I have accelerated close to the speed of light to move forward in time and experience how awesome things are in 2009.
Say, this is a sweet phone! It’s like a little computer that fits in my pocket and can do anything and everything on-the-go! What’s that? I have to pay over $80 a month for the privilege of using it, and despite the fact I rarely even use the phone part, costly voice and data plans will only go up in price if I attempt to get a cheaper rate?
I bet I have a great career that makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning and I make a meaningful contribution to the future of mankind. No? I make a subsistence living that quite literally includes hunting and gathering wild fruit in the woods as if I’m living a sadistic real-life version of the game Oregon Trail? At least I finished my degree. Oh, but it’s worthless because I went to school at a university that doesn’t give a damn about its journalism program?
Have people as a whole made substantive progress toward a better future? I assume Al Gore just finished his eight year tenure in the White House and tackled a number of pressing issues including global warming and energy usage. Wait, the last eight years have seen unprecedented rollbacks of environmental protection and now things are so much worse that the natural factors which regulate the climate have moved beyond the point of recovery? Well, I’m sure GM’s EV1 took off and now we all drive even more advanced electric cars. You say the auto manufacturing sector in the United States is bankrupt because car makers insisted on producing the largest most wasteful vehicles we have ever seen?
How is my retirement account doing? It’s been ten years and I’m sure my IRA has made impressive gains I could only imagine. What? The stock market has fallen to a 12-year low and the only thing my account has to show for all that time is a net loss? Well I can just make that money back, because the economy is doing just fine, am I right? The global banking system has nearly collapsed and we’re on the precipice of a financial cliff where if we fall it will make the Great Depression look like an idyllic time of plenty?
This is a lot to take in. I think I’ll smother the pain while watching three brand new Star Wars movies that are sure not to disappoint!