You Go First: A Letter to Our Benevolent Globalist Overlords

Well, the Fakin’ Bacon and digital prisons *were* your ideas.

Dear Benevolent Globalist Overlords,

I can’t believe we’re just five short years away from the inclusive, equitable, eco-friendly utopia you’ve designed for humanity! The fully reimagined future that is 2030 will be here before we know it, and thanks to you—the enlightened nobility, the carbon-offset aristocrats, the sustainability sermonizers—we’ll finally be liberated from our selfish, outdated obsessions with comfort, freedom, and food. We’ll own nothing (no maintenance! no payments! goodbye storage unit!) and be happy? Take my money!*

*I know! That’s precisely the plan!

I was thinking about you all this week when I read your fearless captain complaining that the proletariat isn’t net-zeroing fast enough. It’s now or never, right? And while the rest of us sit around selfishly emitting carbon dioxide and racing our shameful gas guzzlers over to Costco for another mega-pack of ribeyes, you and your cronies have mapped out a simple, doable plan to achieve peace and prosperity for people and the planet™, in the next half decade, no less!

The whole thing sounds amazing. Truly. And since this was your trailblazing idea—literally, all of it!—I am going to have to insist: you go first.

I think you should start with travel. I mean, that one’s going to have an immediate and profound impact on this beautiful blue marble you’re fighting so valiantly to protect. Since the lavish new normal will be one short-haul flight every three years (*if we’ve been good and recycled our oat milk cartons), you should probably cancel your upcoming twelve climate conferences in Davos, Dubai, and whatever glacier-adjacent chalet you were planning to transform into a luxury satellite office next. Zoom works great. You’ll love it. Think how much you’ll save on caviar refrigeration and in-flight violinists! Sure, virtual champagne isn’t nearly as enjoyable as a bubbly flute of Veuve, but it’s got no calories or carbon! Talk about a guiltless pleasure. If you listen closely, you can hear the wind whispering thank you, humble and kind-hearted titans of empathy.

Now, let’s talk about meat. You can go ahead and purge your Sub-Zeros of all of that putrid animal flesh and stock those puppies with all the crickets, algae, and lab-grown mystery paste your hearts desire. Given that you’re the architects of this bold culinary adventure, I bet you have some tasty recipes up your sleeves, like roasted mealworms with an artisanal mud glaze and solar-warmed soy jelly. So get cooking! Tuck in! Have thirds! And if you find yourselves craving a juicy T-bone, just repeat this mantra: No food tastes as good as being virtuous feels.

Speaking of food, you know as well as I do that rationing edibles alone won’t get us to worldwide resource equality. We need fewer tchotchkes. Smaller homes. Bucket baths. Shared walls. Sleeping mats. More lentils. Flip phones. It’s Marie Kondo meets minimalist chic! And guess what? You’re going to adore the feeling of self-denial. I hear it pairs wonderfully with the spiritual high of selling your last yacht and installing your own composting toilet.

Do you want to know what I think you’re going to love the most? Not having to clean and care for your half dozen sprawling mansions. Of course, you have people to do the dirty jobs, but managing them all must be so tiresome—and living on acres of land with no one directly above or below you has to be incredibly lonely. Once you’ve got your own cubes in a bustling 15-minute city, you’ll have everything you need within walking distance: your ration depot, a (free!) community booster clinic, no parking hassles, the local cricket bakery. It’ll be like Disneyland for the degrowth movement. And while some people worry these will quietly become cyber confinement zones, I think we’d both prefer the phrase cozy compliance compounds. You guys should start test-driving them now! Fence off one of your Hamptons estates into walkable pods, lock yourselves in for a year or two and then come back out and regale us with the stirring Ode to Owning Nothing you wrote during your delightful sabbatical.

As you might imagine, we’re all super excited to download our personal carbon tracking apps so we can scan our own tofu at the Portion Pavilion and be reminded when our weekly electricity usage is becoming “problematic.” Why should we get all the fun? I’ll bet you’re dying to know how many “credits” your helicopter commute eats up while you’re penning op-eds about overpopulation from the penthouse spa. Knowledge is power, am I right? And we’re in this together, which is the best part. It’ll be like Weight Watchers, but for breathing!

If I had to predict the biggest game-changer, it would be the clothing revolution. No more torturous try-ons or do these jeans make my butt look big and are shoulder pads still in style dilemmas. Capsule wardrobes for all! Who ever decided we needed different sorts of attire for weddings, funerals, job interviews, scooping dog poop, and apocalypse drills anyway? Such a silly societal construct! I for one can’t wait to trade in my colorful racks of clothes for a single, versatile burlap sack—but I’ll be honest, I have no clue how to style one of those. Let’s see the Vogue cover shoot featuring the global elite in ethically-sourced itchwear and compostable sandals. I’ll be standing by taking notes!

I know. It should be SOCIALISTS. Still funny tho.

I know what you’re going to say: lowlifes ladies first. But let’s be real, this is your dream, not mine. You built it. You worship it. You speak of it with stars in your eyes and a superyacht-sized stain on your conscience. So I insist, with all due respect: you go first.

Lead the way.
Forsake the meat.
Eat the bugs.
Ditch the jet.
Live in the pod.
Shiver for the planet.
Wear the uniform.
Track the farts.
Embrace the surveillance.
Eliminate your CO2 footprint completely*.

*Yes, that’s a euphemism for “stop breathing.” Remember, it was your idea! Less people = less pollution. It’s for the greater good! And nobody on the face of the earth cares more about that than you.

What are you waiting for? Get going already! When you’ve checked everything off your own list—when you’ve been bug-fed, travel-deprived, next-to-naked, trapped in a maze, and digitally guilt-tripped for the next 60 consecutive months—I’ll meet you in the Community Quad to hear how ecstatically you embraced every noble, planet-saving minute of sacrifice.

Unless you’ve expired by then. In which case, I’ll simply say what I know you’d say to me should the Parting Glass land in my hands first: Thank you for making the world a better place for all of us by not being in it.

Love,
Jenna

If you’re a globalist, you probably don’t want to buy this book. You’re featured pretty prominently and not in a flattering light, if I’m being honest.