THE RISE OF THE MILLENNIALS
In the year 3037, a history professor at UC Berkeley concludes his lecture on early 21st Century America...
"America suffered greatly in the early years of the 21st Century: a debilitating stock market crash which led to bailouts for the corrupt banking system, the growing U.S. Federal Budget deficit and the resultant U.S. Public Debt, the financial crisis in the aftermath of the mass retirement of the Baby Boomers, the then-looming climate change disaster, the rise of ISIS and the spread of Islamic Extremist terror, culture/race/religious clashes, general civil unrest and a growing mistrust of a government linked too heavily to private-sector corporations. It looked like curtains for The Great Republic Experiment"....Until the "Rise of the Millennials" in the early 2020s. The Millennials, having disconnected from the tribalistic religious, cultural, social and political aggrupations of their ancestors, were armed with a more positive outlook on the world, a hatred of useless bureaucracy, and a willingness to combine the desire for profit with the desire to innovate in such a way that effects positive social and environmental changes. These traits, and their marked preference for the scientific method over cultural traditions and superstitions, coupled with a more open, accepting and egalitarian mindset, led to an explosion of world-saving innovations, that not only gave the planet clean, cheap and sustainable energy sources, and returned atmospheric CO2 levels to favorable ranges, but it also ushered in a new Gilded Age...But with wealth spread about much more evenly (As we know, Millennials valued people and relationships more than material wealth - much more so than any generation before them). This new age of shared prosperity birthed a new American Golden Age of civic stability and grand optimism. This change in America's general worldview gave way to an era of openness and trust in political and economic dealings internally, and with other countries, as Americans genuinely wanted every citizen of the world to have access to the same resources, advantages and prosperity that they enjoyed. Eager to share in the freely-offered American prosperity and innovations, many nations began to enjoy a very close relationship with the United States by the year 2045. By 2050 world hunger was ended. 2051 saw the obliteration of cancer, most geriatric ailments and most known diseases. In 2063, the UN became the United Federation of Nations, and turned their focus to deep-space exploration, and the creation of the Exo-Envirosuit, that allowed humans to work and thrive in the deepest parts of the ocean, in the cold of outer space, and on the surface of Mars before it was terraformed in 2575. The Millennials saved our country, our world, and our legacy. Any questions? Good. Class dismissed."
© 2016 David Wilkerson
