82. The Million-Year Picnic

A prophetic excerpt from The Martian Chronicles (1950) by Ray Bradbury

(This first part predicted our present state....)

"...I was honest and they hated me for it. Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything very good. Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness, like children making over pretty things, gadgets, helicopters, rockets; emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines."

(The next part predicted what might follow, unless like Scrooge we see the error of our ways and trade our present course for a more humane one...)

"Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth. That's what the silent radio means. That's what we ran away from. ...But that way of life proved itself wrong and strangled itself with its own hands. You're young. I'll tell you this again every day until it sinks in." - Ray Bradbury

There are already rumblings among certain wealthy parties about colonizing Mars to escape our woes here on Earth. It's time to wake up Earthlings. Or is it that some of us enjoy watching a train wreck too much to pass it up?

Let's hope for the best. Happy New Year 2024!