History (a brief synopsis)

  Here I am, a quarter of the way into a new century. It is one of those things that you aren't really aware of, until you are. Born mid twentieth century I hear that time frame used as a reference in history books. The month before my birth the convicted spies and communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for their crimes. It was something I heard about whenever commies were mentioned, and in the late 1950's and early 1960's we heard about commies a lot. In 1961 there was the Bay of Pigs incident. The commies had to be stopped but the mission failed miserably. The conflict in Vietnam had begun in 1955 but it wasn't until 1965 that President Johnson committed ground troops to beating back those damn commies. In 1987 President Reagan implored Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Then in December of 1991 the Soviet Union was dissolved, the end of the commies, or so we were told. Today we are still worried about the commies.

  So all of that happened in the twentieth century. Although I was there, I can't say I remember all of it as it was happening, but a good deal of it I can. The last year of the twentieth century in America was spent worrying about what would happen when the clock struck midnight on the new millennia. Many thought the economy would collapse, the computers would all break down and chaos would ensue. Computer programmers in the 1960's and 1970's had only used the last two digits to represent the year, ie: 97. Would the computer interpret 00 as 1900? If they do, all sorts of very bad things will happen. Nothing happened. 

  What has taken place in the 21st century? Well, I'd start with the attack of 9/11. It wasn't the commies, but it was who? At first we were told they were simply Muslims. Then they became terrorists and not necessarily Muslims. Islam was getting a bad rap and we were all urged to not place blame with that group. We got involved in the war in Iraq, again Muslims but not the real Muslims, just the bad Muslims. Social media began in earnest, as a common everyday thing, and began to permeate every aspect of our society. It has grown like a cancer, in my opinion. 

 My largest interaction with social media is Facebook, a platform that went from a place to go "farming" to the place for old people, you know us born in the last century. We had a pandemic! Covid was going to kill us all if we didn't comply with every vaccine mandate issued and keep up with our boosters. Mask wearing became a commonplace thing and is still seen frequently as the population has become more paranoid every year. There was the whole Black Lives Matter thing, a social upheaval on a grand scale. It began what I'm calling the "apology" tour for being a white person in America. 

 That has passed by, somewhat, and been replaced. Replaced by what? An identity crisis is my analysis. We aren't supposed to be concerned with the commies or the Muslims. We can only blame everyone else for our problems, everyone! No more pointing the finger at specific groups or individuals, everyone is at fault. We are all being urged to embrace, empower and validate the LGBTQ+ community and the Muslim world. Those pesky communists remain on the watch list though, never take your eyes off them. It's fine to sell American land to them, to do business with them, especially the Chinese,  but never trust them. The last holdover from the twentieth century. Today we are battling pronouns and inclusivity. We are developing AI with the goal being; we won't have to think for ourselves anymore, how freeing will that be. Just trust the science. AI will provide all the answers. 

 It has been said that hindsight is twenty-twenty. That is certainly a true statement. It would be great to see into the future wouldn't it. In that way we would change what we see in the past. We could then modify our choice to provide a different outcome. Of course there would be no guarantee that that outcome would any better than the last one. That's probably why they also say history repeats itself. When they are only two choices that is bound to happen. It's how our computers operate, and that AI. It's just yes and no, go and no-go. If you want to enjoy the future, you have to wait until tomorrow. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." That is something I heard from my grandmother, good advice.