Planet Earth may reach a catastrophic tipping point soon, but it has nothing to do with climate change, according to Hungarian professor of astrophysics Dr. Zoltán Gorka. Rather it has to do with something completely within our control: the total hours of recorded video on Earth equaling the age of the universe — 13.7 billion years.
“Which comes to a little over 120 trillion hours,” says Dr. Gorka. “Which happens to be the approximate total time of all recorded experience on our planet now, when you add up global film and video archives and the daily gusher of news and video uploads on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media.”
“With an additional 20 billion hours uploaded — which, at current rates, I project will occur in the next 6 to 9 months — we will have achieved parity with the age of the Universe. No one really knows what the consequences of such a milestone would be. Maybe, as in some of kind of quantum hall of mirrors, the glut of self-referential representation will all fold in upon itself like a collapsing hologram, creating an existential Black Hole — what I call the Wireless Singularity.”
Another fretful possibility, says the professor, is that since most video is transmitted wirelessly now, a lot of it escapes our atmosphere and solar system, traveling far into outer space, where it could be picked up eventually by alien civilizations on other planets. “Since 50% of all online video is porn, I worry about what those aliens might think and do. Just sit back and enjoy the show? Annihilate us if they are a prudish race? Or move worrisomely closer for better reception? Is ‘Hot Blonde Bukake’ really the face we want to present to the rest of the galaxy? I’m afraid we’re becoming the porn zoo of the Milky Way.”
The announcement has sparked the usual apocalyptic panic, with sales of storable food, survival supplies — and, in America, guns —skyrocketing, on pace to surpass the records set for Y2K and 2012. Sturm-Ruger’s new ads are typical: “Are you prepared for the Wireless Singularity? $75 rebates on all AR-15s and Mini-14s until it arrives!”
Hundreds of dystopian videos about the Wireless Singularity have already been uploaded on social media. “It would, of course, be extremely weird if videos about the Wireless Singularity triggered the Wireless Singularity,” says Dr. Gorka. “I’m not sure we even have the scientific framework to understand such a phenomenon.”
