Read Online THAT WAS THE MILLENIUM THAT WAS by John Scalzi - Free Book Online
Authors: John Scalzi
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system has no place for the secret history of mayonnaise. It's accepted its fate with dignity. Mayonnaise does not weep for what could have, should have been. It's happy just to do its job, quietly. Go ahead and use it in your macaroni salad. Sure, it's no lobster mayonnaise. But beggars can't be choosers.
Best Thing to be Thankful For of the Millennium.
That you are who you are, where you are, when you are. You probably won't agree with this tomorrow, when you'll be just another schmoe traveling on the day before Thanksgiving. In fact, as you sit in your coach seat, breathing stale, dry airplane air and listening to the non-stop squalling of the angry, angry infant in the row directly in front of you, dreading the inevitable loss of your bags if and when your plane is ever allowed to land, you'll probably wish you were anyone else, anywhere else, anytime else. But you'll be missing the bigger picture. It's hard to maintain perspective when the horizon consists of a plastic tray lodged into the back of an airplane seat.
And the bigger picture is that you are doing just swell. Probably better than any of your ancestors at your age (even mom and dad), and certainly better than the vast majority of humanity as it has existed at any time. In the "Best Historical Era of the Millennium" segment, I argued that for the average human being, all historical eras were pretty much equal (and pretty much equally bad). However, I also pointed out that the average human being on this planet is a dirt-poor Chinese farmer. Chances are very good you are not he or she (very few dirt-poor Chinese farmers have an Internet connection).
It's true: You are not average. Well, maybe you are -- in the context of the United States and Canada (and let's throw in Western Europe and Japan, just to be fun). But that's being average for the top 10% of the world: Combined, US, Canada, Japan and Western Europe have 600 million people in them. That's exactly 10% of the world's population -- and the top 10% in terms of income, education, nutrition and health care, life expectancy, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. Being average in this group puts would put you in the 95th percentile for the entire planet. You're getting an "A" and you're not even trying .
And the fact is, you're probably doing better than that -- Internet access still correlates with better education and higher wealth, and all the fringe benefits that come with those items. Go on, admit it -- you're on top of the world! You big fat cat, you. Sure, sometimes you experience problems. Everyone does, even Bill Gates (and these days, especially Bill Gates). But I'd be willing to bet that given the choice between your problems and, say, starving to death in Eritrea because battling warlords won't let a UN convoy of People Chow get through to your village, you'd pick your problems. Even your issues are better than most everyone else's. You hardly deserve a hug.
What you are experiencing has been true for the top echelons of every historical era; by and large, life is always better when you're well-off and educated. Be that as it may, even for the comfortable and thinking, this historical era is far better than any that came before it. Let me prove it by using a fine example of indolent late 20th-century fat slob and show the many ways he would be dead or miserable in any other age (I'll pick the 1600s, just for convenience, and assume more or less the same station in life). That 20th-century fat slob is -- of course! -- my own egregiously undeserving self.
First, naturally enough: Birth. All my mother's children lived to adult years, which certainly wouldn't have happened in the 17th century -- up until the dawn of the 20th century, one child in five was lost to infant mortality and childhood diseases. Of course, my mother would have had eight or so children instead of the three she had, because it was her duty and there wasn't any reliable birth control. Provided she lived long enough to
Best Thing to be Thankful For of the Millennium.
That you are who you are, where you are, when you are. You probably won't agree with this tomorrow, when you'll be just another schmoe traveling on the day before Thanksgiving. In fact, as you sit in your coach seat, breathing stale, dry airplane air and listening to the non-stop squalling of the angry, angry infant in the row directly in front of you, dreading the inevitable loss of your bags if and when your plane is ever allowed to land, you'll probably wish you were anyone else, anywhere else, anytime else. But you'll be missing the bigger picture. It's hard to maintain perspective when the horizon consists of a plastic tray lodged into the back of an airplane seat.
And the bigger picture is that you are doing just swell. Probably better than any of your ancestors at your age (even mom and dad), and certainly better than the vast majority of humanity as it has existed at any time. In the "Best Historical Era of the Millennium" segment, I argued that for the average human being, all historical eras were pretty much equal (and pretty much equally bad). However, I also pointed out that the average human being on this planet is a dirt-poor Chinese farmer. Chances are very good you are not he or she (very few dirt-poor Chinese farmers have an Internet connection).
It's true: You are not average. Well, maybe you are -- in the context of the United States and Canada (and let's throw in Western Europe and Japan, just to be fun). But that's being average for the top 10% of the world: Combined, US, Canada, Japan and Western Europe have 600 million people in them. That's exactly 10% of the world's population -- and the top 10% in terms of income, education, nutrition and health care, life expectancy, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. Being average in this group puts would put you in the 95th percentile for the entire planet. You're getting an "A" and you're not even trying .
And the fact is, you're probably doing better than that -- Internet access still correlates with better education and higher wealth, and all the fringe benefits that come with those items. Go on, admit it -- you're on top of the world! You big fat cat, you. Sure, sometimes you experience problems. Everyone does, even Bill Gates (and these days, especially Bill Gates). But I'd be willing to bet that given the choice between your problems and, say, starving to death in Eritrea because battling warlords won't let a UN convoy of People Chow get through to your village, you'd pick your problems. Even your issues are better than most everyone else's. You hardly deserve a hug.
What you are experiencing has been true for the top echelons of every historical era; by and large, life is always better when you're well-off and educated. Be that as it may, even for the comfortable and thinking, this historical era is far better than any that came before it. Let me prove it by using a fine example of indolent late 20th-century fat slob and show the many ways he would be dead or miserable in any other age (I'll pick the 1600s, just for convenience, and assume more or less the same station in life). That 20th-century fat slob is -- of course! -- my own egregiously undeserving self.
First, naturally enough: Birth. All my mother's children lived to adult years, which certainly wouldn't have happened in the 17th century -- up until the dawn of the 20th century, one child in five was lost to infant mortality and childhood diseases. Of course, my mother would have had eight or so children instead of the three she had, because it was her duty and there wasn't any reliable birth control. Provided she lived long enough to
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