Smuel's good morning extravaganza

You're right, it's worse than I thought. Future communication won't just be based on 1960's English, it will all be in the style of early 2020's corporate HR memos.

Good morning.

 

It's time for another prediction. This one is about things which are so far into the future that none of us will find out if it comes true or not. So why am I writing this? I guess I'm hoping that a future historian will stumble across it and think "Huh, this guy actually got some things right." And then nominate me for the annual "Revive someone interesting from centuries ago using technology" award.

The Future is Virtual

Science fiction writers like to imagine that one day we will be able to vacation on Mars. And I think this is true. Except nobody will physically go to Mars, it's far too much effort to move a human body all that distance. Instead, our interaction with people and the universe will be done using a virtual environment. The Matrix, basically. I'm saying the future will be like The Matrix, only it will be voluntary, and everyone will be aware that it's what they're doing. So people will go on vacation to Mars, but it will be a simulated Mars that they can visit to gain exactly the same experience as they would if they physically went there, but it's entirely safe and the only cost is computing power.

This level of immersion is still a long way off. I don't think we currently have anything remotely close. Thirty years ago I remember an arcade game where I sat in a chair, donned a pair of heavy 3D goggles, and could then "pilot" a "mech" which ran around a poorly rendered battleground shooting at other poorly rendered player mechs. It was great for the time, but of course it felt like I was sitting in a chair and wearing a pair of heavy 3D goggles. In those terms, the technology is still at the same level - we won't have a truly virtual world until it is fully immersive, i.e. it feels indistinguishable from real life. That may be a tall order, but I don't see any biological or technical reasons why humanity wouldn't eventually get to that point, and I think it will have two significant ramifications.

The first is that it's an answer to the Fermi Paradox. The reason that we don't see alien life in the universe is that when a civilization reaches an advanced enough level, they turn inward rather than outward. They probably still send out probes to scan other planets in great detail, in order to gather data for their virtual worlds which are used for both science and recreation. This means that the probes would send signals back towards the home planet, not further out into space, so it wouldn't be surprising that none of those signals would reach us and we'd be unaware of the aliens' existence.

The second ramification is that human physical appearance will basically become irrelevant.

The most unrealistic part of the The Matrix films is that the main characters' avatars are just slightly cooler versions of themselves, as opposed to idealized muscled hunks or hot babes. When given a virtual environment in which you can present yourself however you want, how many people think "I want to look like myself, but wearing sunglasses and a long black coat." If that's what you want, you can do it now! Whereas anyone who has spent time in online worlds knows that when given the chance people present themselves as all kinds of crazy avatars. Boys pretend to be jacked up super soldiers, men pretend to be hot women, and women also pretend to be hot women using TikTok filters.

So, logically, if all interactions are done in a virtual world where you can change your physical appearance at will, your actual physical appearance no longer matters. People will start to care more about health traits instead. For example, in terms of attractiveness, taller is better, but in terms of longevity, shorter is better. The optimal male height for a long life is likely to be around 5'3 (160cm). So, in a future where attractiveness doesn't depend on height, but longevity does, do you want your children to be tall? Or do you want them to be optimised for a long healthy life while lying prone in a virtual immersion bed?

Now, I'm not saying that the above are the only ramifications. When it gets to the point where everyone on earth can be the main character in their own virtual universe, society will probably look completely different in many other ways too. But for now I'm just highlighting the above two things as my concrete predictions.

tl;dr - if you're short, don't feel bad about it, you're actually optimised for the future.

Good morning.

 

I read a funny thing recently, that the word "cruft" may originate from a misreading of the word "crust" when it was written in that old fashioned style where the letter S looked more like a lower case F, depending on where in the word it appeared. "Picke away the dried cruft from yefterday's bread", etc. And I thought - this is the kind of nugget that my old friends at Terra Arcanum would surely appreciate!

Goode morrow to all ye fine gentilemen.

 

In other fake etymology news, "apt" was originally an abbreviation of the word "appropriate".

Good morning.

 

It really is just me, huh.

Good morning.

 

Well, I think I've made my point.

Good morning.

 

Do you ever find that your hands are too cold to type your password properly, and it's been so long since you created the password that you no longer remember it as a sequence of letters and digits, but instead as a set of instinctive finger movements, so you can't slow down and type it carefully since you're not 100% sure what it actually is, so you just have to keep trying or wait until your hands warm up before you can log on?

No? Just me? Okay, cool.

Good morning.

 

HWLFP says hello and is still checking regularly. He would love to set up a reunion of sorts. Maybe gather together some of the old faces for a group chat. He hopes you are all doing well and would like once more to say he is sorry but also has fond memories of his illustrious past on the forum. He still remains hopeful he will live long enough to be around when the forum shuts down. Which is likely, as he is completely fine.

Good morning.

 

As soon as Covid hit, ytzk abandoned his apartment and set off into the Australian wilderness. Having now been cut off from civilization for five years, he occasionally wonders what happened to his old friends, but assumes they all perished in the inevitable collapse of society that definitely happened right after he left.

Jojobobo was caught masturbating in public, and the police were called. It quickly became clear that he wanted to be caught when he kept saying "Oh no, don't send me to the big prison full of horny frustrated men!" and winking at the officers. Eventually they left without arresting him because they couldn't bring themselves to touch him.

Arthgon likes going to parties where he wasn't invited. One time he joined a stranger's wedding party, and via a sequence of hilarious mishaps, ended up officiating the ceremony. Unfortunately he accidentally called the bride an old donkey since the proceedings weren't in his native language, and he was chased away.

Grossenschwamm's experiments with mind altering drugs really did give him the power to see the future, however he can only do it while asleep, and usually forgets what he learned as soon as he wakes up. He therefore spends most of his time attempting to balance coffee and weed in the perfect ratio to maintain a drowsy zombie-like trance. If he ever succeeds he could take over the world. He will never succeed.

Jungle Japes was fired from his job at Cinnabon for being Too Goddamn Cool. He took a job at Arby's but was fired for being Too Goddamn Cool. He now works at Burger King, but is just so Goddamn Cool that he will probably be fired any day now. Goddamn.

Muro turned out to be a figment of everyone's imagination. The lesson being that God is inside of us all along. Praise be to Muro.

wayne-scales discovered a new form of mathematical logic that precisely describes the exact way that everything should be. All the major academic institutions rejected his theory, because the fools aren't capable of understanding his genius. The fools! He now wanders around public parks muttering to himself, and has gained a following of loyal squirrels.

Dark Elf continued to lift, and is now a solid 2 square meters of muscle. He looks like a Spongebob Squarepants made of pure protein. At his wedding he farmer's walked the bride's entire family down the aisle. Unfortunately the priest then called the bride an old donkey and the wedding descended into chaos.

Yuki still has the status of the only female gamer on the internet, and lives in hiding while a furious battle rages between trolls and white knights on her behalf. The irony is that a battle between trolls and knights is actually her favourite type of game.

Zanza rose through the ranks of the police and is now Chief Superintendent of Western Melbourn. Although since it's Australia the official title is Chief Wallah of Welly Melly. Despite it mostly being a desk job, he still goes out to nick crims with the other jacks in the divvy van whenever he can.

Smuel is still posting in the Good Morning Extravaganza thread in the vain hope that one day everyone will return and shower him with gratitude for "keeping the forum going". This will never happen. Nonetheless, the Good Morning Extravaganza thread is still the most significant achievement of his life.

Good morning.