You’re not broken, the world is…
Have you heard the latest? TechnoCorp and BizCorp have finally decided to merge and join forces, GovCorp has been crumbling for decades and the whizkids are ready to take their crack at the problem. Inefficiencies, beware! The new world is easily analyzed by an AI/ML algorithm overseen by lanky white men always picked last in their high school PE kickball games. Do you feel safer yet? The technology is being funded by a legion of pompous white men who assure the populace that profits are the key performance indicators of social progress. When asked how the KPIs would directly benefit society, BizCorp board members fled to palatial estates filled with hoarded historico-cultural artpieces and 100 petabytes worth of hard drives loaded with NFTs. Despite numerous Medium articles, no one really quite understands the value of NFTs but better to hold onto what might be a groundswell in the future and drive the markets.
At least we’re living longer. Modern estimates say your chances of making it to centegenarianism are good, although it appears to be heavily correlated with the tint of your skin and the obesity of your bank accounts. Stock up on bleach and open accounts with all the penny-saving apps, that should help your chances. If you keep catching the latest strain of Ameripox, rest easy knowing our medications* are getting more and more specialized. Pharmaceutical field executives have discovered that if they identify and synthesize the active compounds in raw plant material and then destroy the original plants they can eliminate competition from social terrorists such as holistic healers, naturopathic doctors, witchpeople, psychedelic advocates, and radical environmentalists. This will help with profits! I mean progress.
*Surgeon general’s warning: taking modern pharmaceutical medications may cause cascading biopsychosociospiritual imbalances resulting in subsequent illness, shorter life expectancy, greater dissatisfaction, and greater sensitivity to prolonged stress. PharmaCorp has assured us they’re working on a pill for this.
See now, look outside at that world of opportunity that awaits your pocketbook. There’s never been more to buy than in modern America! BizCorp has created an entire market to satisfy this essential human need. All you need to do is pay 65 years of your life at the low-low price of 40 hours per week and every two weeks you’ll get a paycheck to spend at RetailMart where you can buy the latest synthetic formulations of “bread” and “water”. You can also buy 100% synthetic fiber clothing, good for pinching pennies or starting fires. The nights get pretty cold in the cities when they divert all the power to the wealthy suburbs so it’s a good thing you can buy low-cost kindling. If you get really cold, just suit up and light a match. The gated, high-walled neighborhoods have begun calling winter, Fire Festival. They drink champagne and watch the lights through high windows. You can tune into the livestreams, last year Beyonce headlined.
The monarch butterflies have just gone extinct but not before TechnoCorp digitally scanned them into their rosy-eyed Earth Archive program. Now we can share the beauty of nature with all future generations! Subscriptions begin at $666/month. How can you say no to your doe-eyed daughter asking what it was like to grow up in a world with real butterflies? As you look around your rented apartment filled with rented furniture (inflation has been a bitch this last half-century) and empty walls (leases have begun barring all rental modifications as it promotes costly cleaning between tenants) you think I guess I can work overtime.
It’s been so long you can’t even remember the world where food grew outside and where you didn’t need to login to see an animal. It’s been so long you don’t even remember that water once flowed freely over the land in rivers and lakes. It’s been so long you don’t even remember that humans used to exist without rectangled glowing metal appendages at the ends of their arms and in front of their eyes. That once the world was a world instead of a lie. The lie that the rising depression, anxiety, and suicide numbers are unrelated to living in a modern world.
