Rolling Stone: 4 Ways the World Will Suck in 2016

[marmar]

1. We're going to keep fucking up the planet.

We've only got one, but we keep treating it like there's an extra in a box in the garage. Obama can sign all the climate accords he wants, but America's wallet is still controlled by a conservative-dominated Congress whose climate ideas amount to, "If global warming is real, why is it cold?" We've reached the point where doing anything is a huge accomplishment, but when our big-deal benchmarks amount to half measures, it's like getting your car interior detailed 72 months after your last oil change.

2. If you're middle aged and your favorite childhood musical artist creates anything during this calendar year, it will be bad.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. Just enough pastiches of songs you liked or callbacks to beats, guitar tones or vocal tricks that amped you up can make you convince yourself that this new thing is good. This can even catch you early: I spent a teen year trying to trick my brain into thinking The Division Bellwas an OK album instead of doing better things with it, like nitrous.

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3. We're not going to get any less racist or sexist anytime soon.

The biggest flaw in Star Trek: The Next Generation was always the idea that racism, sexism and classism would somehow vanish even with 350 years and a post-scarcity economy. Like post-scarcity could even start to address our problems. I refuse to believe the State of Texas would ever join the United Federation of Planets. "Sure, I get everything I need, but I have to sleep on a foam roll in foil Hammer pants? Fuck you, I'm rolling coal. I got a shitload of phasers in my Nemesis-class dune buggy. MOLON LABE AND HOOK 'EM HORNS."

To put this in a timeline, the Enlightenment — there's a term for you — began 300 years ago, and the greatest country on earth has as one of its top contenders for the presidency a billionaire mattress seller whose principal sales pitch is that we're all endangered by Muslims, Mexicans and Megyn Kelly's menstruation. The rest of that man's party differs from him only in tone. Their chief opponent will probably be a woman, after eight years of a black man's presidency. That's going to go extremely well even without another series of faked Planned Parenthood videos designed to take down the Recreational Vaginal-Use Complex. .............(more)

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/4-ways-the-world-will-suck-in-2016-20160106#ixzz3wZdHVbm8