Part of our sense that time has fla

Part of our sense that time has flattened out derives from uncer-tainty about where we as human beings fit into our own future sce-narios. A Saturday morning spent watching cartoons will convince the skeptical how prevalent are our images of ourselves as mere cores on which to encrust cybernetic mechanisms (a theme developed at length in Robocop).7 These images imply something more than the usual doubt among the young that history in general and the older generation in particular have anything useful to teach them. They point to a feeling that time itself has ceased to be a useful concept around which to organize experience. If we may or may not be simulacra displaced into the present from previous con-texts; if we cannot envision ourselves in the future without imagin-ing that it has undergone a phase change into a different kind of space; if the future is already used up before we can achieve such a projection, problematic as it may be— if all this is true, then time is not just denatured. It is obsolete.