FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Welcome to the Future

 Hello and welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, a blog of glorious purpose.

No, let me try that again. 

Hello and welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, a blog of no real definable purpose.

OK, that seems more like it!

Whatever the hell this is, I can't make 7 of these posts a week so Friday is set aside for a blog post I've already written. 

I call it Flashback Friday.

Today is the first Flashback Friday of 2022 so I'm going to post the first ever post New Year's post from Wednesday, January 1, 2014.

So let's hop in the TARDIS to go back in time 8 years to find out how little has changed in 8 years with a posted titled....

Welcome to the Future

Hello, time traveler from the past and welcome to the future!

Welcome to the year 2014!

I know you have many questions regarding what has become of the world in the intervening years since you left what you call the present but we call the past to come here to the future which is what we call the present. I know you must be excited to learn of the amazing technological marvels and social advances we have obtained here in this far flung future.

OK, I don't mean to be a downer on the subject of your dreams and aspirations for the future of mankind but here's some of what we don't have here in the future:

• Jet packs
• Flying cars
• Force fields
• Orbital vacations
• Lunar bases
• Robot pals
• Android sex surrogates
• Holographic interfaces

On the other hand, we can play Candy Crush Saga on our phones so I guess that's a fair trade off.

The big thing here in the future is our use of the internet. Back in the past, scientists postulated that one day computers would be able to talk to one another enabling mankind to share and grow our knowledge exponentially and lead all of humanity to a glorious age of peace, understanding and fulfillment.

Well, to be honest, we haven't used the internet for all of that. OK, we haven't used the internet for any of that.

We mostly use the internet for porn.

Lots and lots of porn.

All right, to be fair, there are other things that we use the internet for:

• Schematics for bombs
• Dissemination of random conspiracy theories
• Virulent attacks on opposing viewpoints
• Crackpot statements of extremist ideology
• Overheated comments on comic books
• Accidental racism and homophobia
• Deliberate racism and homophobia
• Pictures of ourselves
• Pictures of ourselves naked
• Pictures of ourselves naked having sex
• Blogs

Oh yeah, blogs. You're reading one now. Yep, this is my blog. A blog is like a journal or a diary where we can put down thoughts and feelings that are deep, inspiring and meaningful but more likely than not, stupid. And the whole world can read them. Well, they CAN read them. Problem is everyone has a blog now so who has time to read these things? 

So anyway, this is your future. There are some things that have changed for the better. For example, race relations. We actually have a black President here in the United States and to show you how far we've come, all the racists who can't stand that fact have come up with all sorts of ways to express that without using the word "uppity". Now that's progress!

And gay people are cool now! Yeah, they're out there getting married all over the place. Well, not ALL over the place, but in those states where it's legal and not totally against the law for gay people to ever get married. But we love gay people! Especially if those gay people are Ellen Degeneres and Neil Patrick Harris. Everyone else, we're still working through some stuff but we're getting there. OK, there are some churches out there who seem to have moved their entire "help the poor and sick" budgets towards "stop the gays at all costs" programs but still... 

Hey, you're leaving? Already? Don't you want to hear about our social advancements in the area of work and labor? In your time, you may have heard that in the future the 5 day work week would be a thing of the past as we would have more time for leisure. Well, we're halfway to that goal. That's right, for millions of people, the 5 day work week is a thing of the past! We've accomplished this through a two-prong process of:

• Having millions of people without any jobs
• Making the ones who still have jobs work more than 5 days a week.

Oh, you really have to go? What about the advancements we've made in frozen soft serve yogurt in a variety of flavors?

OK, if you have to go.  Feel free to visit us here in the future anytime, maybe in the year 2015. Possibly by then, we will have those holographic interfaces up and running by then.

You know, for improved access to porn.