An Apology for the Graduating Class of 2044

This is Satire... Maybe

The Great Salt Lake, when there was water in it, 2020. Image courtesy of the author.

Kindergarteners everywhere have set up unrealistic expectations of how life is about to go.

Sorry, you poor bastards. The powers that be have decided that there will be a lot of you graduating from a threadbare religious library with empty extraction holes where all the banned, interesting, or educational books used to be.

Your school library may even fit on a single antique jump drive.

I’m sorry that the once free information is now curated by AI search engines that you must pay to use. They will frequently give you an answer that is 87% incorrect.

I’m sorry you have more access to porn, social media, and exploitation than a doctor, dentist, therapist, or college.

I’m sorry that the second you start thinking for yourself, are born with anything different about your identity, body, or orientation, you will be banned from human things like bathrooms and public services. You will be ridiculed by other people whose lives suck just a little less than yours.

I’m sorry we burned up the planet with greed, hatred, and ignorance. We knew this was the way it was headed. We had a hundred years to decide if this was a good idea, and you know what? A few of us thought: “I’d like all the resources in piles like Elon Musk, Mr. Beast, and Scrooge McDuck, only bigger.” Some of them even thought: If we make people subservient, we can have an ever-growing pile that has more zeros than the age of the universe!

Everyone decided that was the better plan. Why go to the trouble of sharing enough for everyone? That seems like a lot of counting.

I feel bad that we don’t care about you after you’re born.

Getting you here was a labor of restrictions for your poor parents. We had to ban any kind of choice for women, forcing them to get you here. That’s why you don’t have enough to eat either. (Hard to have a job when you’re in prison.)

We’re giving you the impression there’s not enough food, but the truth is, we prefer to throw that away if the Scrooge McDuck people don’t get enough zeroes in their ectoplasmic money pile. There will never be enough, so you might want to buckle up.

Hey, at least the education and the diet match.

I’m sorry that we’re not fighting for a better tomorrow. We were too entrenched in fighting with each other. “Owning the libs” was much more important than taking care of people. Blaming the victim has also worked well.

We learned how to do this from the Scrooge McDuck people, and they own everything so they must be smart. Even though they have all the money, resources, and leverage, it’s our fault. Remember that, however weird it seems.

They taught me that “It’s only against the law unless you can buy enough people to change that law.” That’s why your aunt Mildred is only 12, and Uncle Zeb is 42.

I’m sorry your child had to attend kindergarten while your mom attended high school. It’s biology, right? I know your dad should be in jail, your mom is your sister, and it’s hard to function with a genetic disorder, but pick yourself up by your bootstrap, kiddo! Most of us have to pick up two.

My sincerest apologies that you may never know the Earth is round, we made it to the moon, birds are real, and dinosaurs didn’t return to space.

I’m sorry that the people in charge seem to enjoy club Epstein-Diddy. You might want to say goodbye to the twins. They’re not coming back.

I’m sorry that women will never know about their biology, but as long as they keep making babies, we will consider them a ‘renewable resource’.

I’m sorry that the only things we will be cooling in this burnt-up world will be robots, data centers, and warehouses. If you put a wet towel on your neck, it might help, but then you’ll have less to drink. Up to you.

Utah Data Center, image courtesy of Business Insider.

I’m sorry that most of your friends died from preventable diseases. We wanted to listen to the same people who facilitated the giant money pile. They put some guy with a worm-eaten brain who nearly killed himself with heroin in charge of healthcare. He doesn’t believe in vaccines, quite possibly because that part of his prefrontal cortex was a main course or side dish. The researchers were all fired, so it will remain a mystery.

I’m sorry that we had the capacity to feed everyone, house everyone, clothe everyone, and care for everyone, even cure most diseases, but because there was nobody left to sell it to, they cancelled the programs.

I’m sorry that we sort people by skin color, gender, birthplace, and economic status, even though those things have nothing to do with optimal brain function, humanity, or worthiness. Incidentally, worthiness is imaginary, but we like to use that to prop up the imaginary friend the religious people use to abuse each other.

I’m sorry that your entire education is dictated by that same imaginary friend fronted by people with imaginary power and imaginary money. (Nobody wants to tell you that we gave it to them.)

Note: The Scrooge McDuck people are meaner and more psychotic than the rest of us. They have zero problem watching whole swathes of people die of disease, disaster, and disinterest. At least we can say fuck on TV.

Social contract, amirite?

In Closing:

I sincerely hope that today you reach out and tell your neighbor: “It’s all a lie, we don’t have to do this anymore.”

Take what you need, take care of each other, and take no bullshit.

Enough is enough.