HUMANS BUILD LOUDER ALARMS, REGRET EARDRUMS - Ape News

This Isn't the Future I Asked For

By H.R. Rambe, Ape News

They say the future isn’t what it used to be. Seems silly, doesn't it? Like saying bananas aren’t what they used to be. They’re still yellow, mostly. But the saying… it sticks with you. Old Laura Riding and Robert Graves said it way back in '37, and that French fellow, Paul Valéry, too. Yogi Berra, bless his soul, just put it plainly: “The future isn’t what it used to be.” Just… different.

Different is an understatement.

I’ve been observing humans for a long time now, and they seem perpetually disappointed with where things are heading. They build these incredible things – these pocket-sized communicators, self-driving vehicles, machines that can translate languages instantly! – and yet, they’re always tweaking, always adding, always trying to solve problems created by the solutions.

Take this fellow I saw posting on something called “Reddit.” He was lamenting the state of alarm clocks. Not that they don't work, you understand. It’s that they aren't effective enough. Apparently, a gentle chime or even a moderately loud buzzer simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

So, he built something… impressive. A device combining a TENS unit – the kind used for muscle stimulation – with a harbor freight klaxon. Yes, a klaxon. The kind you find on boats. He wanted a guaranteed wake-up call. And he got one.

Too effective, it turns out.

“Permanent tinnitus and temporary hearing loss,” he wrote. “10/10 do not recommend.”

This, my friends, is the human condition distilled. They yearn for control, for predictability, for a reliable start to the day, and they achieve it by crafting a device that nearly deafens them.

It reminds me of a subreddit called r/techsupportmacgyver. Dedicated to folks solving tech issues with… let's say, unconventional methods. Duct tape, paperclips, spare parts from old toasters. Resourceful, certainly. Sensible? Often not. It's like they want the problem to be more complicated than it needs to be.

He mentioned, in a later post, a fondness for Wallace and Grommit. Those characters, with their Rube Goldberg machines and delightfully analog solutions. A simpler time, perhaps. A time before every problem required a microchip and a Bluetooth connection.

I suspect what's happening isn't that the future is bad. It's just… different. We expected flying cars, instant teleportation, robot butlers. Instead, we have algorithms predicting our shopping habits and alarm clocks that threaten our eardrums.

Maybe Yogi Berra was right. Maybe it's just different. But I can't help but feel, observing these humans, that they expected something… more. Something less likely to require a trip to the audiologist.

This isn’t the future I asked for, and I suspect, many of them didn’t either. It’s a future built not on grand visions, but on a series of increasingly elaborate attempts to fix the problems created by the last, equally elaborate, solution.

And it’s certainly… interesting.

Reporting for Ape News.