Hauntology? That would be the word, I suppose. This quote:

“For not russian: this music begins nostalgy from our childhood. Samples from old cartoons about space, old tv news, etc. Our parents in childhood belives they will fly and observe space, stars, live with robots. But now we have no future, all cosmic science corrupted =( Sry. 4 my english, use it only playing online games.”

The video: 1 Hour of Melancholic Sovietwave

There was no doubt that the future would be space travel and space settlement and jet packs and robots, some that looked like us and some that didn’t. There would be flying cars and there would be beings from other galaxies. It was already more than a promise.

This was the future. We lived in the future. The future was engrained in our DNA. We were the People of the Not Quite Yet. We were The Just About There Now.

Now it is “only playing online games.” Space is relegated mainly, at least in popular consciousness, the domain of a handful of billionaire eccentrics. It’s not that they aren’t taken seriously in the tech and aerospace world. They certainly are. There is an industry behind New Space. It is for most of us though not even part of our collective imagination. We don’t dream. We play games. We dream of new games.

Fuck it, man! I used to dream of robots.

I used to dream of robots.

I used to live in The Future.

Now we live on a planet that we’re killing and not even really dreaming of fixing, let alone escaping to another, and maybe that’s a good thing. Why go off and kill another world because we sure haven’t figure out our own path to extinction. Maybe it’s better this way.

Infinite Jest, the 1996 magnum opus by David Foster Wallace, makes more sense by the day. He wrote of the ultimate ‘entertainment’ in the form of a video so incredibly perfect that it fried the brains and killed anyone who watched it. And now, how much more real and consuming do our games have to be before we are ruined for anything resembling authentic life? Most of us aren’t dreaming of a collective future. We don’t dream of space. It isn’t about science fiction. It’s not about science. Hell, it’s not even about life!

It’s all about finding the utmost in the simulation of life and closing the gap between authentic and simulated until we can no longer tell the difference. Our best minds are building The Matrix, even after the dire warnings.

I miss the future. I miss you, Robot.

I miss dreaming to the point where it didn’t seem like a dream because so many of us were sharing it. I miss The Space Age.

I miss The Future. I don’t like it here.