History Always Begins Again

     This morning at X, Clay Travis of Outkick said:

There’s a strong argument America peaked around 1999. Everyone pretty much got along. Most people didn’t have cell phones. And if they did they had no cameras on them. https://t.co/5XH4fiNSPZ

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 7, 2025

     (Note in particular that cell phones were not yet common. Hm. If Clay is right, it’s time to look at the correlation between cell-phone proliferation and our more recent miseries. Maybe the radiation from cell-phone towers really does cook the brain. “They” have been talking about it for a long time, but I’ve persistently dismissed it.)

     For myself, I remember significant tensions between the races in 1999. I remember the ceaseless anti-capitalist agitation of the environmentalists and their BANANA (“Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody”) campaigns. I remember that the media were relentless promoters of government activism. I remember that taxes were high and getting steadily higher. And of course, Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was drawing near.

     Yet in some ways it was a better time. America wasn’t enmeshed in foreign wars. There was no open rioting in the cities. The explosion of several destructive themes in politics was still in the future. Interracial and homosexual couples weren’t yet obligatory in TV dramas. Microprocessors hadn’t yet taken over our toasters. White babies weren’t being vaccinated against dengue fever and schistosomiasis. And I was only 47, relatively fit, and relatively healthy.

     And this joke was still being told:

Joe the COBOL Programmer

     There was once a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. For the sake of this story, we'll call him Joe. After years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the UNIX programmers and Client/Server programmers and website developers, Joe was finally getting some respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 conversions. He was working short-term assignments for prestige companies, traveling all over the world on different assignments, and making more money than he'd ever dreamed of.

     Joe was working 70 and 80 and even 90 hour weeks, but it was worth it. Soon he could retire. But several years of such relentless, mind-numbing work took its toll on Joe. He had problems sleeping and began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. It reached a point where even the thought of the year 2000 made him nearly violent. He must have suffered some sort of breakdown, because all he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.

     Finally, Joe decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He contracted to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. This was a very complex process, but totally automated and utterly reliable. He was thrilled. The next thing he would know, he'd wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day...nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life. He was put into his cryogenic capsule, the technicians set the revival date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that.

     The next thing that Joe saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting, "I can't believe it!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!" There were cameras unlike any he'd ever seen and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.

     Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Joe couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "It is over?" he asked. "Is 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?"

     The spokesman explained that 2000 had gone, but that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Joe's cryogenic receptacle - it hadn't been year 2000 compliant, and it was... well... a few years past that. But the spokesman told Joe that he shouldn't get excited as someone important wanted to speak to him.

     Suddenly a wall-sized projection screen displayed the image of a man that looked very much like Bill Gates. This man was Prime Minister of Earth. He told Joe not to be upset, that this was a wonderful time to be alive--that there was world peace and no more starvation--that the space program had been reinstated and there were colonies on the moon and on Mars--that technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet, or to watch any entertainment, or to hear any music recorded anywhere.

     "That sounds terrific," said Joe. "But I'm curious. Why is everybody so interested in me?"

     "Well," said the Prime Minister. "The year 10,000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL.”

     <rimshot />