All the science fiction I read as a kid has been a great trial run for the current reality. We have synthetic selves, AI chatbots, embedded intelligence, and money run by a consortium of your peers.
That’s not too shabby considering that my favorite utopian science fiction Star Trek depicted San Francisco as a crime ridden dystopia with a vast chasm of financial inequality. Oh wait.
I didn’t expect future shock to be so tiring. I expected a bit more fun and optimism and a little less doom, fascism and reactionaries. But I guess like all humans, we forget that our history is just repetitive series of discovering that power corrupts but human ingenuity prevails at solving the problems we bring in ourselves.
How long that luck holds is now in our hands. I sure hope we don’t fuck it up too much as we fuck around and find out. And if I’m going to survive future shock I need to take care of myself, stay one step ahead and make sure I have a little fun along the way. A steady hand and a calm nervous system is necessary for a chaotic world.