Friday links! Binary new world edition

Utopian dystopia

We know two things about the future: it’s coming, and it will be either all bad or all good. That second part is obvious from movies. Films about the future are either set in utopias (Star TrekGattaca2001: A Space Odyssey)—or dystopias (Aliens, IdiocracyBack to the Future.) It follows that at this moment, everything is either about to be fine or just setting off for hell in a handbasket. The odds of some problems getting better and others getting worse just doesn’t make sense. It’s an immense mathematical unlikelihood that the world would stay exactly as good as it is now. Today is Friday, and what comes after will surely be different. Won’t you call it in the air with me?

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