If there was ever a question that put enough meat on the bone to end world hunger, it’s how would I reshape the modern world? Sheesh! Some thought experiments are like Metamucil to a teenager who, the night before, drank a six-pack. However, I shall limit myself to two thoughts.
I was a child of the 60s, was shaped by the 70s, and became a “viable” adult male in Ronald Reagan’s America. In the early days of my “viability,” sex was something you had with someone with whom you were serious about. It was a theme that followed through the 80s and into the early 90s. And then Bubba (Bill Clinton), with his curious sexual exploits, became the standard bearer. The result? By the early aughts, sex migrated away from intimacy and became an activity. Moving ahead, sex was to the late aughts and early teens what Pickle Ball has become to the 2020s, a national craze. But nowadays? Studies have illustrated that people under the age of thirty are having less sex than at any time in human history. Boomer men with erectile dysfunction are having more sex than their Gen Z grandsons. And we could blame social media, Covid, AI, wokism, the age of Trump, or all of the above, but it won’t change what we all know to be factual: America doesn’t course-correct, she over-corrects. For reasons no one can figure, she’s hardwired to exhaust zero, and then one hundred, before finally understanding she works best at fifty.
I was once someone enamored with the intellectual thrusts of Christopher Hitchens, Salmon Rushdie, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, otherwise known as the four horsemen of new-world atheism. This quartet very eloquently occupied a domain where skepticism and empiricism niftily coalesced. Unfortunately, their project had unintended consequences. Was their mission to serve God and religion with eviction notices? Indeed. Did they succeed? Somewhat. Moreover, by no fault of their own, they overestimated what society would use for resources after God and religion were unceremoniously shown the back door. Had they the capability to see around corners and had witnessed a society erecting false gods in the name of race, sex, and gender, they might have squashed their project.
So, how does a society, now an army of skeptics, comport itself when laden with crumbling institutions and mistrust? Simply put, it has fact-checkers checking the fact-checkers checking the fact-checkers; experts checking the experts checking the experts. If I defer to you because you have expertise in a certain discipline but then doubt you, then I, too, must acquire the necessary expertise; hence, what was the point? And now begs the question: Is an atomized world with 7 billion citizen journalists, citizen scientists, etc. progress or chaos?
I apologize if I ruined your day. But remember, whether you pray to a false god or partake in “old-time” religion, you’re popping Viagra or an Incel, there’s always alcohol, ice cream, and baseball! Happy Tuesday.
Michael's Corner 
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