Lots of these predictions were actually quite horrible. e.g. flying cars would be so much worse than regular cars in so many ways.

I liked Grimgar a lot.

rare non-horny Extra Fabulous comic

“Many of you will die, but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make!”

If I wrote comments like I chat in a grocery store queue I’d never write a single comment.

Agreed, though I think that he doesn’t quite fit the definition of “celebrity” considering he did two terms as a state governor.

No numbers for “A celebrity’s position on a politicial issue has positively affected my opinion of him/her”?

And IMO, considering all the other groups that are trying to sway voters and how close elections tend to be (and how polarized politics are in the US), these numbers aren’t that bad. And the way advertising/propaganda works, they don’t necessarily have to sway people in a way that the people directly notice - it’s often enough to keep repeating a point to keep it in people’s consciousness.

“white” is an increbibly malleable category, anyway. At one point, the Irish (who are generally even lighter-skinned than the English due to higher percentage of gingers) were considered non-white. Nowadays, most people would consider Italians and Spaniards white, and there’s quite a few hispanic people who both look white and consider themselves white (due to being descended from European immigrants). There’s a similar dynamic in India, southern Indians are often darker than ‘black’ americans while many north Indians could pass as southern europeans.

Why write “the” as “ð” instead of “ðe”?

It would still be quite the sensation if we found Manatees in Scotland!

Kind of iffy to post this outside of that context, IMO. Maybe some of the other works from this author are more obvious, but it’s really hard to recognize this one as satire if you don’t already know it.

It benefits rich people, since they have less contact with the ‘unwashed masses’ this way. On top of that, many invest in real estate.

God isn’t real, but if he was real he’d be a dick.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We definitely got a lot of social progress from technology, but it’s plain to see that social media gets massively abused for reactionary propaganda (not entirely unlike radio and print have been abused to further authoritarian ideologies in early 20th century). IME, in recent years people have been getting MORE cold and brutal, more willing to assault random people for being the wrong sexual orientation, they started assaulting EMTs, firefighters and train employees in significant numbers, and people have been outright murdered for telling them that they should wear a mask.

And every appliance becoming “smart” seems to further the corporate desire for planned obsolescence and making people unable to repair their belongings, along with massively increasing security risks and possibilities for mass surveillance.

IMO, we’re moving backwards right now, with significant risk of losing the progress of the last 50 years.

Good luck ignoring social media nowadays. Whether you use them or not, you live in a society that does use them and you are impacted by its consequences.

And good luck trying to buy a new television that isn’t “smart”. Even cars are getting like that.

Yeah, and the amish aren’t exactly a positive example in terms of personal freedom, especially for women and queer people. Though those were never their goals anyway, so a more modern luddite community might be nicer to live in.

Cyberpunk authors have been introducing progress-hostile/‘go back to the past’ movements and factions since the 80s, arguably it’s older than cyberpunk-style technology itself (cyberpunk-style technology definitely being a thing that already exists, arguably since the www-internet but nowadays with VR, AI and electronically enhanced prostetics we’re definitely getting into the flashier stuff). And remember that the cyberpunk genre paints the future as bleak, in terms of how the common people live most cyberpunk worlds are clear downgrades compared to the actual 1980s.

And e.g. the amish rejected the industrial revolution.

Quark ist pretty tasty! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(dairy_product)

Gotta switch it up sometimes.

It’s not that they " can sort of smell drugs", they are extremely sensitive to any trace smell of drug. Your linked article confirms that:

Dog-handling officers and trainers argue the canine teams’ accuracy shouldn’t be measured in the number of alerts that turn up drugs. They said the scent of drugs or paraphernalia can linger in a car after drugs are used or sold, and the dogs’ noses are so sensitive they can pick up residue from drugs that can no longer be found in a car.

Search so thoroughly that you would even find the tiniest crumbs left on someone’s shoe sole and that 44% “success” rate would probaby jump up considerably.

Though the false positives that are mentioned in the article are also an issue, but probably less so if you’re regularly doing the rounds at airport waiting queues.