Visions of the future end up in one of three categories. Either the future will be awesome, or it will basically be the same (TV, couches and central air will all still exist) or the world will end, and we'll all be dead. What this episode points out is that far more likely than the world ending suddenly and irrevocably, is the world continuing, but going through some kind of crisis. Which means we're still alive but it's neither awesome, nor the same, and it is all the worse because we didn't prepare.