“I am from the future. I bring you grave news. Humanity lies at a crossroads. Alas, in my time people did not choose wisely. We let our differences drive us apart, we neglected science and technology, and we lost far too many to war and plague before we realised the errors of our ways. I bring you hope in the form of this, a hand-held mind merge device. You hold one to your forehead, I hold one to mine, and this suitcase-sized box enables you to see the world as I see it and vice-versa. It has singlehandedly stopped all wars and misunderstandings in our world, but not before many lives were lost. We wish to offer you the chance to avoid that bloodshed.”
“They connect to the suitcase-sized box?”
“Yes, it uses a quantum field sensor—“
“—with those wires?”
“Yes.”
“Wires? I have to plug it in? FAIL! You sure you’re not from 1988 and this is a new mouse? What’s it connect with? A mini-ESP plug?! HA! Does it work offline? No, of course not. Does it only read minds or can it read blogs too? Can I hack it to read my cat’s mind?”
“Uh … there are no twenty-first-century-serviceable parts inside.”
“Did the future lose the Maker manifesto? This technology is SHIT! I can’t wait until the future open source movement fucking nails your greedy ass to the wall. I’m going to toss my mind merger, and recommend that all our governments do the same. It’s wrong for us to have future lock-in! This is a pretty but non-generative technological dead-end, and I can’t wait to see whether it will blend!”
“I’m beginning to think not all of that bloodshed was unnecessary.”
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