Photo of Elon Musk sitting in a cuck chair. Photo Credit: Wcamp9
Billionaires are butt fucking the planet, but in the past, at least they used lube. Now they don’t need to because they distract us with dipshittery ripped directly out of pop culture’s old interpretations of the future.
The present is the future in the science fiction films made in the past. And since we grew up on movies like Blade Runner (set in the super futuristic year of 2019), Robocop and other slop that filled our little heads with depictions of what the future could be, there was always a part of us that wanted the slick neon lights, flying cars, and seemingly impossible technology.
But the future, despite all the cyberpunk doom we see in our depictions of it, is ideally supposed to lift all boats.
Apparently, Elon Musk never got the memo that science fiction is supposed to inspire us to build a better world, not just find increasingly expensive ways for rich assholes to avoid interacting with the rest of humanity.
Musk has spent years teasing the possibility of a flying Tesla Roadster, because apparently making a car that drives on the ground isn't enough when you're a billionaire who desperately needs everyone to think you're Tony Stark.
And even if he eventually delivers, I have some bad news.
A flying car isn't that fucking impressive.
We've had airplanes for more than a century. We've had helicopters for nearly as long. The technology required to lift a human being off the ground and transport them somewhere else isn't exactly a new discovery. It's something we figured out before women could vote in every American election.
Putting that technology into something that resembles a sports car might be an interesting engineering achievement, but it isn't going to fundamentally change the human experience.
You know what would?
Making housing affordable. Building public transportation that doesn't suck. Developing technology that allows people to work less without forcing them into poverty. Creating a healthcare system where getting cancer doesn't come with the added excitement of potentially going bankrupt.
But none of those things look particularly cool in a promotional video.
A billionaire can't stand onstage in front of a functioning public transit system and pretend he personally invented the future. There are no dramatic doors opening, no smoke machines, no audience full of Tesla shareholders applauding like they've just witnessed the second coming of Jesus Christ.
It's much easier to sell people a flying car than a functioning society.
And that's what makes the whole thing so depressing.
We're living in an era when artificial intelligence can generate realistic videos, robots can perform increasingly complicated tasks, and computers can accomplish things that would have seemed impossible just twenty years ago.
Yet somehow, the average American is still spending an enormous portion of their income on rent, sitting in traffic, and wondering whether they'll ever be able to retire.
The future arrived. It just forgot to bring any of the benefits.
Instead, we got billionaires building toys for other billionaires while telling everyone else that technological progress will eventually trickle down to them.
It's Reaganomics with rocket boosters. Which means it’s fucking useless.
