From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.tech
Subject: Ordinary Life in the 21st Century
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 22:15:17 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Yes, everybody's favorite thread is back!  New and improved, with
50% more stupidity-scrubbing power than before!  I never kept any
archives of the old thread, so I don't remember everything that has
been covered before.  I expect to cover some of the same ground
over again, so please don't mind a little repetition. -- The Editor

BEDS -- Bedrooms will disappear as the Murphy bed makes a
comeback in the form of a thin flat plate which folds down from
the wall and expands into a smart foam.  It molds itself to your
body, senses anatomical landmarks which allow it to determine
the position of all your bones, and applies pressure to subtly
push your skeleton into a position optimal for resting each joint
(especially the spine).  It gradually moves your body around, to
rotate the pressure among the various positions your body can take.
Room-temperature superconducting SQUID magnetometers read
your brainwaves, and the bed produces an appropriate reaction.
A dial on the side of the bed allows you to adjust the "liveliness"
of the bed, ranging from the imperceptibly slow motion of "senior
citizen mode" to the wild and crazy "teenage wet dream mode".

CHRISTMAS TREES--As Christians become more and more ignorant of
the historical origins of their religion, Christmas and New Year's Day
will merge into a single holiday, the highlight of which will be the
burning of the Christmas tree.  A really authentic traditional
Christmas tree burning will consist of igniting a dried-out pine
sapling using high-wattage incandescent bulbs or candles tied to the
branches.  The Red Devil fireworks company will sell a complete
ready-to-go Christmas tree for people who would sacrifice a little
authenticity in order to have a really good pyrotechnic show.  (As
a salute to tradition, it comes in a box shaped like a suburban house,
which is consumed as the display runs its course.)

HEALTH FADS -- The next big fad will be zero-gauss chambers,
i.e. mu-metal cabinets designed to exclude all magnetic fields.
All sorts of grand claims will be made for these metal coffins which
shield a person from electromagnetic radiation.  Some of these claims
are real, but they are a consequence of the way in which it acts as
a sensory-deprivation chamber, rather than any electromagnetic
effect on the body.

MUSIC -- Continuing the trend toward minimalizing engagement
of cerebral cortical neurons, Rap music will be supplanted by Wap
music, which preserves the rhythm and percussion of Rap but
dispenses with the semantic content.  The #1 Wap music song of
the year 2000 is:  AP AP AP KAP KAP KAP KANG KANG KANG
ANG ANG ANG.  It is the hit song of the top-rated group AEIOU.

SUBTRACTIVE DRUGS -- A new category of drugs will be molecules
which bind and inactivate organic molecules, much in the way that
chelates bind to inorganic molecules.  By removing specific molecules,
such as the brain hormones released in response to stress, a whole
new set of drug therapies will be developed.  Unlike the "additive"
drugs we have today, which add a substance to the chemical ecology
of the body, these "subtractive" drugs will have very few side effects,
no overdose capability, and no tolerance effect.  They may, however,
be addictive.

OLYMPIC GAMES -- Once it becomes possible to use nanomachines
to build human tissue indistinguishable from natural tissue, the
Olympic committee will have to surrender their taboos on human-
enhancement technology.  Future Olympics will consist entirely of
games which make direct neural connection to the brain.  Victory
will go not to the largest muscles, but to the finest-grained control,
fastest reflexes, and most precise feedback.  The contestants will be
evaluated in virtual reality, presenting identical conditions of wind,
track, etc. to each athlete.

PSYCHIC POWER -- Implanted receivers will allow people to sense
and interpret the electromagnetic fields produced by brainwaves
in other people's head, providing a form of psychic power.  People
with sufficient familiarity with each other's brainwaves, such as a
married couple, will actually have a form of telepathy.  This
technology will be smoothly integrated with New-Age belief systems,
resulting in one or two generations of very confused people.

CLOTHING -- Smart clothing will sense the thoughts of both the
wearer and people in the nearby vicinity.  For example, if a
flirtatious girl catches the attention of a horny guy, the clothing will
sense that and make appropriate adjustments.  If he mentally
undresses her, she could suddenly find herself wearing a skimpy
bikini in public!

PSYCHOSURGERY -- Temporary and permanent lobotomies will be
performed by tiny remote-control valves injected into the blood
stream, which lodge themselves in cerebral arteries to slow or stop
blood flow into selected regions of the cerebral cortex.  Initially used
for psychiatric treatment of criminals and the mentally disturbed,
the technology will "leak out" into the recreational drug mainstream.
The principal abuse will be destruction of certain thalmo-frontal
tracts in order to create a permanent state of euphoria.  (If you don't
believe this is possible, see _Psychosurgery_ by Freeman and Watts,
2nd edition, Charles C. Thomas, 1950, pg. 151-152.  I disagree with
the cause speculated in that text, and I think the potential for this
condition exists in all brains.)

SOCIAL SECURITY -- Because of the demographic size of the baby
boom generation and the raised political consciousness of that
generation, they will control the U.S.  As they become eligible to
receive Social Security benefits (beginning around the turn of the
century), Social Security will become an even greater sacred cow
than it is today.  I know that is hard to imagine, but it is inevitable.
Government policy will enslave the post-baby-boomers to finance
Social Security.