The Most Terrifying Prediction Of 2020

     Remnants of the covid class war will touch every domain of life for decades. Officials have suggested that social distancing will need to continue even after mandatory vaccinations. Masks have become a potent symbol of both physical purity and mutual mistrust. Our fantasy of a sanitized and deathless society has created a world where the home is a prison and friends and family are a health hazard. In this world children are told they are killing their grandparents simply by existing. Right now we are still at the beginning of sweeping changes that may include social credit, immunity passports, a rent-only economy, AI and robotics expansion, financialization of natural resources, increased mass surveillance, the Uberization of everything, and rolling lockdowns for climate change or the flu. We have a limited window of time to reclaim the things that make life worth living: family, community, cultural heritage, the social sphere, public institutions, common spaces, and free movement. That window may be closing quickly, but it is not fully closed yet.

     — Alex Gutentag —

     Please read the whole article. Believe me, it’s worth your time.

     Ponder this: The Communist tyrannies of the Twentieth Century used their subjects’ fear of one another to control them and ensure their continued power. At any time, deliberately or otherwise, your neighbor might make a remark that would bring the KGB to your doorstep. The aspiring tyrants of our time learned from those Communists. They too use our fear of one another to control us: your fear that your neighbor might...give you a bad cold!

     No wonder it’s so hard to write satire these days.