Hey, want a fun thing to do when you're just sittin' 'round the zeitgeist, waiting for a bolt of enlightenment or maybe just the apocalypse to rain down destruction and locusts and Godspit on your sinful little head? Something to do whilst you're nakedly sipping some fine sake and wondering when the melting icecaps will raise the oceans sufficiently that you can start taking a boat to work?
Extrapolate. That's what you can do. Draw it out. Take it to its natural conclusion. Grab hold of a juicy piece of ripe, low-hanging news and lick it and stroke it and promise to make it breakfast, and let it coo and whimper and whisper its wicked secrets in your hungry little id. Hey, it beats fornication. Oh wait, no it doesn't. Never mind.
Here's a good piece to start you off: Did you know that the use of prescription antidepressants in America has literally doubled in a mere 10 years? It's true.
From about '96 to '05, they say the number of your fellow patriots taking behavioral meds jumped from 13 million to a whopping 27 million, which is fully 10 percent of the American population, not including babies and cats and the Duggars. And that's only through '05. The actual number is probably far closer to 15 or even 20 percent by now.
Are you amazed? The slightest bit surprised? Taken aback? Of course you're not.
This is where you do it. This is where you get to load up your satire gun, fire up your dour prognosticator and crank your extrapolator to full power, and draw some nifty, if dubious, conclusions.
Because, do you know what this means? It means that, very soon now, maybe three, four or 30 years hence, just about every American and most of the planet, too, will be on some sort of narcotic, behavioral med, modifier, zinger or zapper or calmer or leveler designed to mollify or numb or dry up all your saliva, give you some really weird dreams and make you never want to have sex. It's not all that tough to imagine, really.
But why stop there? Extrapolate a bit further. Because if you look at it just right, this also means all depression and unhappiness will soon be coming to an end. Isn't that great? No more depression! At last! No more war. No more road rage. No more gangs. No more screaming at the dog or yelling at your spouse about the general lack of oral sex in your morning routine. Imagine.
Not quite convinced? Fine. Let us dissect. Let us perform a dangerous feat of only semi-drunken math to verify it all and keep your extrapolator well lubed and pumping hard. Ready?
Let's see: 13 million in 10 years translates into a little more than one million new antidepressant users every year, correct? That breaks down to about 90,000 per month, or 3,000 new users every 24 hours, which is about 125 every hour, or roughly two Americans jumping on the antidepressant train every single minute, 24 hours a day, every day of the week, nonstop forever and ever until we all die happy and narcotized and free. Praise Jesus.
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