Boring Future #1

The income gap continues to grow. Most white collar workers choose to work offsite, because incomes have stagnated, and the cost of living in major urban centers continues to skyrocket. They flee the city, then on move to a new spot every two or three years—retreating to progressively less populous towns further from the coasts, where they can maintain a diminishing upper-middle-class lifestyle. Throughout the country, the nomadic yuppy horde leaves ghost towns full of abandoned coffee shops, organic grocers, and bike shops, like a boom/bust gentrification process.

Boring Future #2

Facebook invents a social crypto-currency called Facebucks. On its introduction, employees are offered a 10% raise if they volunteer to have their salary paid in Facebucks. A year after release, the entire Valley is forced to accept Facebucks as a form of currency due to social pressure. Facebook, with its new standard currency, is now another step closer to being a soverign state.

Boring Future #3

Ten years after the introduction of Google’s self-driving car, it still shows ads for businesses in other cities. Everyone complains, but we’d be terrified if the ads were too good. There’s a mutual interest to retard the platform. You want a dumb ad network so you can believe Google doesn’t know too much. Google wants it to seem dumb so they can keep some knowledge for themselves. After watching a 15-second YouTube ad for bail bonds, the car starts driving you to the Google grocery store without you telling it you needed milk. When you arrive, the car makes you sing the grocery store’s jingle to unlock the doors.

Boring Future #4

Congress hatches six new political parties in 2024. Nothing happens, because political parties are seen as branding exercises for corporations, not political agents for change. America makes history by electing our first legume: Mr. Peanut takes the oath of office in front of the Pepsi Chill Zone.

Boring Future #5

Wearable technology evolves into implants, and like any technology, the first versions don’t have enough storage. Yearly upgrade sales are slow, because no one wants to go under the knife with such frequency, or to pay for surgery without the cost being subsidized by a two-year contract. Implantees are now split into two groups: those who remember the odd years and those who remember the even.