It was a rainy afternoon in 2125, and the university coffee shop was buzzing with chatter and the smell of synthetic espresso. History 304: Pandemics and Policy Failures of the 21st Century had just let out, and a group of students huddled around a table, half-mocking, half-processing what they’d learned.
“Okay, but seriously,” said Abe, adjusting his augmented-reality glasses, “that whole episode was like experimental bloodletting. The doctors killed more patients than they cured—and worse, the governments and employers made it mandatory. Economic force, they called it. Like, ‘take this or lose your livelihood.’”
“Yeah,” said Paul, sipping his algae latte. “Imagine being so confident in your science that you threaten to starve anyone who disagrees. I mean, even medieval barbers had better bedside manners.”
Abe smirked. “Right? Back then, they were just bleeding people because they thought it balanced humors. In 2020-something, they were doing it because an algorithm said it was ‘statistically significant.’”
Across the table, Luke looked up from his holo-tablet. “My great-grandfather lived through that. He said his neighbor got five of those things and still got the plague-of-that-time twice. Meanwhile, his cat never got sick once, and the cat wasn’t required to show a certificate to buy groceries.”
“That’s because the cat wasn’t employed by the government,” Paul said, grinning. “No claws clause.”
Abe chuckled. “And remember how they used to say ‘trust the experts’? Turns out the experts were just people with nicer PowerPoint templates and profits to make.
“Oh yeah,” said Luke, rolling his eyes. “And when it didn’t work, they just changed the definition of ‘words like vaccines.’ Kind of like when my girlfriend says she ‘technically’ cleaned the apartment because she sprayed air freshener.”
Paul leaned back in his chair. “It’s funny now, but imagine being there. You’d walk into a coffee shop, and someone would yell at you for not wearing your “compliance face cloth.” People were policing each other like they got paid per scowl or redoing that Nazi thing a from a few years prior.
“History will judge them kindly,” Abe said with mock solemnity. “Because history books are still written by people who want tenure and grants.”
They all laughed, but a moment of silence lingered afterward. It wasn’t the cynical kind—it was the kind that comes from realizing humanity could be so sure of itself and still be so wrong.
Finally, Abe spoke again, quietly. “The real tragedy wasn’t the sickness. It was how fast everyone forgot what freedom and reason were supposed to look like.”
Paul raised his cup. “To remembering. And to never letting another generation be guinea pigs in a lab experiment disguised as public policy.”
Luke clinked his mug against his. “Amen. And next week’s lecture—what’s it on again?”
Abe glanced at his tablet. “Oh. The Great Energy Transition of the 2040s.” The fear of climate devastation made billions for the political elites on windmills… Thank goodness it all changed after 2025 or sometime around then…
They all groaned in unison. “Perfect,” Paul said. “From bloodletting to blackouts. Humanity’s favorite hobby: learning the hard way.”
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