In a world brimming with bewildering headlines, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.
“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and legislation.
June 2, 2028: The Problematic First Contact With Intelligent Alien Life
Worldwide hopes for friendlier relations with our extraterrestrial visitors vanished this morning when the aliens climbed back aboard their space ships and flew away, after nearly three weeks of failed talks with senior US government officials.
The aliens had known of Earth’s existence for centuries, but they deliberately avoided our planet in their interstellar travels because they viewed human civilization as too underdeveloped.
However, after monitoring NASA’s first-ever public hearing on UFOs, which took place nearly five years ago to the day, on May 31, 2023, the aliens decided to initiate first contact.
Their journey to earth took several years. And when they arrived last month, a collective sigh of relief could be felt around the world when the aliens came bearing gifts.
Their initial contact with our planet seemed expertly planned to calm our nerves, as they distributed miracle cures for viruses, parasites, and even cancer. And, as they had spent the entire journey learning our languages, they were easily able to communicate.
The first world leader the aliens met with was US President Kamala Harris, and they showed her a small metallic box which they said would provide limitless free energy to the world.
However, relations with the alien visitors quickly took a turn for the worse when the President began talking about science.
According to several observers at the meeting, President Harris explained to the aliens that basic principles of biology, like sex and gender, are myths that are rooted in violent heterodoxy, at which point the space diplomats appeared to burst out laughing.
Of course, President Harris and her scientific advisers found this reaction deeply offensive, and they tried to explain that the aliens were displaying problematic colonizer attitudes.
Federal officials have spent the last several weeks trying to re-educate the aliens about science, leading to strayed relations between our species.
The aliens countered by producing thousands of holograms worth of data disproving the Americans’ claims, data which the White House called “ignorant and offensive”.
Finally the aliens, in apparent exasperation, grabbed their energy cube, and stormed out. Their ship was observed leaving earth’s atmosphere this morning, and there has been no contact since.
Despite the loss of revolutionary alien technology, top officials say they don’t regret the outcome.
As President Harris told reporters this morning, “Frankly, there’s no room on this earth for anti-science hate speech, whatever the species.”
In other news, pharmaceutical and energy stocks, which initially plunged to near-zero value amid alien contact, have rebounded to record highs.
June 2, 2027: Bill Gates Cancels US Farming to Save the Planet
Former Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, praised Bill Gates’ latest climate action today as the two appeared side-by-side at the AIM for Climate Summit in Washington DC.
“It was four years ago that I stood on stage at this very same conference,” Kerry said, “And explained that we needed to do something drastic about the methane emissions from agriculture, in order to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Bill Gates answered that call.”
Kerry explained that the Netherlands offered an exemplary approach in reducing agricultural emissions, when they slashed the number of productive farms in their country.
“Unfortunately with the political gridlock in the US, we couldn’t simply confiscate— er, I mean, buy back the farms as the Dutch government did. And that’s when an honorable private citizen named Bill Gates stepped in. And I’m proud to say, this month will see the last harvests of food on the over 270,000 acres of farmland owned by Mr. Gates.”
Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the United States. Last week, he announced that, following this summer’s harvests, he will break the leases that farmers have on his land.
“Starting this fall, there will be no more food production on Bill’s extensive land holdings. It will cost him billions of dollars in fees and settlements,” Kerry continued, “But that just shows the commitment he has to saving humanity from climate change.”
Gates also said he will sow his fields with the herbicide glyphosate this fall, in order to prevent anything from growing on them in the future— except of course, his patented glyphosate-resistant genetically modified soybeans and corn.
John Kerry finished his praise of Gates’ actions, saying, “Of course we know, humans are the only cause of climate change. And my good friend Bill has always been at the forefront of reducing the causes of climate change at the source.”
Approached after the conference, Gates seemed unconcerned that cutting agricultural production could worsen the global food shortages that have caused widespread hunger.
“You know, calorie restriction has been found to be one of the best methods to increase longevity. So I think Americans could actually become healthier as a result of this,” Gates said.
