h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Noone sees the world as it actually is; instead, we see the world as we are.

-Unknown (to me)

So, as a media analyst for various big evil companies, I thought I'd paint the world as I've seen it over the last half year or so.

Researchers in Australia attempting to create a virus capable of killing off crop-eating mice instead created a viral superweapon capable of wiping out humanity in a heartbeat. Ooops.

On another front, it is now legal to patent lifeforms. If I edit a string of human DNA in a very minor way, I can patent the new formula and legally clone people for slave labour, medical research, warfare, or whatever. Not that this is really so very different from just breeding them for that purpose, but oh well. It's actually a fact that a few of my Big Pharma clients are very interested in any information pertaining to the ethics of cloning humans for laboratory subjects. You'd have to be an idiot to think that someone, somewhere, hasn't already done so (duh we cloned a sheep in scotland, hyuk hyuk).

I can't believe it's the so-called "smart" people who are doing all this s**t. That's economics for you.

I can't believe we're finally running out of oil. I can't believe the polar caps are finally melting.

HEY WORLD. CANADA HAS LOTS OF FRESH WATER, JUST INVADE AND TAKE IT; IT OUGHTTA KEEP YOUR ECONOMY GOING FOR ANOTHER TEN FUTILE YEARS OR SO.

Man we really blew it; the apocalypse happened two years ago and we were all too watching television to notice. This is all aftermath. I alawys wondered as a kid if the future was going to be more like Mad Max or more like Blade Runner. Blade Runner... unless you live in the Congo.

Btw, if you saw an advertisement in a Marvel Comic Book to the effect that Captain America sez smoking ain't cool! then you should know that it was Big Tobacco companies that payed for the ad. It's part of a reverse psychology campaign to hook ten-year-olds on smoking. No s**t.