AGENDA 2060: The Future as It Happens

Creating the rich post-modern society of today:

from a meeting of the Agenda Implementation Tribunal, September 2057…

“We need to think back to a time well before you were born,” the old person said. “In those days, the country was made up of forty-eight percent males and fifty-two percent females. There were only two boxes you could tick.”

The quaintness of this antiquated misconception brought smiles all around the table.

“Some social scientists of the time, believing themselves to be more enlightened, speculated that up to two percent of people of either gender might be homosexual.”

As the comrades on the other side of the table exploded in mirth at the outrageous nature of this speculation, the old person stilled them with a raised hand.

“But if you can believe that outrage, consider the fascist lie that was applied to race. Back in those days, there were only three boxes people could tick: ‘European ancestry,’ ‘non-European,’ or ‘other’!”

Heads shook.

What is this? Alexa wondered. Everyone knows this.

“The level of intimidation and oppression was so intense that people passively accepted this horrifying misrepresentation of themselves and of their country. ‘White intimidation and oppression’ is the proper description. We cannot blame white womyn for this, because they were victims of oppression themselves—white male oppression, the curse that we continue to fight around the world to this day.”

“Yes, yes,” Alexa said, nodding automatically. She caught herself almost muttering the standard mantra “male chauvinist patriarchal oppression,” before remembering she was not in a staff training session. Surely these people wouldn’t require that from her…?

“What strange days those must have been,” she said, looking around the table.

“Well, all that changed,” the chair announced, taking back the reins. “The brave intercession of pioneer efforts like the Me Too movement, by attacking toxic masculinity, exposing misgendering, and championing intersectionalism, has helped to unveil the true nature of who we are—and that, combined with the multicultural benefits of open borders, has made us the rich post-modern society we are today.”

Alexa wondered why on earth these people would find it necessary to tell her all this. It was all a bit strange; it felt as if they were trying to reassure themselves of the soundness of the principles outlined in their own Founders’ Manual.

Then a voice to her left spoke up. “Do you know how we made it happen?”

The person addressing her had a severe look: square jaw, heavily muscled tattooed arms, and a long strawberry-blonde wig. Alexa stiffened as she felt her unconscious bias training struggle to assert itself.

“Incentives!” the person announced before she could reply. “The Social Points system rewards people for identifying with minority groups. LGBTQI is now the largest combined demographic in the country. Three generations of state-sponsored miscegenation have seen the European race pushed out of its centuries-old dominance. Combined with our drive to bring mental illness into the mainstream, this means that the index for Transitional Benefits—or what they called “welfare” in the bad old days—has now been transformed. A person identifying as lesbian, American Indian, physically challenged, and qualifying for counseling could, theoretically, be entitled to one hundred and twelve percent of the maximum benefit scale … and therein lies our problem.”