https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymohrT4hDac
We need to talk. About The McFuture.
It's now years after the recession. Unemployment is at record lows, stocks are at record highs, and many of us are at record widths. We float in this infinity pool of Nutella, Netflix, and nip slips. Things that would make Caesar blush. We can learn any skill, order any product, and communicate with - or pleasure ourselves to - anyone else on earth. We can freaking fly! To Florida! For $300!! Everyone with Ponce de Leon died getting to Florida.
Even rich people aren’t the demons of old. They used to hire goons to beat us up during factory riots. Today, they’re beating themselves up - in yoga, Zumba, and therapy. Half of them are on TV – showing us their freshly implanted boobs - and approximately where to go to take them hostage and steal their stuff. But we don’t. We don't. This must be paradise.
But if this is paradise, why do the two presidential candidates with the most militant minions want to give America an extreme makeover?
One wants to build a EuroDisney with the help of a generous single-payer: somebody else. The other wants to make us great again, referencing some unknowable era. Is it when The Dukes of Hazzard was on TV? When farm work was seriously discounted? When I had hair?? Whichever it is, you fill in the blank, then paint yourself orange and wait - ‘cuz great deals are on the way!
Why are so many so eager to be saved? By a suddenly-competent government. Or, from Mexicans, Syrians and Chinese, who've been plotting to destroy America with dreams of a better life.
And it’s not just the US. In the Middle East, Europe and South America, extremism is replacing moderation like a bad Folgers Crystals ad. Everyone is itching, but no one knows why, where, or how to scratch it.
There’s a simple(ish) answer.
We’re going through a massive global puberty. Yeah, puberty.
Everything from Trumpism to terrorism to hashtag heroism are freshly sprouted zits and pubes. They’re part of a YUUUGE transition we’re woefully unprepared for - psychologically, professionally or politically.
Like puberty bestows an adult body to a child, technology gives us unwieldy powers. Imagine if baby Superman really crash-landed on earth. That little alien critter would trigger a genocide and a thermonuclear explosion - before his first diaper change. We can all agree that an indestructible flying baby that melts steel with its eyes is probably too powerful for Lourdes, your current nanny.
Consider Arab Spring, Perestroika, and the Venezuela shit show. The minute people leave one abusive tyrant, they immediately find a shittier one. It’s like if Rihanna broke up with Chris Brown to date OJ.
Democracy is a powerful force, but it demands people who are informed, who yearn for it, fight for it. But if the people aren’t ready...it just doesn’t work.
Same goes for the Internet and all its deadly spawn.
If in 1692, I casually mentioned that I could predict the weather, capture any image, and talk to anyone in China, I'd be burned as a witch. But we aren't witches...most of us.
By any historical measure, we are gods. Nay, we are a confused, indestructible, alien, god-babies. We possess powers we can barely fathom, much less master. And they're rewiring our brains, reshaping our bodies, molding our behaviors.
When you live in a world full of colon cleanses officially sanctioned by Gwyneth Paltrow, everyone starts to feel like greatness is within reach – even for our colons.
It’s.....right.....there.......
But few of us have any clue how to seize it – or even what to want. And the ones we ridicule – Kardashians, silicone housewives, and Silicon Valley bros - seem best adapted to rule this new world.
Some of them accept their Instagrammies with a smile. Others, unlock new levels of discontent, addiction or loneliness - like bigger, meaner monsters on new levels of a video game. Some of the most successful people I've met are fighting life's biggest d...
