The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

by Scott Feschuk

  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sex and the City XXXVII: Samantha’s Bawdy Bicentennial. Enjoy the threesome with Betty White.

  Kurzweil envisions a future in which heart-attack victims will “calmly drive to the doctor for a minor operation as their blood bots keep them alive.” Additionally, nanobots will help advance our mental capabilities to the point that “we will be able to write books within minutes.” (This confirms what many of us have long believed: Danielle Steel is an immortal.)

  Eventually, says Kurzweil, these nanobots will replace our blood cells and do their job thousands of times more efficiently. The result? Within a quarter century, we’ll be able to run for fifteen minutes without taking a breath. We’ll be able to scuba dive for several hours without oxygen. My God, Kirstie Alley may even be able to eat without sweating. Truly our world will be a paradise.

  Think of how the pace of life will change with the Reaper out of the picture. No longer will we feel the pressure to succeed so early in life. We can stay in grad school until the age of 180, then bum around Europe for a century. We can take the time to hone our skills and talents. Consider all that our artists will achieve given the luxury of life without end. Give her a couple of thousand albums to work on it, and it’s even possible that Kesha will learn to sing.

  But if nanobots do indeed hold the secret to eternal life, a number of vexing ethical questions will soon confront society, foremost among them “Who gets priority access to these tiny miracles?” and “How do we stop Kanye West from getting any?”

  After all, there are plenty of potential downsides to immortality, such as the threat of overpopulation, famine and more Rob Schneider movies. And let’s face facts: as humans, we can already get pretty sick of other people, often in a matter of months, sometimes in a matter of seconds. Can you imagine how bitter everyone will be after four hundred years of disagreements, disappointments and personal grudges? And think of the impact on our political discourse. Children will no longer be our future. We will be our future. WE WILL BE OUR OWN FUTURE. That’s just messed up.

  Consider also the economic costs of an immortal society. The disappearance of mid-life crises will decimate industries devoted to sports cars, hair weaves and prostitutes. Paying alimony to thirty ex-husbands will wipe out Liza Minelli. And just wait until Wall Street dreams up risky ways of bundling and securitizing your two-hundred-year mortgage.

  Come to think of it, immortality may be more trouble than it’s worth. Sure, you get to live forever. But so does the guy who draws Garfield. Frankly, it’s hard to see how that balances out as a positive. Besides, death has its upsides. It’s the ultimate escape, freeing us from credit-card debt, tedious social obligations and—so far as I understand how the afterlife works—the need for trousers.

  It even offers us relief from the company of ourselves. Don’t get me wrong: there’s no one who thinks I’m greater than I do. I love me! But in my heart of hearts, I’m not sure I want to spend eternity on Earth with someone who knows all the lyrics to that “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight” song.

  Besides, let’s face facts: not even eternal life would truly be eternal. We’re humans. We’d find a way to screw it up. Most likely this would take the form of an apocalypse.

  An apocalypse would be a terrifying scenario for two reasons:

  The whole “apocalypse” part. They’re almost always a real buzzkill.

  The aftermath, which might be even worse.

  How could it be worse? Well, let’s put it this way: despite being a human male with my very own keys and testosterone, I am afflicted by a number of great fears: heights, tight spaces, unicorns (that pointy horn isn’t for show, little girls—what do you think caused Care Bears to go extinct?). But my greatest great fear is the unfolding of a scenario in which the vast majority of humanity is wiped out in an unspeakable cataclysm … and somehow I remain alive.

  You’d think the prospect of improbable survival against absurd odds would bring relief, even joy. Perhaps for you and the resulting Zombie King. But the toil of rebuilding civilization will inevitably expose me for what I am: useless. Completely useless. Skill-lacking, mistake-making, job-avoiding, thumb-hammering, handyman-calling useless. This is no false modesty: closing in on a half century of existence, I cannot be relied upon to construct anything more complex than an enchilada.

  And there are others like me. Many others. We use BlackBerries, but can’t grow blackberries. We can’t hunt or saw or fix. We’re the only people who read The Road and went away jealous, wishing we had the talent to carve a flute from roadside cane while walking to our inevitable demise.

  At first, our uselessness won’t matter. Everyone will be so excited about not being dead that for a couple of weeks we’ll probably all just make out with each other and ridicule Al Gore for being wrong about global warming causing humanity’s comeuppance. But eventually some high-maintenance jerkface is going to casually mention how it would be nice to have a roof or a rudimentary form of sanitation or clothes of any kind. And that’s when things will get awkward.

  In my nightmares, I picture it. We’re gathered around the campfire. The talk turns to divvying up jobs.

  “I’ll tend to our medical needs,” says one person.

  “I’ll draw up architectural plans for permanent shelter,” says another.

  It’s my turn now. Everyone looks to me.

  “If I work hard and really concentrate,” I tell them, “I may be able to remember the plot to every episode of Gilligan’s Island.”

  If I’m lucky, the apocalypse will have obliterated all the crickets. Otherwise, this is their cue.

  Frankly, it’s a bad era in which to be useless, especially on this continent. According to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, nine out of ten Americans live in a place at significant risk for some kind of disaster, be it hurricane (Florida, Louisiana), earthquake (California) or pestilence (Miley Cyrus’s bedroom). Yet the head of FEMA says the agency is reforming its mandate. No longer will citizens be treated as victims. Instead, they’ll be expected to pitch in as “crucial first responders.”

  Ladies and gentlemen of North America: trust me on this. If I am your first responder, arriving at your side in a moment of crisis and life-threatening peril, you are going to want to do one thing and one thing only: you are going to want to wait for the second responder. Believe me, I’ve given this a lot of thought: I have no idea what I could do to help my species get back on its feet. I suppose I possess the ability to teach, but—unless the Macarena becomes a useful tactic in military defence—I lack any skill worthy of teaching.

  Could I be a doctor? No. A nurse? Double no (I lack medical training and I look fat in scrubs).

  An engineer? Oh dear Lord, no. My kids won’t even let me near their Lego since I “helped” build their Jedi starfighter (it ended up looking like a Jedi 7-Eleven). Scientist? Nope. Carpenter? Nooo. Mechanic? Ha, you’re funny. Woodcutter? No, but if you give me $8, I can overpay for prepackaged kindling at a hardware store.

  Better to stick to what I’m good at. Attention roving bands of scavengers: Do any of your fledgling societies require someone to take an afternoon nap?

  If we do experience an apocalypse, we can find some comfort in the hope that Morgan Freeman will still be around to narrate it.

  I don’t remember ever reading about this in the news, but apparently Congress passed a law and now Morgan Freeman has to do the voice-over for every single thing ever made. You hear him on TV reading the copy for Visa ads. You hear him narrating some two dozen movies and the Hall of Presidents exhibit at Walt Disney World. And if you’re anything like me, you hear him in your head when you are making a pie.

  He grasped the rolling pin gently but firmly, the tender pastry succumbing to its wooden will …

  Morgan Freeman has become to voice-overs what Emmylou Harris is to musical collaboration and what Don Cherry is to unfinished se
ntences. One can only imagine the impact this professional sideline has had on his domestic life.

  Morgan [sitting at the dinner table]: … and my beautiful wife graciously passed the potato salad, its thick coating of rich mayonnaise and delicate hint of dill serving as a faint reminder of a childhood lost to the mists of time—and a fleeting moment of contentment that can never be recaptured.

  Morgan’s Wife: Shut up.

  Morgan: Her nostrils flared as she spoke, her eyes afire—not with joy, mind you, but with malice, indignation. And regret as well. Such regret. Fingers clenched, she glared at the—

  Morgan’s Wife: No, seriously, shut up. For once in your life just shut your mouth.

  Brief pause. Morgan’s Wife sighs in exasperation.

  Morgan: After a brief pause, she sighed in exasperation—then grabbed the pepper mill, dense and metallic, its silver sheen reflecting the atmospheric glow of the candles as she raised it high above her head, summoning energy now from some dark place she did not often visit but to which she never forgot the path, and brought the blunt, heavy object down upon his head with a sickening—

  Thwaaack!

  But what form will our apocalypse take? Will it be loud and explosive, like a Michael Bay movie? Or will it involve relentless horrors and unending torture, like sitting through a Michael Bay movie?

  Everywhere we turn these days, there are ominous signs. Birds by the hundreds falling from the sky. Fish by the thousands washing up on shore. Ears by the millions bleeding from Creed records. This seems like a good time to explore what’s killing us now.

  Superstorms: Did you hear this? The Earth’s northern magnetic pole, which usually moves around a little each year, recently made a beeline for Russia—possibly because Sarah Palin yelled at it from her porch. Pick a side, magnetism!

  Whatever the reason, some experts believe the shift will eventually cause havoc with the weather and may ultimately set off a cycle of dangerous superstorms with winds as high as 600 km/h. Gusts of that magnitude “would likely destroy anything they come into contact with,” said a report published in the Journal of Duh.

  The implications are many. Mass death. Untold destruction. Plus, CNN is running out of time to genetically engineer a team of 1,300-pound super-correspondents with the lower centre of gravity required to pointlessly stand outside during such storms.

  Pets: Do you enjoy sharing your bed with the family dog or cat? According to new research, this is definitely something you should continue doing if you’re a fan of cuddling and agony.

  According to a US veterinary professor, domestic animals that sleep with or lick their owners are more likely to pass on “zoonoses”—which sounds like a Dr. Seuss book but is actually a range of diseases that are mostly minor, except for the ones that kill you.

  I, for one, am as shocked as any dog owner. Who’d have thought animals that thrust their noses toward the anus of each playmate and consider feces a tasty snack would wind up being dangerous to French kiss? Life: full of surprises.

  Pandemic: We gave you a decade and you just couldn’t get it done, bird flu. But then a few years back, swine flu emptied streets, churches and bars across Mexico in less than a week, creating feelings of nostalgia for the good old days of murderous drug-war crossfires.

  Public health officials say swine flu is difficult to combat because it’s essentially an amalgam of four different viruses. As it spreads, the strain is constantly changing shape and mutating, like a microscopic version of Joan Rivers’s face. Still, governments responded to the most recent crisis with swift action. For instance, Canadians flying to Mexico were handed a pamphlet advising them what they should do to try to avoid the flu. One of the things they should do is not accept pamphlets from strangers but, no, too late.

  Nuclear obliteration: There’s Iran to worry about. And North Korea. Plus, short-sighted governments continue to stand by idly and allow citizens to walk into stores and purchase ninety-nine red balloons.

  The Sun: Usually thought of as a benign presence responsible for life on Earth and the invention of the halter top, the Sun is actually a place of great volatility and explosive eruptions. Think of it as a celestial Billy Bob Thornton.

  According to what Wired magazine describes as a “chilling report,” the years ahead may bring solar storms with tremendous destructive potential. These geomagnetic events would unleash powerful flares capable of “short-circuiting energy grids” across the planet, causing trillions of dollars in damage and plunging humankind into the stone age. With my luck, it’ll happen right after I drop thirty bucks on an electric kettle.

  Admittedly, a geomagnetic storm wouldn’t kill anyone directly. But these flares—which are alternately described by scientists as “solar climaxes” and “coronal mass ejections,” making this the dirtiest sounding of all the potential apocalypses—would serve as “the great off-switch in the sky,” leaving us without electricity for years and setting off a global panic characterized by uprisings, war and Candy Crush withdrawal.

  Is there anything we can do? Yes, yes there is. Researchers say we could add “some fairly inexpensive resistors in the ground connections [of our transformers],” significantly reducing the potential damage. Does anyone think we’ll actually do this in time? No. No, they do not.

  The Rapture: This one seems like a no-lose scenario: the just and faithful are summoned to the kingdom of heaven for an eternity of peace and bliss, and the rest of us get their clothes.

  Economic collapse: During a recent lecture, a prominent British commentator offered his assessment of the global economy. Martin Wolf referenced debt loads, bailout funds and all that—but permit me to distill his message to its essence: EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

  Indeed, by the time Wolf was done speaking of likely default in Europe and a potential worldwide depression, it felt as though nomadic Huns were poised to smash through the walls and make off with our animal skins and womenfolk. His vision of the future made The Road sound like a buddy comedy.

  Wolf is by no means alone. I sit here writing in prosperous times for pessimism. Pretty much every day we wake up to news that the Hang Seng is down 3 percent, which is a bummer because hearing “Hang Seng” used to be so much fun to say, in that it sounded like a bounty hunter from Star Wars. When it comes to retirement, many of us have given up on the dream of Freedom 55 and now grudgingly accept the reality of Freedom Andy Rooney, wherein we position ourselves behind a desk until we die working at the age ninety-two.

  Some economists now believe most nations are destined to suffer through what’s known as a “double-dip recession,” which we’ve been trying to avoid because that’s how the germs of the first recession get into the salsa.

  Peruse the words of the so-called experts and you come to believe that our best-case scenario now is one in which developed nations make like Japan and endure a lost decade in economic stasis. The worst case? We revert to a prehistoric society by Halloween, and maybe if we’re lucky someone remembers how to make fire.

  I may not have a degree in economics—in fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t. They tend not to bestow them on students who think Supply and Demand is a pop duo from the 1980s. But economic collapse may not be all bad. It’s stressful trying to keep up with the Joneses. Maybe we’d all enjoy an extended period where instead we tried hunting the Joneses for food. The crumbling of the economy and the return of the barter system would really just come down to memorizing some new exchange rates. Don’t get ripped off, kids: remember that one roll of toilet paper equals three chickens.

  Strangelets: Back during construction of the $8-billion particle accelerator that runs under the border between France and Switzerland, a lawsuit was filed. It claimed the ruin of the Earth was nigh—and that this planet-ending apocalypse would be unleashed not by space aliens, or gigantic mysterious sea creatures, or even by a vengeful God weary of being asked to alter the outcome of professional sportin
g events and home pregnancy tests. No, the planet we know and love would be destroyed by … by …

  By nerds.

  The suit claimed that the Large Hadron Collider is capable of such a massive discharge of energy that it could inadvertently create a tiny black hole with the potential to consume the entire Earth. This is a complex scientific phenomenon known in the parlance of particle physicists as “bad.”

  As we learned from the original Star Trek series, black holes are a region of space with gravitational fields so powerful that they make starship captains so horny they’ll make it with a four-armed green lady. But it might not be a black hole that kills us. The lawsuit, filed by a former nuclear safety officer and others, argued the Collider also has the potential to create something called a “strangelet,” which would transform our planet into “a shrunken, dense, dead lump” no more than 328 feet in diameter. (Even under such a scenario, it is estimated that 68 percent of Americans would continue to drive their SUVs to the corner store.)

  For their part, scientists insist there’s nothing to worry about—that the odds of Earth being destroyed by the accelerator are equivalent to one person winning a national lottery three days in a row. And since the facility opened, they’ve implemented a regimen of rigid safety protocols, including high-tech monitoring of energy levels and tricking the janitor into standing next to the thing when they turn it on in the morning.

  What’s important is this: if we are truly doomed, don’t get so caught up in panicking and having rash, pre-apocalyptic sex with me that we overlook the fact we’ve had a good run. Consider our accomplishments as a species:

  Mastered bipedal locomotion