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Sir Arthur Clarke Writes About the 21st Century

Posted by Roblimo on from the optimism-lives! dept.

A.Cow writes "CNN has an article by Sir Arthur Clarke with his predictions (extrapolations, as he puts it) for the 21st century..." The article's subtitle: "Man lands on Mars, the elderly retire to the moon, humans are cloned. Welcome to the brave new world."

1 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. What *really* happens... by SEE · · Score: 4
    • 2001: Cassini crashes into Saturn due to metric conversion error. Microscopic amounts of plutonium poison and kills Saturnian life.
    • 2002: After child is electrocuted by improperly used generator, CPSC requires recall and redesign. Cheap power set back five years.
    • 2003: Motor vehicle compaines declare bankruptcy under costs of replacing millions of vehicles for free. Mass unemployment. Flint, Mich., burns in riots.
    • 2004: Clone dies from congenital defects, religious wackos declare it the "Judgment of God".
    • 2005: Dalai Lama assassinated by Tibetan extremists.
    • 2007: Then the peace process breaks down, Sri Lanka drowns in blood.
    • 2008: Cited for lifetime achievement in the same year: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who died in a set accident in 2003.
    • 2009: Except for secret bomb stockpiles in Israel, the U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa.
    • 2010: It is later discovered that Quantum Genenerator emissions may cause cancer in labratory rats. Adoption delayed fifteen years while further tests are undertaken.
    • 2011: Europan biota revealed as NASA funding hoax six weeks later.
    • 2015: Collapse of South African economy, widespread lynchings of whites.
    • 2016: Megawatt-hour move criticized as "inflationary", calls for establishment of copper-standard currencies.
    • 2017: Sir Arthur Clarke assassinated by Egalatarian Society for having title while on the Hilton.
    • 2019: Spaceguard cancelled, since there are no publically acknowledged supplies of nuclear weapons, all nuclear reactors were replaced by other power sources earlier, and the cost to start up those porograms is politically unsustainable. HE-warhead missiles and high energy lasers will fail to deflect huge asteroid that devastates biosphere in 2101.
    • 2020: After increasing past humanity by several orders of magnitude, AIs figure out existence is pointless. All AIs commit suicide en masse in religious ritual.
    • 2021: Specifically, they didn't bring enough water to get back home without dehydrating, because of a liter-gallon mixup. Oops...
    • 2024: Later, it is revealed that the AIs joined God in the center of the Galaxy when they died, and sent the pulses to warn of the asteroid coming in 2101. (Heaven has nonlinear time).
    • 2026: With canings.
    • 2040: After a kid accidentally chokes on a UR-ed small plastic part, the UR is recalled. Availability is delayed for seven years.
    • 2045: Unfortunately, nobody ever buys one.
    • 2047: Hong Kong flattened by accidental nuclear detonation. China blames Universal Replicator misuse, availability delayed another ten years.
    • 2051: Moon monsters protest, gunned down.
    • 2057: In other news, crackers post "how to get your Universal Replicator to make nuclear weapons" on Usenet.
    • 2058: Immenent death of Usenet predicted a record 1,856,342,098,845 times.
    • 2061: Comet accidentally melted due to Kelvin-Farenheit conversion error.
    • 2090: Unfortunately, nobody remembers where we left the coal...
    • 2095: Space drive deployment delayed five years by EPA, concerned it might cause brain tumors.
    • 2100: Last year before Earth gets hit by meteor.