I wish we were exploring space more!

The monkey paw curls. We get entitled pricks, destroying labor protections to build so much wealth they've bought everything worth owning on the planet and still yearn for more.

I wish we had robots to do our work!

Another finger curls. Wealth inequality cripples the working class. Corporations consolidate to the point that everything is profit driven... locked behind paywalls or subscriptions. The only publicly available art and literature are made by robots.

I wish we could all communicate with each other!

The last finger curls, and paw crumbles to dust. Democracies around the world flounder as their populations are brainwashed by greedy CEOs in the news and media...taught to fear their neighbors and mistrust those politicians who haven't been bought and paid for. Online, they're bombarded by misinformation campaigns on every topic until they live in different realities. Diseases and pestilence once vanquished through science and cooperation return when science isn't trusted and cooperation with your fellow citizens is viewed as betrayal to your tribe. The world now burns, and it, too, crumbles to dust.

This timeline sucks, yo.