Imagine going to pick out a new car in the year 2035. After test-driving it — of course, it runs on an alternative fuel that has one byproduct: water — you meet with your positive precog sales associate. You have to wait a few minutes because she’s not quite done with her meditation hour.

As you wait, you check out the awards on the wall of her office: Best Precog Assessment of Traffic Patterns, 2021; Positive Precog Coach of the Year, 2028, 2034; Most Airbag Recalls Averted, Western-Canadifornia region 2033; Positive Precog Hall of Fame, 2019–2035. You are excited but also nervous. You really want her to approve this car for you.

You like the car a lot. It self-drives like a dream, and the mobile holographic teleporter is the highest resolution you’ve seen. You can’t wait to host cross-country parties in it with all the glitterati, dead and alive. But you know that if she says you’ll die in the car, you can’t buy it. The company won’t let you; it would be bad for their numbers.