Paradigms Lost, and Regained
By Gary Clemenceau

[While the past holds sway over some government types, most folks live for the future. So, what will the techno-world be like 20 years from now? With this in mind, AcmeVaporware’s Night Janitor, Gary Clemenceau, spoke with Day Janitor Dr. John Smallberries, a research fellow at Morvalia Polytechnic University and internecine chairman of AcmeVaporware, and asked him to make a few predictions.]

GC: Dr. Smallberries, what do you see happening in the world of 2027?

DRJ: 2027 will invariably see a complete and utter collapse of 99% of installed communications infrastructure. This failure will cause end-users to employ an advanced form of archaic Yonder-reaching Echo Location Layer (YELL) vibratory accoustic transport to communicate over indeterminate distances. This form of voice data transport, once the domain of parents and military personnel, will see a resurgence in the average end-user for all forms of mimetic and accusatory transport. Additionally, 2027 will see mainstream implementation of obsolete data packetizing paradigms re-introduced in a variety of physical layer applications: Vermin Area Networks (VANs), once merely a Medieval physical-layer routing solution for pestilence and disease, will be employed extensively across most parts of the world to move data packets in much the same way that data packets move in networks today, only much less efficiently, and with a bit more in the way of stink. Already, voles and rats are being tested in several labs, many without their knowledge, or consent.

GC: I see.

DRJ: Yes, it should be exciting.

GC: Um, what exactly is physical layer routing?

[Dr. Smallberries hits the interviewer in the arm.]

GC: Ow.

DRJ: THIS is the physical layer. Routing means addressing and moving things around, like the mail. The packet is the letter. In fact, the coming physical layer routing Renaissance will ultimately give rise to Bionic Area Networks (BANs). Strangely, examples of this supercharged physical layer packetizing technique exist today. Already in the U.S., several hundred "volunteer" postal carriers, injured in "accidents," have already been imbued with bionic technology under the watchful eyes of Rex Mundi, Postmaster General in charge of Super Secret Projects. All surviving postal carriers have fully embraced their new lives and look forward to actually working just like people at other delivery companies. This test-bed introduction of bionic technology should completely eradicate the sloth inherent in the old US Postal System. All told, these forthcoming atavistic voice and packet paradigms will continue to enslave people in greater numbers while making them feel "empowered." Neat, huh?

GC: But what about the average cube denizens in corporate settings? How will the future affect them?

DRJ: Ah, the average worker will continue to descend into what we at Morvalia Polytechnic have labeled "The Neo-Dickensian Era." Workers will increase their work days from the current 18-hour-day to 22 in an attempt to keep their inflated stock price walls intact. Holidays will be abolished and the sun will be regarded as evil (more than a few will call it, "The Scare Ball.")

GC: An interesting viewpoint. What about Venture Capital? Will it eventually dry up?

DRJ: Actually, I'd expect to see an acceleration of VC money via new 7.62 x 39 CEO money-procurement technologies, as well as a virtual elimination of anything that slows down the process, like PR and marketing people.

GC: But what about the immediate future? What's going to happen to the stock market?

DRJ: The market will completely crash to about 1000 points. Utterly despondent, most VCs and CEOs and cube millionaires will leap from their second-story windows and break their legs. While in the emergency room, they'll be on their cellphones selling everything. The market will then collapse to pre-20th Century levels, settling at about 100 points. Fearless elementary school students will then purchase all these stocks in 5 minutes for micro-pennies on the dollar from their iPhones and day-trading classrooms, and the market will rebound to 10,000,000,000 points. This will create an even bigger, younger elite of exotic ten-year-old trillionaires. They will then wander the planet dressed like miniature Edgar G. Robinsons in "The Ten Commandments," toting cigars and sneering at adults. Doves and bunnies will then come seemingly from nowhere and frolic under an immense rainbow. It should be quite an exciting time.

GC: Uh, thanks doc.

DRJ: Don't mention it.