Page 25 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Eleven

IN THE YEAR 2100 all food will be grown underground in huge
natural caverns hydroponically after the surface soil is depleted and
genetically-modified seeds fail to counter the losses incurred on
monocrops by gigantic insecticide-resistant locusts ravaging the
planet’s agricultural areas. Attempts will be made to hunt these
monsters as game, but the amount of fuel required to cook them will
make that food source impractical.

GLUCKWELL PREDICTS! English will soon be replaced as the
language of international commerce by BLOKTOK, a computer
language impervious to linguistic drift or misinterpretation by
computers in other countries. Humans will be suspicious of subtexts
and hidden meanings, however, and attempt to preserve their
obsolete natural languages in private talking clubs.

MULTINATIONAL CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES with shell
corporations and hidden ownership will grow so large that they won’t
know when they are cheating themselves. In order to root out these
inefficiencies of scale, legitimate accounting firms, sworn to secrecy,
will be created to audit the operations of these gangster-capitalist
corporations on behalf of their chief imperial officers.

GLUCKWELL PREDICTS! In 2038 every restaurant will have a
DNA-scanner at their tables to verify food sourcing. Diners will
instantly know where their vegetables were grown and whether or
not their genes had been spliced and diced by rogue plant scientists in
extradition-free tax havens.

ALCATRAZ AND SANTA CATALINA will be the staging points
for federal troops invading California on Independence Day, 2056.
San Francisco will fall in one day, L.A. in two. The blitzkrieg will
secure the entire state, north to south and east to west, using armored
vehicles on freeways and commandeered commercial airfields. Ports
will be blockaded by the Pacific Fleet. Silicon Valley databases will
identify actual and potential resisters; they will be arrested and
rendered to foreign prisons during the suspension of habeas corpus.
Media and industrial centers, financial and educational institutions,
local and state officials—all will be placed under A.I. control. This
will end the rebels’ break-away movement on the West Coast.
GLUCKWELL PREDICTS!