Greetings, 21st-century dwellers!
This is Paravani from the 31st century (not to be confused with my earlier incarnation in the 21st century), who has traveled 1000 years back in time to return your kind messages to the future.
First, to answer your questions:
Ass-u-me-ing you're reading this in the USMessageboard Documentation of The Last 1,000 Years Library of History, and ass-u-me-ing human nature remains interested in the past, I want you to know that this average Joe did not understand the Pet Rock either. ...
I also want you to know that in spite of what you have probably read about living at the dawn of the 21st Century, I feel lucky to be alive now. ...
Do most of you feel lucky yet?
Of course we have pet rocks in our time -- they talk and keep us company on long ring-ship rides. We also have talking cats, dogs, monkeys, tarantulas, and any other pet you'd prefer to keep at home where there's room to roam.
Yes, Joe, I too feel lucky to have been born at the end of the 20th century and to have lived in the 21st. If we'd been born any earlier, we might have missed the advances in biochemistry that have allowed me -- and you, too, most likely -- to live indefinitely in a state of physical perpetual youth. I'm now more than 10 centuries old, and I feel as energetic and pain-free as I did when I was twenty.
The discovery that led to perpetual youth was made just four years before your first post on this thread, and was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday October 8 just 24 days before my arrival here in the past "today":
The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body.
Have you reached for the stars?
Yes, we launched our first ring-ship in the year 2032. One thousand years later, intergalactic travel is now relatively as easy and inexpensive as train travel was in 2012... but why would you want to go anywhere? The earth is as pretty a planet as can be found in the universe. There are other pretty planets, of course, many of which have evolved their own technologically advanced races... but there really are no nicer planets than the cradle of humanity.
Don't watch the television series 'Lost'. If you do, it'll take you another 1000 years to figure-out why you did in the first place.
P.s. I don't care if we found life on Mars, all I want to know is did Justin Bieber suffer a painful death?
Sorry, Blagger, neither Justin Bieber nor "Lost" made it into history books, and I myself didn't care enough about them to keep track of them. Doubtless Justin died in obscurity...
Dear future Carlos,
Did you get Lung Cancer yet?
In your time, we had already cured the common cold. (Well, true, the flu shot didn't completely eradicate cold viruses; but I never had a cold that lasted longer than a miserable eight hours once I started getting flu shots every year.) Just a few short decades later, we conquered all forms of cancer, addictions, and mental illnesses caused by chemical imbalances. Venereal diseases became a thing of the past, malaria was wiped out, and HIV was cured immediately after a persistent journalist discovered documentation of the top-secret stockpile of vaccine that had been manufactured at the same time the HIV virus was invented. (That's right, HIV was lab-created. No big surprise there, eh? ... Considering that the main anti-viral used against it from the mid-1990's onwards had been sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey since 1964... )
We also conquered overpopulation and the growth of the welfare state with international agreements to subject everyone to Universal Birth Control. All public water supplies were treated with a universal contraceptive that could only be counteracted by drinking bottled water. It worked like a charm: it turned out that very few people actually wanted enormous families to feed and clothe, not even so-called "welfare queens". The birthrate dropped rapidly until the population of Earth stabilized at a mere 500 million, which solved the overpopulation-linked problems of pollution, global warming, destruction of natural habitat, extinction of species, and over-consumption of the planet's resources.
Also, natural selection for the ability to plan ahead (because couples who wished to become pregnant had to drink bottled water and avoid food cooked in municipal water) has ultimately resulted in a much smarter, happier race of humanity than we were in 2012. It's easy to be happy when everyone cooperates together and plans a society that meets everyone's needs.
Toro, you idiot.
Why did you bet everything on gold?
Now your wife has left you, and you're homeless and living in your car.
You moron.
Do you remember that before we learned to extract it from bauxite, aluminum was far more precious than gold ?
Unlocking the secrets of quantum mechanics has made it possible for us to manufacture any element we need in any amounts we want. In the 31st century, gold is cheap and available in any quantity you could desire. It's far superior to aluminum, which it has replaced as cooking foil.
Do you still use paper plates?
Sorry about the mess.
We were too busy living the good life to clean up after ourselves.
Yes, we do use paper plates -- that is, plates made of biodegradable cellulose filaments pressed into a semi-solid disc with upturned edges. Our paper plates are much sturdier than the ones in the 21st century, and of course they're made of recycled cellulose, not chopped-down trees... but the basic principle is the same.
We did have quite a mess to clean up in the 22nd century, especially after the population shrank. It took decades to clean up the Pacific ocean, with its floating continent of plastic that was already bigger than Texas in the 21st century... but we finally managed to convert all of that garbage back into biodegradable hydrocarbons, and we'll never use plastic casually again.
Dear Future:
Sorry about that whole screw up between roughly 1960 and 2012. For a while there, Americans actually forgot how they came to be such a beacon of hope in the world. They actually accepted the whiny preachings of liberals. I know it must be startling for you future Americans to grasp this, but the poor "liberals" of our day actually thought they were doing something to "improve" America and the "world."
Don't worry about it, Liability. In the year 3012 there is no longer any "America" as in "the USA": there's just North America and South America, Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, all governed by the World Council. After the third world war it was decided that borders only led to nationalism and the illusion that other people could be "enemies", when in fact the only real enemies of the human race are diseases and parasites, natural and man-made environmental disasters, and shortages of resources.
Oh, and you were right: there is also no longer a "Middle East"... no Jerusalem, no Mecca, no Medina. The third world war took care of that, too.
(And to answer the question you're about to ask: Yes, Iran started it.)
Uh...

...Check for toilet paper
before you sit down to shit.
Anyone want to bet that in the year 3000 they're using 3 silver seashells instead?
In the 31st century we don't use toilet paper or silver seashells. There really has never been anything to top the good ol' fashioned French bidet for cleanliness, although of course its aim is better now, it works faster, and it's extremely thorough. It's also a pleasurable end to an otherwise tedious interlude.
Well, that's all for today. I'll xscribe more later.
-- Paravani 3012