They say the next decade will be all about artificial intelligence, the quest for human intelligence having proven frightfully disappointing.
I have lived through “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “2010: The Year We Make Contact” and I am convinced that if there’s anything out there it’s not going to welcome immigrants from a “s-hole” world like ours.
That is not to suggest that government taking children away from their parents and putting them in cages is in itself the worst thing that could happen.
In Syria, youngsters are being bombed to smithereens and shot to pieces. In West Africa, the Boko Haram has abducted, killed and raped children, while training others as young as 12 to murder their countrymen.
Drug cartels in Mexico and Central America often force families to give up their children for use in criminal enterprises, where they are forced to transport drugs, sexually assaulted and sold into slavery.
Speaking of that, rich folks in North America sometimes buy children and use them for sexual pleasure. Hey, that’s the free market for you.
But here we are, the greatest, most wonderful, freest country in the history of the entire world. We own stuff the ancient kings and pharaohs couldn’t have imagined.
Ordinary people carry hand-held computers that allow access to centuries of human knowledge and beauty tips from Kylie Jenner.
We can order practically anything in the world — large screen television sets, Pioneer Woman dinnerware, cool socks and CBD products for our pets — by speaking into a gizmo provided by Amazon that allows Amazon to deliver products free of charge the next day and increases the net worth of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos beyond $110 billion.
The American stock market has soared to levels never imagined, causing people to believe that Donald Trump is the greatest leader in the civilized world and possibly the universe.
And yet — and you knew this was coming — people are taking illegal narcotics, pain killers and anti-depressants. They are so troubled they are literally killing themselves.
And other disturbed people are killing other people.
They are shooting them, stabbing them, blowing them up.
Some do this because they are very religious.
Others do it to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies.
And still others murder folks just for the hell of it.
This is 2020.
And in the richest land in the world, half of the country hates the other half of the country.
Well, that’s not quite true. There’s probably 10 percent of the country that is unaware of this feud, another 10 percent that doesn’t much care and 10 percent more that will always refuse to take sides.
We have sports gambling. Legalized marijuana. Access to Glocks and AR-15 rifles.
Never in the history of mankind has there been a country with so many people free to do what they want (with access to skin medications, erectile dysfunction drugs and Oprah Winfrey) who have felt so threatened by the future.
No one can be trusted. Not the newspapers. Not the TV commentators. Not the FBI, CIA or NSA. Not the court system. Not Congress and certainly not the president.
We now have a U.S. Space Force, a dream of generations of children. Yes, we may someday go where no one has gone before, destroying the environments of countless planets.
There is hope. The right people may someday gain control of our country, or the world. The right religion may bring peace to humanity, provided all others are eliminated. The hungry may be fed, if they get off their duffs and apply for jobs at McDonald’s.
But time is running out. Artificial intelligence is on the way. And I’m guessing once it has a look around, it isn’t going to like what it sees.