Welcome to the Mid-2060s (#PredictTheFuture Challenge)
This post is an entry for the @daltono #PredictTheFuture Challenge: Link here for more on the challenge.
So, you've just woke up and discovered that you've somehow been hurtled through time to circa 2067 A.D. Things like that happen. Just ask Rip Van Winkle. I am at least 80% sure that I am not to blame for your sudden temporal displacement while you were sleeping. Even if I was carelessly experimenting with wormholes you are roughly half a century in the future so the statute of limitations protects me from your litigation.
Here are a few things that you may find helpful while navigating your new place in time.
You went to sleep in 2021 and now find yourself fully rested but in some stranger's bed in the mid-2060s with the owner nowhere to be seen. Are humans extinct? You hear traffic outside so likely not. With self-driving cars that can't be completely ruled out though. The owner is probably on vacation or something. They aren't home and you are now technically a squatter. You might as well examine that unknown stranger's property for...time travel exploration purposes. That works.
Check the bed frame for small metallic dimples. Those are embedded sensors. There should also be a video screen roughly measuring 9 inches diagonally on the headboard. That works just like a touchscreen on your 2021 smartphone which you realize is still in 2021. You'll need a password so try "Password123". If that works you've successful invaded someone's dreams. Congratulations!
Those small embedded sensors among other things such as heart rate and metabolism also monitors brain activity wirelessly throughout the night and can record dreams. The technology was in its infancy in 2021 but has advanced to the point that dreams can be edited like video and if the user wants be uploaded to a kind of YouTube site for dreams. "Vicarious cognition" doesn't quite roll off the tongue but its a thing by the mid-2060s.
To rephrase an old saying: The future is a foreign country; they do things differently there. When you go to a foreign country it's usually a good idea to know how to ask someone in their language where the bathrooms are. But you are alone in this future house. You've now been awake in circa 2067 for about ten minutes and now you realize that you haven't relieved yourself since 2021. You wander out of the stranger's bedroom down the hall looking for a bathroom. It's easy enough to find since the typical bathroom of the 2060s resembles a 2021 bathroom. There are at least two differences though.
First, the medicine cabinet. The mirror is an interactive smart mirror. There are still the familiar looking medicine bottles you last saw in 2021 but there are also several medicine cubes or "chemputers". These are wirelessly synced to the medicine cabinet's embedded computer. They're like 3D printers for medicine. The cubes act as a software token and when the prescription expires or insurance won't pay anymore the medicine cube will stop functioning.
The next thing you'll notice is that there is no toilet paper roll. Just like the medicine from the cubes the toilet paper is 3D printed. A rectangular box 8 inches long and 4 inches wide with a few indicator lights on the front panel is on the wall by the toilet. It has a combination body heat/proximity sensor and inside along with the electrical and mechanical parts is a cylinder containing a viscous liquid. As the sensor activates a controlled amount of the viscous liquid is released and mixed with oxygen from the outside air. As the liquid and oxygen form a sort of synthetic paper it is smoothed out flat and extruded from the box as toilet paper. Since the dense viscous liquid uses oxygen from the environment as part of the mass of the toilet paper the cylinder cartridge inserted in the box is roughly equal to a dozen rolls of 2021 store bought toilet paper.
You aren't really paying much attention as you roam toward downstairs. You almost trip over a pile of dirty clothes. Most of those used clothes have embedded electronics. The owner still has the clothes mining cryptocurrency for passive income. Most people in the 2060s don't turn off their wearable electronic wardrobes between use. The energy is harvested from the surrounding environment as almost free energy. There really shouldn't be a pile of dirty clothes or even a dirty clothes basket anywhere. Their owner was lazy. The clothes are self-cleaning when hung up properly in sunlight.
Now that you've invaded a stranger's dreams, used their bathroom and seen their underwear it's time for your first meal in the the mid-2060s.
Bad news. It turns out the owner of this house suffers from a psychological disorder known as "vegetarianism". Even by the mid-2060s there is no cure for that.
There is a small Einstein refrigerator in the back left corner of the kitchen. There is no stove (maybe food is regularly delivered by drone?) and a microwave oven with a layer of dust indicating that it is rarely used. Directly opposite of the abandoned microwave oven is another type of 3D printer. This one has cartridges with different types of vegetable-based paste that can be extruded to 3D print food.
After you print yourself some carrot pancakes you sit down on the stranger's couch to watch some holographic television. I am @holovision predicting the future so of course holographic television exists.
After a minute you realize something. With all of the future technology around this stranger's house there must be some kind of security system. Maybe you've been hanging around too long.
Just like in 2021 leaving a locked house is much easier than getting into a locked house. If the owner hasn't been notified yet of your unauthorized presence; opening the front door will definitely do it.
What you don't quite understand which is common knowledge in the 2060s is that the ubiquitous nature of physical computing in a mid-2060s house doubles as the security system.
Let's recap: You weren't wearing gloves so your fingerprints are everywhere. Rookie mistake even in 2021. Do you really expect anyone to buy your hapless time displacement story? You left DNA everywhere in the form of skin cells and hair. The embedded sensors in the bed were recording your brainwaves and other biological data. The smart mirror in the bathroom recorded your face while you were interacting with it. I forgot to mention that the toilet has embedded sensors to detect early signs of cancer or other illnesses so that's another example of DNA evidence you left behind, pun intended.
Crossing the street to get away from the house might be a small problem. There is no crosswalk button. Eventually you might figure out that you have to stare up at a box hanging from a pole across the street. It's a combination of facial recognition and body language recognition of intent to cross the street. That is one more digital clue that you were there.
You've been in the mid-2060s for less than an hour and so far you've noticed a few things that are brand new to you. Pretty soon you'll notice that you have no identification and that you are now homeless. You'll find out that homelessness still exists in the 2060s. Law enforcement also still exists in the future that is now your present. You'll soon notice the similarities and differences between the judicial systems of the mid-2060s and what you were used to earlier in the century.
Welcome to the mid-2060s.
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