The Oracle Predicts

In the future, when all public issues become a matter of economics, convicted criminals will be executed in televised events. Proceeds from advertising will accrue to victims and their survivors and the public will be allowed to vote on the method of execution.

Stoning will become the most popular death alternative due to the audience participation factor.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle

Within a decade, genetic scientists will theorize that the rate of human genetic mutation has increased precipitously since the early 20th-Century, in all likelihood the cause behind many of our modern maladies and medical conditions, including autism, peanut allergies, depression and rapidly lowering IQ's. After years of bungled research by the FDA focused on environmental influences that began with the Industrial Age, the increase in mutating human genes will eventually be blamed on the weak electromagnetic field produced by the alternating current used in the public electrical power infrastructure.

A public panic ensues, as people cut off power to their homes or relocate far from populated areas. Batteries become a scarce and expensive commodity controlled by quasi-governmental cartels, as political and economic upheaval spreads across most of the developed world.

Eventually, after methods are developed for mandatory testing and screening, only those with 'genetic purity' are licensed to breed offspring.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle

In an effort to capitalize on America's obsession with mass-murder/suicides, a cable TV network will pay Brett Easton Ellis an undisclosed seven-figure sum for rights to the name "American Psycho", for a series modeled after FOX network's American Idol. Contestants will be hand-picked based on the threatening tone of their mySpace webpage and act out murderous scenarios with a different set of weapons and a randomly chosen public setting every week.

The show will end abruptly, unexpectedly, when a female contestant manages to get past security wearing a thong made from plastic explosives and kills herself on the air, along with judges Anthony Hopkins, former Manson Moll, Lynette 'Squeeky' Fromme, and John Hinckley Jr., special guest out on work-release.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle

It won't be long before scientists develop strains of microbes genetically engineered to convert landfill matter into useable forms of energy. A brew of "supergerms" will be injected deep into the center of the putrifying mess, some aimed at consuming the organic refuse, others capable of converting the non-organic--the plastics, metals, and glass--into combustible carbon compounds.

A public already leary and suspicious of genetic engineering becomes alarmed when a tanker truck carrying the raw bio-mass overturns on a California Freeway just outside Fresno and a wave of oozing germs consumes a Walmart and a condominium complex.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle

The development and perfection of the artificial womb will change everything. For the first time, science will offer the ability to gestate a human fetus from zygote implantation to full term without the aid of a human female. Babies will be 'born' without the usual bloody trauma.

Church leaders will decry the new technology as 'unnatural' and artificial birthing centers will become the target of violent fanatics. A law will be passed that all children born through synthetic means be tattooed, as the public becomes leery that children born not of womankind are somehow 'less human' than those squeezed out through a fleshy birth canal.

After two generations, the practice becomes commonplace.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle

In the near future, a lot of Major League Baseball players will suddenly be losing weight.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle