It’s hard to imagine how the twenty-first century could have gotten to a more disappointing start. At least World War 4 would have made an interesting chapter in the textbooks of the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now all they’ll get to read about is our blasé breed of failure.

Still, there’s something to be learned from the last ten years. Specifically:

5: An Ounce of Prevention is worth a pound of FEMA’s fucking incompetence.

Hey, remember this?

Wasn’t that fun? I think it speaks for itself.

4: Role Models have no role in society.

It never fails to amuse me when a major entertaining or politician is caught selling transgender pit-fighting dogs to their drug-peddling mistresses. Not because of the act in itself, or my usual bitter schadenfreude. But due to the guaranteed mass reactions of misplaced shock and disappointment. Somehow, the public is always surprised to discover a little grime on their icons’ armor.

The problem is not simply in the figures we choose, but the fact that we choose to exalt anyone at all. When society props someone up as an example for the rest of us mere humans to follow, all that's been built is a foundation for disappointment.

When someone achieves fame or success in society, it isn’t because he’s the final reincarnation of Buddha. It’s because of some degree or talent, or more likely, luck. Morality isn’t guaranteed to come attached. In fact, slavish devotion is likely to give even the coolest heads a god complex to rival a cult leader.

Unless your favorite quarterback has wings, speaks in the voices of a thousand singing doves, and carries two stone tablets, you may want to seek your ethical pillar elsewhere.

3: The Law of Diminishing Returns.

Since we can’t focus too much on things that actually matter, let’s talk a bit about entertainment. After all, as a juggler in the bread and circus I can’t afford to have you thinking critically for too long.

We are in dire need of ideas that haven’t been strip mined.

Consider my favorite punching bag, Hollywood cinema. Sequelitis has ascended from a simple outbreak to a full blown epidemic. Films half the age of the lead actors are being remade as hollow shells. The standards for originality are lower than a middle school English project. This goes double for the gaming industry.

We’ve become far less concerned with innovation, and far more with genre inbreeding. We exist in a world where Crunkcore not only exists, but thrives. If you can process that fact without throwing up a little in your mouth, I envy you.

In short, please think twice before you dedicate another sixty dollars to “Guncock 3: Marine’s Revenge”.

2:Check your gift horse’s teeth.

What do the identity thief, loan shark, and Wall Street bandit all have in common? A lucrative reliance on the seemingly bottomless well of human gullibility.

But hey, maybe you really are the thousandth customer. How much harm can the social security numbers of your extended family really do? All kinds of wonders can lie behind the big red button. They're probably just trying to keep all the good stuff to themselves. Good thing you're so sharp.

"Armageddon" is actually Swiss for "candy dispenser".

If it looks too good to be true, your wallet is already gone.

1: Fear is the mind killer.

Take a moment to look back. This will be a strange experience for some of you, as a short memory has become a key element of coping with the modern world. But give it a shot.

Are you proud of the paranoia that marred the last ten years?

Does it satisfy you to know that all it takes for a nation to abandon its high-flying rhetoric on individual freedom is any threat of reprisal? Did Ben Franklin offer a special bargain 2 to 1 exchange ratio between freedom and security while I wasn’t looking?

It takes next to nothing to convince the modern citizen the sky is falling. I won’t call us lemmings. Lemmings actually require some stimuli to run off a cliff. We’re bipolar sloths.

There’s no reason not to replace “Home of the brave” with “made in China”.