Some nations live beyond the edge of the envelope at the end of history (they are allowed to do so thanks to the umbrella of peace and prosperity America maintains). All major arguments about the organization of life have been settled in these societies, even if they cannot see it themselves. Conflicts are manufactured like those on a college campus where the tensions are high but the stakes are low. But even these islands at the end of history must deal with the rest of the world and while some of these interactions — i.e. immigration — are very serious most of these forays into the slipstream of history highlight how petty the issues of the new age are.

Case in point: The Prime Minister of Norway is furious that the pictograms explaining how to build Ikea furniture are male-normative. Ikea is a Swedish company.