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Sunday 31 December 2023: A Years In Review (2022 - 2023)

Been putting this one off for … about two years. But nevermind, at the end of this we’ll be all caught up. Which is … bad, most likely. Or at least mentally scarring. These two years definitely do belong in a set – where the unifying characteristic is that they’re both terrible. So. Let’s get done here as quickly as is humanly possible. Or something.

Rapid-Fire 2022

We begin 2022 with protests over vaccine mandates focussing more on the ‘telling me what to do is wrong’ angle than the ‘losing lives to a preventable disease is wrong’ angle. After a tantrum that involved setting several fires on Parliament grounds (not to be confused with setting anything actually important on fire – sadly Brian Tamaki will have to wait his turn).

Yes, Covid was still a thing (it is rather shocking how quickly the world at, for want of a better term, large, tried to end a global disease with the power of thought. Went about as well as expected, which is to say death rates immediately spiked on the first ‘return to the Office’ orders. But the will of the people was respected (even if it had not been communicated effectively in the first place, and the restriction measures worked their way out, and borders reopened.

At some point along the way, Russia’s leader lost his status as a human, taking up new pronouns (this/that) in the process, when a unilateral war was declared on Ukraine, for, you know, reasons. There must be reasons, right? The land was worth something and should be seized? Something like that. Ukraine managed to fend off the initial attack, turning a two-day (initial plan) war into one that has lasted two years (and counting). Sounds like my driving tests.

In September, the Queen died (costing UK Government money), and the new King (known henceforth as #NotMyKing) was coronated. The coroner’s report (ac-)costed yet more UK Government money. Wait, is that not what a coroner’s report is for?

Elon Musk said some things on Twitter indicating that he’d buy it – which improved the stock and legally forced him to actually deliver as opposed to committing securities fraud – meaning he spent an inordinate amount of money buying a product not designed to make a profit. So good news all round, then – and surely no negative consequences at all? Time will tell …

And the worldwide cost of living crisis (the need for constant corporate profits that seems to have become pervasive crept into the necessity markets, which caused exactly the problems you’d expect). And yet, prices have yet to come down, so there must be some political or otherwise interest in keeping people poor and unable to fix their situations. Or just general Greed. Which sounds like the name of a soldier. This then flowed into all other sectors as inflation found a new bike pump, and house prices seemed to stall temporarily but not in a sustainable manner.

Auckland elected a new Mayor who opened his term by addressing the press the way a deranged CEO with a non-functioning knowledge of how democracy works would do. That is, immediately threaten the jobs of people supposedly on the council, and undermine the public confidence in their abilities, as well as his own. At least his incompetence hasn’t cost lives yet.

In other news, the climate continued to pose problems consistently across both 2022 and 2023, with the public again trying to fix global warming and ongoing climate actions with the power of thought. They must have been taking notes the last time that this entirely failed – because the same lack-of-a-result was achieved here.

Rapid-Fire 2023

In New Ze4aloand news, a Prime-Ministerial resignation precipitated a change in the leadership of the party and then of the country in the election later in the year. The new Government’s plan to remove the indigenous culture and history of the country was met with the exact level of anger you’d expect; but it’s fine – it’s not like there are written records of goodwill between the Government and the Maori people – those aren’t important any more, right. This sort of disagreement doesn’t precipitate a war at all (and has clearly never done so in the past either). So that’s absolutely fine.

China (allegedly) continued its mission to figure out what the US was up to (as opposed to Russia’s mission to control what the political sphere looks like), with a spy balloon being shot down in January. Typical, Americans militaristically responding to threats to their democracy (or threats of third-world country independence, or threats of stability in the Middle East …) instead of defunding their military (and local militias, or police forces), and focussing on pressing concerns like the continuing functionality of democracy or basic infrastructure.

The climate continued to slide seamlessly into the ‘beyond all hope’ region of the fire alert scale, with torrential rain and flooding affecting tropical and semi-tropical regions, and wildfires and the resulting haze affecting those further North. But, no, this must be irregular weather patterns that happen once in  a generation – as opposed to the five other once in a generation events having taken place in the past five years. Next thing, genealogy experts will define a generation as ‘until something bigger comes along.

The Musk-ification of Twitter continued with a noticeable drop in its value and reports of advertisers struggling to make money off of the new site (called X for anyone who cares, which is to say the adjusted branding is largely ignored. Increased hostility towards minority groups also being a common complaint, the userbase tended to flee towards other alternatives (savvily created by the owners of other existing social networks) rather than stay tied to a sinking ship.

Speaking of sinking ships, a small company with only a minimally proven track record sold several billionaires into the ocean, supposedly to see the Titanic wreckage (as opposed to up the river). While the wreckage of the submersible was found, the common sense of the passengers (and, indeed, the passengers themselves) were not. The sales pitch should perhaps have mentioned the probability of becoming part of the wreckage instead of observing it.

The new Monarch of Nothing (see also: #NotMyKing from earlier) was coronated, which seems rude. Surely they’d let him attempt the lack-of-a-job before assigning him a cause of death.

Election interference lawsuits (as well as the fraudulent hush money cases, and incorrect disposal of classified documents lawsuits …) finally caught up with Donald Duck, as his mugshot went viral (he must be one of the only men whose mere image has the same qualities as a virus. Certainly I’m sick to death of looking at it. He seems to think he can still exist as a viable political force, so we may yet see what the first party-political broadcast with bars in the foreground and am man wearing an orange shirt looks like.

American writers and actors spent the vast majority of the year on strike, battling against employers convinced that writers weren’t needed and could be replaced by slave labour or AI. After a six-month strike effort, the studio executives of both network and streaming services crawled back to the negotiating table and caved to the demands that the entertainment industry continue to function in a reasonable manner. Somehow the noticeable incompetence and inhumanity of all executives involved meant they kept their jobs. There may be a way to square that one. I only see a circle at the moment. AI became ‘good enough’ (not at all, to anyone that could read), to be used to help with creative endeavours, leading all associated industries argue for protections against work being pirated for use in these models, but then pointing and laughing at the lack of finesse of the output.

In a bizarre sequel to Ukraine’s invasion from 2022, Israel attacked the state of Palestine later in the year, leading to fierce political debate (not least between the states of Russia and Israel (ahem, the US – let’s be as level as we can be, Israel, ironically, isn’t a free state), with neither side acknowledging the hypocrisy of declaring their own human rights abuses militarily legitimate and decrying the others’ abuses of the same nature.

Funny Headlines

·         Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

·         Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

·         Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax

·         Miners Refuse to Work after Death

·         Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

·         War Dims Hope for Peace

·         If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

·         Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

·         Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

·         Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge

·         New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

·         Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

·         Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

·         Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead