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It was supposed to be a bang, was downgraded to a whimper, but turned out to be closer to an asthma attack ⦾ No entertainment value to speak of ⋯ just color-coded charts and actuarial tables ⦾ We never even got jetpacks. Just apps atop stacks that can't scale

The apps were for buying add-ins and subscriptions ⋯ you'd only bought the handle of the razor ⦾ Instead of time travel we wound up with time-shares, followed by robocalls and spam on how to cancel those contracts ⦾ The Twitter-sphere is not a utopia of civic engagement ⋯ it's an anthill on a plate ⦾ The cloud is not a metaphor for our interconnectedness ⋯ it's just a place where you can't find your files ⦾ The Internet isn't a panopticon ⋯ it's just a place where you can't take a dump with any privacy ⦾ There are no signs of intelligence in the universe ⋯ only signs of intelligence in marketing departments ⦾ We were supposed to be able to fly and instead we got drones

So here we are, arms akimbo atop a dead volcano, flashing our teeth at each other in hideous selfies ⦾ We’re in the real-time, reality-show version of hell ⦾ We’re in the business of lies and we call it news ⦾ We’re in the business of likes and we call it engagement ⦾ We giggle into our screens and call it entertainment

Big box store and strip mall were never metaphors ⦾ We said there was a problem with the water, and there was ⋯ it was a problem with the water, just not in the way we thought ⦾ The stench of scorched metal and rubber hoses, like a pig’s ear in a toaster oven ⦾ An army of the bored and disaffected, who no longer have any hope of dying young ⦾ A procession of predictable thrillers, sterile romcoms, talent contests, cartoons ⦾ Reality shows starring instantly infamous rubes ⦾ The sickly-sweet stench of rotting strawberries raised by exploited migrants ⦾ Truckloads of toxic fertilizer dumped on every poor person in America ⦾ Phallic launchers for joyrides that barely reach space ⦾ A confederacy of dunces ⦾ Pandemics

Never mind ⋯ how about we all just get a bunch of cheeseburgers, maybe watch the game? ⦾ The end of the earth is an old story, but the end of our world is new news ⦾ We're just not interesting anymore