| In the comment section from last week's WLL, a reader expressed concern over a Vice article I posted wherein the author predicts/hopes that humanity will transcend our mortal coils and figure out how to live without eating food. "I always enjoy Sundays with Sisson. At first I thought the future predictions blog was a joke. Upon digging a little further I see this guy is for real. A slight wave of dystopian anxiety is coming over me so I think I’ll go for a walk, followed by a nice cut of steak later today." I'm glad you enjoy it. I really enjoy writing them. Here's the article he was referring to. On the one hand, it's scary that people honestly believe this stuff. On the other hand, it's not going to happen. Oh, some of the stuff the guy prophecies will happen, but the results won't be as pretty and transcendent as he's imagining. Installing wireless interfaces in your brain to communicate with computers and integrate your thoughts with the Internet? Cool idea for a sci-fi novel, but if you're worried about Bluetooth and EMF and WiFi affecting your health now, just imagine beaming it directly into your cortex. And what happens when you get advertisements masquerading as your own thoughts and desires? Those people injecting CRISPR-modified genes that give them the powers of photosynthesis? That won't work, not when the mammalian body has been built from the ground up over tens of millions of years to obtain energy from food. You can't just inject some plant genes and counteract all that infrastructure built up over the past 40 million years. It doesn't work like that. Top-down doesn't work. It may work for awhile, you might be able to brute force your way toward the effects you think you want, but it will crumble—sooner than later. And when we're talking about fundamental changes to human physiology and biology? Top-down will crumble almost immediately. We've seen it happen in the last 100 years of massive changes to the human diet, and that's not even truly as top-down as changing your genes or trying to become a digital spectre. This guy's predictions won't come to fruition. The first few catastrophic casualties will see to that. What about you, folks? Are you worried about the future described in the Vice article coming to pass? What do you think things look like in 20, 30 years? Let me know in the comment board of Friday's Weekly Link Love. Best, | 