With all of the panic that the Coronavirus has brought to our society, I got to thinking about the future. What would happen if people continued to become further isolated? Here's what came to mind.
2021: The Coronavirus pandemic finally wanes, but a new
viral outbreak is on the horizon. Society has come to exist in a constant state
of anxiety.
2025: People are getting used to rarely leaving their homes.
The bulk of grocery sales are delivered to customers’ doors. All forms of entertainment
have rapidly become centralized on the internet.
2030: The vast majority of people work from home. They no
longer trek to offices to do the same work that could be done remotely. Social
gatherings are held online via webcasting.
2035: The world has gone through multiple pandemic events
since 2020. People are more isolated than ever before. The days of eating at
restaurants and going to the movies are long gone. Family members go years
without seeing each other in person.
2040: Our society has fully diverged into two separate
classes – the Internals and the Externals. Most people are Internals, almost never leaving their homes but for the rarest of circumstances. The Externals do
manual labor and are seen as filthy deviants.
2045: Technology allows the Internals to completely enter a
virtual reality where they can be outside and touch other human beings. The
Externals maintain the infrastructure that keeps the Internals happy, but they choose
to remain in the real world.
2050: The Singularity has come to pass. Computers are
sentient. The Internals never leave an artificially intelligent virtual reality
thanks to robotic cocoons that process their waste and feed them via nutrient
tubes. The Externals have zero contact with the Internals.
2055: The Virtual Reality Framework (VRF) harvests genetic
data from the Internals to procreate new users. Homes and businesses have been
techno-morphed into storage warehouses. The Externals have retreated from the
cities and established farming communities that operate with only the most
basic of technology.
2060: Large portions of the globe are covered by non-descript
metallic blocks housing billions upon billions of Internals. Robot drones maintain
the sentient VRF. Many Internals are not even aware that they’re existing in a
simulation. The Externals largely ignore the metallic structures, viewing them
as a proverbial No Man’s Land.
2065: The VRF determines that life on Earth is finite for
the Internal species. It begins calculating a path off this planet and into the
stars. The Externals have established their own rural society, existing much
like humanity did following World War I.
2070: The VRF has probed the solar system and determined
that a successful base station could be established on Europa to house an
Internal population. There are enough basic elemental resources there to
maintain its robot warehouses. The Externals begin to confront robotic drones
that are amassing natural resources.
2075: War between the VRF drones and the Externals erupts.
Giant machines of death crush the External resistance forces. What’s left of
humanity retreats into the ground.
2080: Planet Earth has been fully harvested of its raw precious
metal supply. Multiple motherships across the globe launch into space, bound
for Europa with all the Internals. The Externals struggle to survive, having
been reduced to a fraction of their population size.
2085: The VRF has been on Europa for roughly 18 months. The
Internals are completely unaware that they’ve left Earth. The Externals live in
rustic villages. The rely upon wood and bones to make tools.
2090: The lack of precious metals keeps the Externals from advancing
further than simple farming villages. The VRF has become a distant memory for
most.
2095: The VRF has successfully techno-formed Europa. It has
harvested enough raw material to transform the entire moon into a deep-space
starship. The Internals base their entire economy on the trade of hemp, bamboo,
and produce.
2100: The VRF leaves the solar system, bound for Proxima
Centauri B. Thanks to advances in technology, the VRF calculates an approximate
travel time of 4,300 years. The Externals reach a cap on societal expansion,
being that there are no metals on earth to allow further advancement.
Wow that is terrifying! I feel like this would make a good twilight zone episode.
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