Good morning, everyone, and
Welcome to Progress Radio!

Today, we bring to you reports
That society has finally become

SO advanced, that scientists have
Devised a way to completely

Eliminate grass and nature--
Mechanical trees!

Who ever liked those pesky little
Ants and bees anyway?

The radio flickers out with static.
My gaze thins with the sting of irony

As I consider how
People often mention

How advanced our society is,
How future-forward we are.

They marvel
When they find out

That the Mayans had
“An almost completely accurate calendar!”

Or that the Egyptians
“Actually understood the rotations of the planets!”

What they don’t know--
As we look back with disgust now

At posters showing women as intellectually inferior,
Advertisements degrading blacks as dwarfed in the mind,

People will look back at us,
And scorn us for our view

That just because we are more advanced in technology,
Becoming so reliant on computers and science

That we forget the value of learning from and protecting nature,
That just because the average person can explain

How to use a television, or cell phone,
Yet thrown into nature, cannot tell the difference

Between a harmless plant and a poisonous one,
That we--the “modern thinkers”--are more advanced

That we alone hold the keys to the truth
We are the ones with the portal to a better society.

What a surprise they’re all in for!
When we’re left with a barren world

Devoid of resources
And finally, of life.

Coming up next,
Temperature-controlled oxygen,

Fur-free animals,
Purified dirt--

You’ll never have to go outside again!