In the year 2000

I may have finally figured out why our current reality is so disjointed and contradictory, particularly for the last 10 years or so -- since, yes, the year 2000. I think when the modern conception of the future was first invented, back in the 50s, we inadventantly forked history. We invented two futures, each equally probable. On the one hand we had the shining pulp SF future, with flying cars and robot maids. On the other we had the apocalypse, global thermonuclear war with mutants and cannibals. Both of these were simultaneously assumed, and thus became contradictory self-fulfilling prophesies. We live in the super-position of the two. If you average the two alternatives, (Jetsons + On the Beach) / 2, you get the world we live in. Amazingly advanced and progressive while simultaneously horrible and retrograde.

This can't be a stable situation, yet it has lasted for 50+ years at this point. This points to a negative feedback loop keeping the two timelines intermingled, something which makes the alternate seem more probable whenever we get closer to one extreme. That can only be a trick of human perception, though. The next decade will see the absolute quantification of the analog world. The harsh light of objective measurement will finally determine if we live in heaven or hell, and then the waveform will collapse once and for all.

(Plot ideas: someone trying to control the waveform collapse? For good or evil? Or just to prevent it? Cross ref: the eschaton, particularly Frederick Pohl's conception thereof.)