Planning for that post-apocalyptic future

JUST as video killed the radio star, the arrival of ChatGPT and its robotic minions have already rendered me and my profession completely useless. Not that a copywriter/journalist/WhatsApp group sniping villain had any real use in the modern world, but the pretence meant something to me.

There was something really special about sitting around in my pyjamas all day with a mug of red wine and another deadline looming while you’re getting sucked into yet another Netflix documentary; The Dog or the Hog: Who Wore it Best? You’re just not going to get that nuanced insanity from ChatGPT.

We’ve already seen social media lay waste to journalism, and the playground bully has been completely replaced by the cyber nerd – or trolls as they’re affectionately known. Who would’ve seen that coming? Muscular Neanderthals being dominated by skinny computer geeks? What a world!

There is complete upheaval in this woke existence, as white male CEOs are being replaced by qualified women and dot.com hipsters who pretend they want to make the world a better place. eTolls attempted to overthrow our hardworking toll booth operators, but they just couldn’t compete with the mindless dronism the job calls for. Uber has already taken on our dedicated and well-meaning taxi industry, with smart cars likely to follow. I don’t think I can live in a world where only emergency vehicles use the yellow line, it just wouldn’t be right.

Everything is going digital, and we’re all planning for this fourth revolution, when really we should be planning for the post-apocalyptic world – the return of analogue! Instead of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we should be preparing ourselves for the revival of the first industrial revolution. Revolutions are cyclical, after all.

Positions like ‘Front-of-House Co-ordinator’, ‘Chief Ethics Officer’, ‘Organisational Change Specialist’, ‘Entry Level Business Analyst’ and ‘Brand Stylist’ will thankfully be a thing of the past. The first industrial revolution will mean goodbye to ChatGPT and welcome back to the alcoholic writer trying to work through some childhood angst. We’ll likely be writing New Order manifestos and literary content for new religious cults, but at least we’ll have purpose! A lot of roles are going to shift over that time, and we need to refocus our skill sets accordingly.

This means upskilling our children in ways that will actually be helpful:

· Planting crops

· Identifying edible berries

· Riding wildebeest

· Converting urine into water · Zombie killing

· Telling a riddle to get past a mountain troll

If you haven’t got any of these skills yet, it might be worth considering how you could be of use to the New World Order.

Turns out, South Africa has been right on track in preparing for this post-apocalyptic world for some time now. Trains, which have long been touted as spurring the industrial revolution, were one of the first things to go. Transnet ordering the wrong sized trains, mismanagement of funds, and the complete deterioration of our rail system were all a really cunning plan to get us used to a world without travel. Airline travel? That’s not going to be a possibility in our New World, hence Dudu Myeni as the SAA chairperson. Sheer brilliance.

What other luxuries do you need to learn to live without – electricity! That’s right, load-shedding. This was just another power move that takes the power from the people to give the power to the people, post-apocalyptic style. When doomsday comes, South Africans won’t even notice because we’ve been surviving without fridges, televisions and air conditioning for so long, we didn’t realise there was any other way.

Housing? The majority of South Africans have learnt to make houses from whatever material they find. Water? Never heard of it. Looting? We’ve got that down to a fine art.

You’re going to want to think very carefully this year about who you vote for. When it comes down to it, who has been planning with the real future in mind?

Turns out, I could be a spin doctor in the New World.