I harbor a great deal of nostalgia for the time when everyone assumed that Japan would inherit the future. Everyone would have plugs for virtuality wires. Urban megaplexes would be rigged in neon. Girls would dress up like video game characters. Oh the good old days.

Though I personally don’t subscribe to the view, it’s difficult to figure out exactly what a Chinese-world future might look like. Sure people might curse in poorly pronounced Mandarin, but what else is there that’s distinctly Chinese? The most definitive Chinese characteristic to extrapolate going forward seems to be something along the lines of total environmental collapse. Amazing pictures here. This one is incredible:

C’est la vie. At least ecocide might at least provide the opportunity to answer the omni-pressing* futurist query, “Can’t we get beyond thunderdome!?”

* See that? I just made up a word. A compound that utilizes “omni-” is a future word.