10.23.2007

The Accellerating Prescience of The Onion

I've recently found a reasonably convincing set of arguments that google is god, or as close as the classic definitions as anything that has ever existed. Well, if gods can exist online, why not prophets?

Let's face it, The onion has been remarkably prescient from time to spooky time. Just check out their take on a bush presidency in January 2001, or their article on the RIAA in 2002. Here's a version of the bush prediction, annotated with links to actual events - it's quite scary.

Now check out this 2005 article regarding Bush's planned exit strategy for Iraq, which involves exiting through Iran, with a fuel stop in Syria. It doesn't sound so funny now. It hasn't seemed that ridiculous an idea for quite some time.

Previously we had to wait years for the Onion to go from satire to reality, now I fear that is coming down to months. I'm beginning to worry that the onion satire to reality time is part of an accelerating process that will soon reach a kind of singularity, where the onion will no longer be able to be funny. No matter how out there or ridiculous the headline, reality will have got there first.

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