The 21st century hasn't been terribly nice so far. We had the 2000 US presidential election fiasco, 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, hurricane Katrina with the Federal govt essentially telling the people of Louisiana to go and fuck themselves; let's see, then there's the 2008 finanicial crisis, the 2016 election of Trump (and I'm not so thrilled with Obama's presidency in retrospect, tho he did give us Obamacare, for what it's worth), then the Jan 6th insurrection, the pandemic, and just as it seemed like that might be winding down, Russia invaded Ukraine, and when that seemed like it entered into a stalemate, then Hamas attacked Israel and Israel responded with collective punishment of Gaza. I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of other important stuff (there are ongoing wars in the Congo we never hear about), but those are the things that stick out to me. Humanity is exhausted and demoralized; birthrates in many places around the world are taking a nosedive. I'm fortunate to only have been personally affected by the finanicial crisis and COVID, lots of other people have had it much worse. Someone will probably respond that it's all a matter of perspective, and they'd be right, of course; perhaps I was spoiled by the relatively stress-free 90s. Maybe things will get better? I think it's past time they did. Anyway, thus endeth my rant, thanks for reading.