predictions for the next century

If current trends continue as they are, we will see wonders in abundance. For example:

1)The internet

In the next century, the internet will be available in every home on Earth and the Inner System of Confederated Planets. Still no wi-fi in the Oort Cloud. Despite its reach, the internet will no longer be used by ordinary people. Instead, genetically modified howler monkeys will IM each other all day long, upload amateur porn and hurl insults at each other, which will allow the rest of us to lead productive lives.


2)Food

All food will, of course, be available from home replicators for pennies a month. In most countries, though, dining out will be mandatory, and exclusive use of the replicator for a 24 hour period will entail punitive loss of orgones.


3)Insects

There will be no goddamned insects. You hear me? Enough with that shit. But you can expect a sharp uptick in man-eating spiders.


4)Orthography

In one hundred years' time, no one will know the meaning of the word 'orthography'. The future marks the return of the Golden Age of Spelling, with lots of unnecessary e's and plenty of double consonants thrown in. This will be all Geoffrey Chaucer's fault (see below).


5)Baby boomers

Yes, they'll still be around. Anti-aging therapies will create a race of mummified gerontocrats who continue to wrestle popular culture into submission. From beneath the hollowed-out caverns of Colorado the Immortal Council of 12 will legislate all matters of taste. Their motto: "Take It Easy".


6)Religion

There will be only one official religion, the Church of Classic Hits And The Best of Today. Although services will traditionally fall on a Sunday, congregations are encouraged to “tune in” and “sing along” any old time, especially while driving down the boulevard in a snazzy convertible. This informal worship will be called “the snazz”. The Catholic Church will be reduced to a bunch of homeless men hanging around industrial parks.


7)Women

There will be no women in the 22nd century. In January of 2072, all the men will wake up to find a note on the fridge saying “Take care”. Every six months a glittering alien spaceship will descend from the Oort Cloud and deposit a few thousand male infants, who will stare wordlessly and make mewling noises instead of human cries. An expeditionary force to find the putative Planet of Women will be launched in 2101. For all the men of 2107 know, the members of the expedition have located the Planet but elected to stay there.


8)Geoffrey Chaucer

The invention of a working time machine in 2009 will turn out to be the most decisive event of the future, even though it will have taken only one round trip to the 1300s before being destroyed within seconds of its return. The instigator of the destruction will be the time-travelling stowaway Geoffrey Chaucer, sometime medieval poet and tyrannical genius able to work his will on the minds of men by means of alien technology. After the decade-long battle with the Immortal Council of 12, a peace treaty will be struck in which the Council rule on matters of taste and Chaucer become Official Head of the Inner System of Confederated Planets And The Principality of the Oort Cloud (ISCPPOC, or Iskapok). Chaucer will then declare all history between 1400 and 2009 a dead zone, “a vaste Marshelande withoute Croppes, that is yclept a Middenne”. When greeted with the news of the 2072 departure of the women, he will say, “Lo, my nosethirles waxe wood”. His reign will never end.