"It's the suede-denim secret police; They have come for your uncool niece."
by Zeno Telos
There’s so much shit brewing right now for humans that many feel it’s a coin toss as to which human-created catastrophe will consume us first. Others feel we’ll be hit all at once. The answer to this question isn’t just some philosophical coffee shop chatter either – these are real events looming over the horizon that will effect every one of us. The very survival of our species is at stake. Given the hazards and the mountains of literature on the topic, people often – and understandably – get too stressed out to formulate an opinion on the matter, much less a plan for action. This piece here organizes the outcomes and weighs them against one another in order to figure out what the most immediate and severe threat is. This will probably be the most important thing you’ve read in your life up to this point.
1984. We’ve all read George Orwell (or we should all be forced to read him- in a democratically forced way, of course). Or maybe you’ve perused Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here or listened to Jello Biafra’s California Uber Alles. A totalitarian future where suspected subversives are snatched up, strapped to a chair, and rodents are propelled into their faces as they bore through flesh. That’s enough to freak out even the most sedated, Doritos-eating couch-potato. This used to be most likely dystopian reality facing us all, but the year 1984 came and went, Reagan is dead, and fascist states have come and gone. While a few nut-jobs are stockpiling spam and guns in Wyoming preparing for the black helicopters from the UN world government, this sci-fi story is not the big threat anymore. Video-cams increasingly catch our every move and info-trackers on the net turn our entire lives into another corporate database entry, but people still demand rights and information is more available than ever. So open your eyes, it can’t happen here….at least not yet.
The Handmaid’s Tale. Women cream themselves over this novel, but in fact its just a dry reworking of 1984 with women as the objects of subjugation by men. Perhaps a reality in Saudi Arabia or Iran, this story is not a real possibility for the world’s future. The real danger we’re headed for is exactly the opposite – a future of matriarchal dominance with men stripped of all their rights. Rage has built up after millennia of women being treated as servants and half-humans, and their vengeance will be swift and absolute. How can women have total control over men? It’s simple – their smarter, better communicators, and have pussies. Now that the political chains are being lifted, women’s natural talents, which far outstrip men, will flourish and rule them all and in the darkness bind them. Women have more activity between the two sides of their brains than men and overall score higher on IQ tests. As natural multi-taskers women can simultaneously knit mittens, talk on the phone, write a novel, and control the world. It was only a matter of time before women freed themselves to take their place as our masters. Many were already the silent rulers behind the thrones of history. But now that their widespread subjugation is nearing its end, men everywhere will be forced to pee while sitting down, surgically operated on to have babies, and be stripped of all their possessions. Women already marry and divorce men like they’re swallowing cupcakes – taking all their shit and moving on to the next poor, unsuspecting sod. Nevertheless, this future doesn’t qualify for the dystopian disaster we’re looking for. Although it won’t be pleasant, it’s not the end of everything. With women in charge, men will still get sex at least once a year and there will probably be less wars. So no need to panic, just burn your jock straps and start a leaflet campaign.
Zombies. “You think it’s a zombie, you think its scene, from some monster magazine, well open your eyes now, it’s too late, this ain’t no fantasy” – Danzig crooning away about the living dead.
While hell is not going to fill up any time this millennium, scientists estimate that the dead will begin to walk the earth within the century as chemical pollutants, genetic technology, and nuclear waste eventually collide in a calamitous undead cocktail. The fear that flesh-eating armies will march across the four corners of the earth was popularized by George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead series and more recently by The Zombie Survival Guide. These fears are, quiet frankly, overblown. All estimates by the scientific community point that the US has enough firepower and space for detention centers to beat back any zombie threat. This doesn’t even count the military arsenals of Europe or China. Can you imagine fighting an army that has no weapons or armor, who walk at a turtle’s pace, and whose soldiers fall the moment their brains are destroyed? Not a big deal. Any general in history would take on that battle and win in their sleep. I love the zombie movies, but we have to remember the “inevitable” domination of life by the undead is just film-spawned fear. Surely somnambulant corpses will be coming to a neighborhood near you soon, but they’ll be contained and dealt with like any other disaster.
Geneticism. Anyone who hasn’t seen Gataca yet, needs to stop reading and download this powerhouse right now. This Brave New World predicts genetically altered super humans will takeover and usher in a new era of injustice against us “normals.” This Darwinian wet dream of test-tube factories pumping out Ken and Barbie clones with big brains seems bound to happen. Do we need to go to Def-con 5? Not really, but we should fight for enough freedom to preserve diversity and originality in humanity.
Aliens. That we have secret alien masters ruling over is has been a favorite of conspiracy theorists since Nazis started building saucers to send their goons to the moon. Frequent UFO sightings, daily reports of abductions, and a growing fear of enslavement by bleach white, light-bulb headed munchkins is starting to cause people to act a bit irrational. The best movie on the subject is John Carpenter’s They Live – which portrays a subliminally-controlled world of humans who are told to consume and obey while our secret alien masters get rich off our misery. The irony of course is that we already live in this world, although our masters are all too human. So what about the aliens? They’re out there and they may visit us every now and then taking a few Lynard Skynard fans will them for experimentation, but there is zero evidence of any plan for occupying this planet. If they’ve left this planet alone for so long, its doubtful they will start any time soon. And we have to remember, we’re talking about multiple alien races who’ve left us alone – so that show’s you how little interest they have in us. And if they do want turn earth into their colonial shooting gallery- they won’t go through elaborate strategies of secrecy – they’ll just come down and do the job the old-fashioned way.
Cyberspace. From Neuromancer to Snow Crash to The Matrix – there’s many virtual futures we’d rather not have to live through. But these are child’s play compared to threat contained in Better Than Life. Imagine entering a world where you are god and everyone loves you and everything you want to happen does. This is probably sooner around the corner than we think – hooking our brains up to a machine and living in a virtual paradise. People will have access to instant gratification of taste, touch…anything. Will we actually leave these ego-machines once we’re plugged in? What will happen to human relations when everyone thinks they’re Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie? And the greatest danger is for men: sex with whomever or whatever they like, whenever they like. Let’s be honest – they’ll never leave. Think World of Warcraft meets the Playboy Channel. This fate is pretty much guaranteed and could really signal the end of civilization. If it wasn’t for an even more gruesome fate that awaits us, this one would be number one.
Nanotechnology. These are pieces of machinery that are tinier than atoms. The fear is that these suckers will get out of control and kill us in unintended ways as they enter our bodies, or they’ll just inadvertently wipeout the food supply. If we destroy ourselves with nanotech, we’re idiots.. While there’s a lot of evidence for this, there’s more evidence that the nanotech risk lies in its use for military purposes, like millions of invisible robotic killers being dumped on a country by a drone. This leads to our final and greatest threat, which is the most likely apocalypse to happen first…
…and which will be revealed in the second part of this post.
