If you could go back 10 years and speak to your former self, what would you tell that unsuspecting fool?”:
In the future, many of your national assets will be owned by China. Most of the goods you buy will be made there too, which you will not purchase from your fellow countrymen but a sole supplier owned by an American.
The most successful politicians will not be elder statesmen committed to public service but young upstarts who view the job as a stepping stone towards tremendous personal wealth in later life.
Your Government will pass bills to quash peaceful protest and enable the recruitment of child spies. This won’t be limited to the intelligence services but bodies like the environmental and food standards agencies too. When you ask “why”, nobody will be able to tell you.
Your Government will set up ‘nudge units’ staffed by unknown behavioural scientists. They will tell you what to eat, drink and how you should behave. There will be patronising health and safety signs everywhere you look.
“The media will grow dependent on Government advertising revenue and cease reporting opinions and events that contradict official narratives.
The internet will be dominated by a small number of big-tech companies who will delete all information that they disagree with.
In the name of safeguarding students from harm, schools and universities will cease debate and enquiry. People with contrary views will be barred from campuses. Even student newspapers will be censored by ‘sensitivity readers’.
At work, you will be made to undergo psychological re-education. The people lecturing you will have no knowledge of psychology but nonetheless try to change you at a subconscious level.
People will be sacked from their jobs for saying there are two biological sexes or for telling an ill-judged joke. They will not be forgiven if they apologise.
Every major institution and employer will sign up to this censorious culture and soon you will censor yourself when speaking to friends and colleagues without even knowing that you’ve done so.
When a virus emerges that only kills 0.3% of those who catch it – the majority of which older than the average span of a life – you will be bombarded, 24-hours a day, by terrifying public messaging.
The police will stop you from meeting a friend for a coffee in the park. They will rummage through your shopping bags to make sure you’ve only bought things that they deem essential. They will film you as you walk in the countryside and put the footage on the internet so to shame you.
Neighbour will be told to spy on neighbour, and when you have friends round for dinner the police will knock on your door and give you a fine.
You will be told to stay two metres away from other people at all times. You will be made to wear a facemask even though there’s no evidence that they do anything at all. When this becomes apparent, scientists will say you must wear them so as not to frighten other people. Your freedom will end where another’s fear begins.
Families will be kept from dying loved ones. Widows will be denied the comfort of human touch. Daughters will be arrested for collecting their mothers from care homes.
Vast numbers of children will be sent home from school and denied a proper education just because one classmate lost their sense of smell.
Weddings will be cancelled. Nightclubs will be closed. Churches will be shut. Singing and dancing will be prohibited. Lovers will be kept apart.
Vaccines will be created using messenger ribonucleic acid technology. When the inventor of that technology warns against its use by those at little risk from the virus, records of him will be expunged and someone more ‘helpful’ will be credited with his work.
You will be told that the vaccine isn’t compulsory, yet those who refuse might be sacked from their jobs. They will be made to queue for longer at airports. They will be put under house arrest if they come into contact with someone who has the virus, whilst those who have had it will not. They will be stopped from going to bars and stadiums. There will be two classes of people: the clean and the unclean.
Your unassailable and decadent leaders will ignore the rules they set for others again and again, blissfully untroubled by the cries of hypocrisy.
Global leaders, bureaucrats, scientists, royalty and the super-rich will meet in private to discuss how we all must live. They’ll say there are too many people and not enough resources, but nobody will ask who we should get rid of and how. Blinded by hubris, they’ll believe that they alone can bring about a utopian future. The language they speak will be impenetrable to most, it made up of meaningless phrases like ‘stakeholder capitalism’, ‘collectivisation’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘Build Back Better’. Every now and then, however, they’ll make things very clear: “You will own nothing. You will rent everything. You will be happy.”
Few will question what this means, how it will be brought about or what mandate they have for doing so. Those who do, or any of the above, will be insulted, ridiculed and so pushed to the margins of society that they are effectively silenced.
Now, what do you think your former self would say?