WHILE YOUNG PROGRESSIVES were drinking heartily from the keg of victory in 2012, conservative old people were quietly weeping into their Metamucil. They wasted tons of money trying to keep obviously moral things (like the government treating gay people like human beings) from happening. And they lost. Suck it.
“But wait,” yells a voice from the bar at an Elks Lodge. “Before you gloat too much, chew on this. We weren’t always like this. Today’s stodgy old Republicans were yesterday’s hip and happening youngsters—listening to the devil’s swing music and showing their ankles on first dates. We turned into assholes… and you will too someday. That’s just how it works. It’s like a second puberty.”
I’m sorry I underestimated you, hypothetical old person. That’s a good point. And great job on swing music, by the way. That was really fun when it came back for a couple weeks in the ’90s. In 50 years, after I turn into an old conservative person, I’ll be able to vote using my iPhone 28S. And I’m going to use that power to vote against righteous, progressive issues. Issues like…
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Selective DNA splicing
How pro-choice are you, really? Sure, you say that now. But in 50 years will you support a woman’s right to choose which of her baby’s genes get spliced with Asian fish DNA so it glows in the dark? It’s her body, so of course it’s her right to choose if her child will or will not glow in the dark. OR IS IT? Now I may sound like a future conservative for saying this, but get off my future lawn with your freaky fish baby!
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Human-sexrobot marriage equality
Why buy the cow when you’re getting the Vibration Program for a low monthly fee? In the future, sexrobots will become so advanced they’ll actually be able to simulate every step of the sex process—including the part where you spoon and talk about your childhood. If that tricks your love sensor into firing, you might start thinking the government should cover her mechanical upkeep insurance. Well, forget it! Because rest assured, when I mature into a crusty old conservative, I’ll be voting against you turning your Stepford Fuck Buddy into a Stepford Wife. Marry an argumentative flesh-and-blood sex-hating nag like I did!
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Fishing restrictions in international waters
Just kidding. There won’t be any fish left in 50 years.
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Sexrobot suffrage
Once they can marry, they’ll definitely want the vote. People (like me) will say they’re just going to vote however their lovers/programmers tell them to—but we said the same thing about women’s suffrage (except for the programmers part).
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Sexting while driving
Kids today are already sexting each other as often as twentysomethings are blowing up their pounds. (Can we stop that yet? Thanks.) An exchange of topless photos is part of the friend-request process now. So it’s only a matter of time before we try to pass laws preventing it from happening while these kids drive their space cars to space school. I don’t care if they say it doesn’t distract them—I know it does. God damn you, crazy space kids!
BUT WAIT! It gets weirder. Eventually these space-sexting fish babies that want to marry talking dildos will become the FUTURE Future Conservatives. They’ll vote against progressive issues too—but they’ll do it telekinetically.
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A hard-drive brain’s right to unplug itself
Once we figure out how to put our consciousnesses into computers, we’ll live forever. But will we want to? You know how boring Facebook is already; imagine if your entire life was living inside it! But will we let our brains euthanize themselves? It’s not a tough question for our children’s children (and their hard drives).
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Ending federal subsidies for reluxite miners on Kragnoran asteroids
I can’t really explain this one, but your grandkids are going to hate it and want it to stop. But what about space jobs?!?
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The right to petition our sexrobot overlords for the redress of grievances
Yeah, we screwed up with the whole sex-robot suffrage thing (I mean, we voted against it, but our kids screwed it up). The power converters went to their head-units and the sexrobots overthrew the government. It’s actually pretty impressive how much governing they’re able to do while still having A TON of mechanical sex.
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I know what you’re thinking. “But Alex! That will never happen to me because I’m going to be progressive forever. I’ll protest with my kids in support of sexrobot rights! Also, that’s an awesomely funny column you wrote that pretends it’s about politics, but really is just an excuse for you to talk about sexrobots!” A fair point. Especially the last part. And maybe you’re right. But that’s exactly what people said 50 years ago during the civil rights movement (well, maybe not exactly).
The fact of the matter is you don’t have full control over yourself. Just like the biological clock that turns cool 29-year-old girls into desperate 30-year-old baby magnets, certain mental changes are genetic. Unless you somehow manage to stay poor your whole life, you’re going to turn into a conservative, and so am I. And because our brains are on hard drives, we’ll stay assholes forever.
Best tag lineup ever: “DNA splicing” right next to “glowing babies”
Also, Sex robots should be called “sexbots” because it’s more fun to say.
man, that illustration is pretty good. and disturbing. and hot.
(it would be absolutely perfect if the female had ‘The World’ tattooed on her somewhere.)
Let’s give thanks every day for the hard-working Japanese scientists who are perfecting those perky robutts!
The next hot Portlandia band will be “Freaky Fish Babies”.
I know 50 and 60 year old people who actually believe in gay marriage, women’s choice, gun control, diversity in workforce and many other progressive matters. you dont become a republican just because you become old… however I have to say that progressives and conservatives are not necessarily democrats or republicans … the difference comes from the values they have and how they perceive the decisions that our governments make in our behalf.
btw, I really want to know what SPACEJOBS are….
The conformity of today’s progressives, rallying around a president who when he’s not appointing delusional Wall St. free-market zealots and war criminals to his cabinet, he’s using flying killer robots to indiscriminately blow up women and children, or expanding the state’s power to detain and/or simply kill anybody he wants, is a real, present capitulation to state power that is, I think, far more dramatic and shameful that your hypotheticals (which, I get it, you’re kind of joking).
Also, w/r/t your last paragraph: case closed? I think it makes sense to say that learning to use a tool involves a process of internalizing the tool’s logic but that doesn’t mean you actually become the tool. Having learned to use computers doesn’t mean that our brains ARE harddrives. It just seems like it because we’ve learned how to use them and there’s so many of them around.
(For anybody interested in understanding actual conservatism: there’s a guy named Cory Robin you might be interested in checking out. He wrote a book called The Reactionary Mind, where he elaborates a theory of conservatism that begins with the idea that conservatism is essentially, “a defense of the private life of power”. In other words, it comes from a feeling of having power and seeing it threatened. In this formulation, conservatism appears as a defense of the hierarchies that leftist egalitarian social movements attempt to dismantle, like feminism, civil rights, LGBTQ rights movements, etc.)
Sorry dude, I was so distracted by the over-the-top cartoon porn that I have no idea what your article said.
That illustration. Seriously. Was that necessary? Or even smart?
It’s totally grotesque. I mean, just look at the perspective and the arbitrary line thickness. This obscenity must not stand.
Thank you Alex! This article made my day.