They told us they were going to put it right.
They didn’t. For a minute, I believed them. I thought my generation would be smarter than that, Xer’s were supposed to be cynical and worldly. Turns out, most of my cohort couldn’t meet even the bare minimum of human decency to show up to vote and just not vote for an authoritarian asshole.
Me, I’m exhausted and scared and old. I have family, a life, plenty to lose. Take a day off work to what? To protest? To lobby congress critters to do their jobs? I’d like to think that a younger me, if he could see where we are, would be shocked and angry and moved to action.
I think William Gibson said something like there is no future, just a constant now. Sci fi is never about the future, it’s always about what’s happening now.
In the early 90’s, there was this game, Ray Winninger’s Underground, about the far off year 2021 when genetically enhanced veterans in a decaying America strive to make a difference. The world in this game was a satire of American life taken to an extreme. It was weirdly predictive of our present day.
So there is no future, only the now, and our now is a lot like our then. It’s like we’re the fly trapped in amber, we didn’t really change that much, we only got shinier toys.
What if that young me had actually been stuck in time to wake up to our now in another timeline…?
mydeadhorsenow 