Photograph by Brad Barket.

Welcome to 2010. As if you haven’t been reminded enough, today officially begins a new decade. Which mean it’s time to reflect on the past 10 years and ponder how far we’ve come. Remember answering machines, compact discs, and airplanes without wi-fi? Weird, right? How did the world change so much in what seemed like the blink of an eye? What have we learned about ourselves from surviving the 00s, and how can we use this knowledge to make the next decade a little less sucky? There’s much to contemplate, and quite honestly, we’re a little too hungover from last night’s celebration to tackle such heady questions. So we’ve left the messy business of decennium introspection in the far more capable hands of John Oliver.

Why Oliver? For one thing, he’s poised to have a ridiculously productive 2010. He continues to be a popular correspondent on The Daily Show—a post he’s held since 2006—as well as a co-star on the Joel McHale sitcom Community, one of the few reasons that NBC hasn’t gone out of business yet. And beginning next Friday, January 8 (at 11 p.m./10 p.m. central), he’ll be hosting his very own standup comedy series, called John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show, which runs for six episodes on Comedy Central and features such heavy hitters as Janeane Garofalo, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Brian Posehn, Paul F. Tompkins, Marc Maron, and *The Daily Show’*s Kristen Schaal.

But most importantly, we asked Oliver to evaluate the decade because he’s British. For some reason, British comics tend to be astute critics of American society. (Ricky Gervais, anyone?) And Oliver in particular seems to understand us as only an English expatriate with mixed emotions about the Land of the Free could. Last month, during a speech at The Economist’s “World in 2010” Conference, Oliver compared his affection for the U.S. with “falling in love with a girl that’s just throwing up all over herself, pulling her hair back and softly whispering to her that everything was going to be alright.” C’mon, admit it, you’ve never heard a better metaphor for America in the new millennium.

Oliver and I exchanged emails during the last days of 2009, just as human civilization was sputtering towards its inevitable end.

Eric Spitznagel: Let’s start with an overview of the last decade. I’ll list a few highlights and you put it in perspective for us. U.S. troops invade Iraq.

John Oliver: Invade Iraq? Please. I think you mean liberate. I think you also mean protect the rest of the world from an evil despot hell bent on blowing up the planet. Don’t you? I’m pretty sure that’s why we sent thousands of brave young men and women there. Right? A historian might convincingly argue that I’m living in a fantasy world, but I would simply argue that I’m happier here skipping with my unicorns than they are with their “facts.”Enron files for bankruptcy.

Ah, such happy memories. How did such a quaint mom-and-pop organization as Enron get themselves into such a kerfuffle? At least we can be safe in the knowledge that we as a species learnt from that financial fable of overreaching greed, and nothing like that ever happened again. Oh look, here comes another one of my unicorns.

Hurricane Katrina.

To be completely fair to President Bush, it really wasn’t just black people that he didn’t care about.

Michael Jackson dies at 50.

I think my main memory of this will be of CNN and Larry King desperately trying to revive this story as it seemed to be slipping away from us. They bravely fought to keep it alive night after night, long after even the funeral had taken place. Eventually, exhausted, they just had to let it go. But that story did not die in vain. I will always remember it as the story which meant journalists didn’t have to report extensively on the post-election riots in Iran. I think that’s what Michael Jackson would have wanted.