“Looking back on Y2K, the derided nexus of anxiety for a derided, anxious generation, no other moment could have prepared us better. Later, the financial crisis would mean many of us had to live with our parents after college, and this was seen as a funny generational flaw (failure to launch). College debt would leave us putting off children, but it would be considered proof that we were selfish. But planes did fall out of the sky a year later. The markets did crash. Computers did turn out to be agents of human destruction. The infrastructure that boomers built — from pensions to roads — certainly doesn’t seem like it was designed to last beyond them.”