Harrison Bergeron lives in a typical suburban town in the year 2053. The audience is told that after the second American Revolution—a war begun due to an ongoing economic depression that was a result of a combination of technological advancement and a widening disparity between the very rich and the very poor—it was mandated that all people be equal in all things. To this end, the social norm of this society has become egalitarianism. Citizens strive to be of equal wealth, intelligence, athletic prowess and social status to all around them. Through a process of selective breeding, mankind is perfecting the perfectly average human being. What is not accomplished through arranged marriages is made up for through technological means, the most prominent of which are only showing mind numbing shows on TV, and a headband device worn by all citizens which modulates intelligence, dialing up or down a person's IQ in order to arrive at a 'perfect' 100.