Now and then in times of trouble, Gandalf Greyhame comes to Zoe Cartwright speaking words of wisdom. Photo: New Line Cinema.
An American war in the Middle East. Fears about technology causing the collapse of society as we know it. Global warming. Booming property prices.
I don’t know about other millennials, but I feel like I’m firmly reliving the world as it was when I was in primary school.
Unfortunately this isn’t a film starring Lindsay Lohan and I haven’t been involved in some kind of magical body-swap with my daughter.
This time I get to live the early 2000s all over again, but as an adult.
And I’m going to be honest with you all, it kind of sucks.
I remember Y2K anxiety dominating adult conversation the way the potential impacts of AI dominate the internet today.
I remember the atmosphere of trepidation about whether Australia would be dragged into the US war in Iraq.
I remember “greenies” talking a lot about global warming – and even if most adults didn’t believe them, in the small town where I grew up they still banded together to stop a charcoal factory being built on our doorstep.
I remember the delirious excitement of grown-ups in that same small town as they found out their beachfront, three-bedroom homes, purchased for well under $100k in the 80s and early 90s, were now worth in the neighbourhood of that magical sum, a million dollars.
Maybe it’s old age, maybe it’s cynicism, but despite the similarities, things feel different this time around.
A bit more tired, a bit more grubby. Maybe we’re all a bit more jaded.
Unlike Y2K, AI is sucking up huge amounts of vital resources such as space, power and water, whether or not it ever emerges as a technology powerful enough to disrupt the systems we all depend on.
It doesn’t just take up space in people’s minds, it actively molds them as we are seeing with increased incidents of AI-induced psychosis.
There’s no debate about whether Iran was “really” trying to acquire nuclear weapons in the way there was debate about whether or not Iraq “really” had WMDs.
And there’s no real speculation about whether Australia would join the US if the conflict escalates into a boots-on-the-ground situation.
We’ve seen enough over the past 20-plus years to know it’s an inevitability, no matter how futile or unjust citizens might think it is.
Most of us accept global warming’s rebrand, climate change, is real and here. It’s hard not to when you’ve been affected by multiple “once-in-a-century” disasters over a period of just a few years. But the debate has calcified, and via social media bad actors have made it almost impossible for communities to present a united front.
Most of my peers – the same age my parents were back in the heady days of the early 00s property boom – don’t own their own homes. Escalating property prices are met with despair from those locked out of the housing market, or calm acceptance from those already in.
Property is no longer a speculative investment, it’s a guaranteed return.
Just five years ago, the word “unprecedented” got tossed around a lot. Despite continued, and in some cases escalating, crises around the world, “unprecedented” has fallen out of favour.
For good or ill, at this point the times are very precedented indeed.
Fortunately, another staple of the early 2000s – and even earlier than that – is still here to provide comfort.
It’s not Freaky Friday, but that other classic, The Lord of the Rings.
If we look too long into the palantir – I mean the internet – it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the relentlessness of it all.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
I’ll skull a jaeger-bomb to that.
Original Article published by Zoe Cartwright on Region Canberra.
