpowers since the end of World War II (61 years ago), and since then, one of the superpowers has fallen. Because in the past 150 years, Japan has gone from complete and utter isolation to having nuclear weapons dropped on them to becoming a primary supplier or advanced electronics and automobiles and is now losing marketshare to India, China, and South Korea. Shit changes fast.

  2. Seems far fetched. by dwalsh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These Onion people will never gain credibility as a news organisation if they cannot do more credible forecasting. Perhaps they should recruit that Dvorak gentleman.

    (Above irony aside, if you read one of the Onion books, they have an issue from 2000, post election. The have a humorous forecast of the what the Bush presidency will bring which is eerily prophetic - "atleast one Desert Storm sized war", recessione etc.)

    --
    ${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
  3. The future is Flash? by Szaman2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since I'm running Debian and Flash is not installed I was refreshing the page for like 5 minutes (while reading slashdot in the other tab) before I realized that the top of the page was simply made out of interlaced flash animations which would not load. I had to scroll down 3/4 of the page to actually see anything remotely readable.

    So let me guess - in 50 years everyone will be having a T3 line or some fiberoptic monstrocity so people wont even bother with HTML and make pages entirely in flash? You know - so that you can't adblock or greasemonkey out the advertisments? Yeah, right...

    On the other hand, with the way things are going now it's not so far fetched as it might sound. By that I of course mean the abandonment of HTML for something flash like - not the T3 in every house. Imagine this this - in 50 years we will have to watch a full screen, un-skipable comercial in order to get to slashdot - and then another one to read the comments. That's what I call progress!

    --
    I'm teminally incoherent
  4. Re:Click here to download plugin by SlamMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When IE handles PNGs properly, maybe people'll start to use it more (alpha channel, what alpha channel?)

    --
    Mod point free since 2001
  5. Re:Hah, good one! by rherbert · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The most annoying thing is that I can't Ctrl-Click to open the articles I want to read in a new tab. Ahh, Mozilla, how you've gotten me addicted.

  6. Re:Click here to download plugin by BRonsk · · Score: 0, Interesting

    The main reason I did not install any flavor of flash is that it consistently uses up to 100% CPU with many websites. I know it's not Macromedia's fault if some crappy coders generated a SWF that eats up 100% of my CPU, but it is their responsibility after all.

    Everytime I install Flash (because I need to see something) I get screwed a while later with Firefox eating up all the resources. Then I uninstall.

    Oh well...

  7. I Used to Love the Onion by ndansmith · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I respect their satirical style, but their coverage of September 11 and the Tsunami were so offensive, I find it difficult to go to their page now-a-days.

  8. Re:Stopped reading it when it got so political... by feepness · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I call bullshit. You find it to be un-funny because you just plain can't look past your own political bias. When Clinton was in office he provided plenty of material to lampoon.

    I wondered if someone would say that. Please re-read my post. I never said it was biased... I just said the Onion got MORE political and it got old after awhile... you always knew what you were going to see. I went there looking for silliness... not commentary.

    You are absolutely right that it started with the whole Lewinsky fiasco. But believe me, there was a time it was far more balanced... and also... I have never voted for a Republican in three decades of eligibility.

    Maybe I'm not the one whose slanted?

  9. Re:Click here to download plugin by podperson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Flash is proprietary but the file format is open and well-documented and last time I checked there was an open source clone under development...

    Given the truly staggering amount of Flash content out there, the idea that some kind of support for it won't exist in 2056 is daft. It may be running under 15 layers of emulation ... but who cares?