Is the US a dystopia?

I did not remotely intend this thread to be serious, but there's an argument to be made that 1492 counts as the apocalypse

Can the apocalypse be local?

Americans rly struggle with not being the world and i think its quite telling tbh

let it beatles

Climate catastrophe is going to be pretty universal IIRC.

which is v little to do with the point about 1492 is it

you can get with dystopia, or you can get with datopia

just throwing this out there but maybe dystopia fans are blind to dystopias

I dunno I think most fans of the crust punk band Dystopia probably would agree that the USA is a dystopia fwiw

let me see, is the US a dystopia.

the republican party is trying to actively KILL a lot of people. let me just see how that plays in the polls

The approval rating among those who voted for [Biden] has dropped from 80% to 69% in the April survey. There have been notable declines among Americans 18-34 and suburban residents, both of whom, in dramatic swings, now register net negative views on the president.

As bad as Biden’s number may be, the polling data for Democrats in Congress is far worse.

Republicans now sport a historic 10-point advantage when Americans are asked which party they prefer to control Congress, holding a 44%-34% margin over Democrats. That’s up from a 2-point Republican advantage in the October survey.

In the past 20 years, CNBC and NBC surveys have never registered a double-digit Republican advantage on congressional preference, with the largest lead ever being 4 pints for the GOP.

“If the election were tomorrow, it would be an absolute unmitigated disaster for the Democrats,″ said Jay Campbell, partner at Hart Research Associates and the Democratic pollster for the survey.

yes it's a full blown dystopia

nah but rich people have never had it better tho

A 4 pint lead is difficult to overcome tbh. sorry

Can the apocalypse be local?

Americans rly struggle with not being the world and i think its quite telling tbh

― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Friday, December 10, 2021 8:10 PM (one hour ago)

I was addressing "the apocalypse" that it could be argued helps to confirm the US as a dystopia, the subject of this important poll. So I guess I do think it can be local, idk, why not? Anyway Columbus never even entered future-US territory, it's more of a symbolic hinge year for everything being terrible from then on

I'd figure most people using the term think in the sense of dystopian science fiction and I kinda think 2021 has quite a few elements that seem like out of such.

There's no utopia that's not someone's dystopia, and vice versa.

The notion of local dystopias is an interesting one. Could be that there was an egalitarian paradise unfolding just a continent or two over from Mad Max.

If the US ticks all the boxes- and there's a case- then clearly plenty of very nice places to live in exist besides so id say thats a clear yes

Have we ever not been? Slave state — apartheid state — Vietnam/Watergate — Corporate state — Fury Road (2016-present)

the people in the mayfield candle factory that collapsed worked 12-hour shifts that paid $8 an hour. 110 ppl were inside. 40 ppl are still unaccounted for. they haven’t recovered a survivor since 3 am. pic.twitter.com/CsIIfLw3Pc

— Tracy Moore (@iusedtobepoor) December 11, 2021

it’s legal in kentucky to fire someone for refusing to work mandatory overtime

— Tracy Moore (@iusedtobepoor) December 11, 2021

The notion of local dystopias is an interesting one. Could be that there was an egalitarian paradise unfolding just a continent or two over from Mad Max.

Zardoz is another one. Although The Eternals are mainly a bunch of insufferable bores and their egalitarian paradise is pretty lame, but you wouldn't complain about it if you were being held captive by Charlotte Rampling.

Slave state — apartheid state — Vietnam/Watergate — Corporate state — Fury Road (2016-present)

We didn't start the fire, etc.

Let's see what all we have...you got this one.

US combined laissez-faire capitalism on it's drug industry and combined with heroin blow-back from the 'war on terror' created the opioid epidemic for fun and profit killing over a million Americans since 1999.

Getting back to the topic at hand, Le Guin wrote a book about a moon. Also was there some Cold War global political framework in her gender-bender book? I don't recall.

Climate catastrophe is going to be pretty universal IIRC.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, December 11, 2021 1:14 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

which is v little to do with the point about 1492 is it

― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Saturday, December 11, 2021 1:17 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

It is though (unless I'm misreading). The USA is the biggest historical contributor to the climate crisis. An argument could be made that if 1492 never happened, there would be no global crisis. Same for much of global environmental destruction -- Amazon forest all gone? Thank Ronald McDonald.

Local teachers in South Dakota “Dash for Cash” to help their classrooms by fighting over $5,000 in $1 bills while the crowd hoots and hollers. pic.twitter.com/azwGJKhaKU

— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) December 12, 2021

they're going to remove that rug at some point

and then charge them for it!

An argument could be made that if 1492 never happened, there would be no global crisis.

Are we talking a world where Europe never came into contact with the Americas?

I can’t live without potatoes

-LL McCooljay

It would have happened eventually.

I can’t live without potatoes

OTM

Lol, Neanderthal.

NEW: Drone startup BRINC, which just pulled a $25 million VC round, says it was inspired by the 2017 Vegas shooting to build non-violent robots. I obtained a video showing their original mission was a border patrol drone system designed to tase migrants https://t.co/TclkWOO3eM

— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) December 13, 2021

It would have happened eventually.

Right but I'm saying the timeline where America turns the Earth into a toilet wasn't necessarily predetermined.

Maybe ecocide is the dharma of the human race idk.

this is all god's fault. god put the oil in the ground, fully formed, 8000 years ago

it was all predetermined

idk these guys predicted it pretty early

https://i.ibb.co/f4P96K0/index.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/cFmrLPX/index.jpg

Yeah I never loved the band but those album titles stuck with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CczFit6tGhs

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kentucky-tornado-factory-workers-threatened-firing-left-tornado-employ-rcna8581

personally idgi. fresh produce in american supermarkets is quite bad and expensive, every major city in the world has decent markets, etc. i guess it's better if it's brightly lit and you can listen to an instrumental soft jazz version of after the gold rush? https://t.co/g3b5LOgBcD

— joolsd (@joolsd) December 14, 2021

which Publix plays that?!? I'm happy if I get early '80 Boz Scaggs.

I regret starting a thread that functions as an invitation to post the most depressing news you can find, but more narrowly the degree to which the US seems to be embracing core elements of the most prominent fictional dystopias is pretty striking! Sadly not cyberpunk this time:

https://pen.org/scope-speed-educational-gag-orders-worsening-across-country/

And it’s getting worse. In the month since the report’s release, state lawmakers introduced 12 new bills, bringing the total to a staggering 66 educational gag orders for the year in 26 states, 12 of which have passed into law.

Here’s what’s happening:

The recent group of bills includes seven in Missouri and one each in New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.
All 12 of these bills target K–12 schools, four include provisions that would impact colleges and universities, and four include a focus on state agencies, other state-funded institutions, and “places of learning.”
Six of these bills specifically ban “critical race theory,” making a total of 20 state-level bills introduced this year with such explicit prohibitions.
Six of these bills contain explicit prohibitions against teaching or using curricular materials from “The 1619 Project,” bringing the total of these to 17 for the year.

xxp I remember back in the 80s, we hosted some soviet kids. When we took them to the supermarket, they lost their shit.

I think the original tweet is referencing that, not that Safeway is better than a local French produce market.

we do have abundant food (not everywhere, of course) of mostly mediocre quality. it's ok.

the critical race theory mess is one of the factors in favor of dystopia

to me

xxp I remember back in the 80s, we hosted some soviet kids. When we took them to the supermarket, they lost their shit.

I think the original tweet is referencing that, not that Safeway is better than a local French produce market.

2 much dystopia 4 me

a discarded track from Newpower Soul, surely

if i died in my apartment i think it would be quite some time before my beautiful corpse was discovered. like, weeks. good chance to test the whole 'will a starving cat eat a dead human' concept tho

also my door opens outward (?!) and i'm pretty sure the landlady has lost the key, so it's gonna take a little extra effort to get in

just cause they're dead doesn't mean they don't have company

A Russian mother-of-four slept with the mummified corpse of her husband for nearly four years – and performed occult rituals inspired by an ancient Egyptian god, police said.

The woman, identified only as 50-year-old Svetlana, shared a bed with her husband Vladimir’s desiccated remains and had forbidden her children from telling anyone about him on pain of being shipped off to an orphanage or a mental health facility, according to reporting by the news site 78.ru.

The 49-year-old husband collapsed and died after a domestic dispute in December 2020, during which the wife reportedly yelled at the man and wished him death.

If I ever have another dog a doggy door is an absolute necessity for these situations.

Speaking of which.. a cautionary tale of an aging population and virtually no immigration

Nearly 40,000 people died home alone in Japan this year, report says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyx6wwp5d5o

i used to be really afraid of dying alone. i'm less afraid now. the value of my life isn't determined by the manner and circumstances of my death. i stuck with my ex-wife for a long time because she was the person i wanted to grow old and die with. i left her because i couldn't think of anything else to do while i was with her but grow old and die. so maybe i grow old and die alone. i don't regret abandoning a stable, middle-class life, even though my life is now precarious, terrifying, and shitty.

my main memory of Disney is waiting in line for 45 minutes to take my two small kids on the tea cup ride, while in front of us was a guy in his 60s, on his own, who took up four tea cups and filmed himself the whole time on a i-Pad.

Nearly 40,000 people died home alone in Japan this year, report says

(We can be like they are) Come one, baby.

actually dying at home alone isn't what bothers me -- that seems inevitable. it's the 'nobody missed you and you rotted and maggots ate your corpse' part (RIP Sheila)

and Denise

my main memory of Disney is waiting in line for 45 minutes to take my two small kids on the tea cup ride, while in front of us was a guy in his 60s, on his own, who took up four tea cups and filmed himself the whole time on a i-Pad.

― fetter, Friday, August 30, 2024 5:11 PM

living his best life

Goodyear HOA fines homeowner for providing free water to neighbors

David Martin works out of his garage, making “one-of-a-kind” sneakers, but what he’s doing on his driveway is creating a bit of controversy in his Goodyear neighborhood.

“I don’t feel like I am doing anything wrong,” said Martin. “I think I am doing what we’re supposed to do, which is taking care of the people around us.”

Four years ago, during the COVID crisis, Martin and his wife set up a free water stand in front of their house as a goodwill gesture, inviting neighbors, kids, and delivery drivers to stop by daily to grab a cold one.

“I figured, what better way to be an asset to community than cold water,” said Martin.

The free water stand was such a hit that the Martins kept it going, stocking up on water while paying for most of it out of their own pocket.

Some neighbors have also stepped up to help out.

“Every year, I am sure I get about 30-40 flats of water,” said Martin. “Water sometimes appears at the front door, and there are two flats. I don’t know who dropped them off. It’s just a surprise, it’s fun.”

But the goodwill gesture appears to have hit a snag.

Back in May, the Martins received a notice from FS Residential, the management company that oversees the Canyon Trails Homeowners’ Association. They were cited for storing items in plain view and were fined $50.

The fines were increased to $100 monthly for non-compliance in June, July, and August.

“It’s absolutely asinine; I don’t understand,” said Martin. “I’m sorry. I don’t care that it’s blue and gray, and my house is tan and brown; it’s a water cooler with cold water for the community.”

attracting the wrong kind of people... water drinkers

watching a segment on the news about a nurse teaching kindergarten/1st/2nd graders how to stop a wound from bleeding out and how to use a tourniquet.

please say sike pic.twitter.com/uL6UgMrDVw

— sippin on that 🇵🇸 (@vivafalastin) September 8, 2024

TRIGGER warning for both of these articles. they are bleak. and i know there has always been evil in the world but both of these did fill me with a modern-day internet-era bleakness/sadness that seems specific to now. also, phones and computers obviously make it a lot easier to do a lot of evil shit anonymously for a long time. or just set up a vigilante crime-busting group in order to abuse people! ugh. at some point i did just stop reading these stories. its all so sad. also, these are just two stories. and there are so many more stories. that's the dystopian part. its all a blur now as far as bad shit goes a la school shootings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/09/09/social-media-bullied-teen-found-fame-among-child-predators-worldwide/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/us/tim-ballard-sound-of-freedom-sex-trafficking.html

Anyone who pays any attention at all to the discourse about "trafficking" knows that the so-called epidemic of sex trafficking as cast by movies like Taken and that asshole's documentary, is a white-supremacist, right-wing conspiracy theory. No one is kidnapping white women or girls at Walmart. Anyone who emphasizes and benefits from the narrative around "rescuing" women and girls is automatically suspect.

That guy has ties to the Mormon Church, whose more extreme adherents are FAMOUSLY sex trafficking young girls and labor trafficking boys all over the US. He could start a lot closer to home and do more good with way less money.

Sorry--I've been down this particular rabbit hole a lot!! And I've had a right-wing weirdo cry on my shoulder about "saving the children" while being anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ and moving to Texas so they could keep their guns when the "woke mob" tried to outlaw them.

Anyone who pays any attention at all to the discourse about "trafficking" knows that the so-called epidemic of sex trafficking as cast by movies like Taken and that asshole's documentary, is a white-supremacist, right-wing conspiracy theory. No one is kidnapping white women or girls at Walmart. Anyone who emphasizes and benefits from the narrative around "rescuing" women and girls is automatically suspect.

It just reminds me of the "white slavery" moral panics of the Victorian era and the early 20th century US.

Totally. There's a Tt creator whose specialty is gardening who at one point made a video debunking the trend among "suburban white mom" types of making videos about how a non-white man was "shadowing" them at the grocery store, or a flyer left on your windshield is a sign that you've been "marked" for "trafficking," and other similar content. She has been absolutely SLAMMED with hyperbolic screaming posts and death threats from people who were sicced on her account from rw sites.

Anyone who pays any attention at all to the discourse about "trafficking" knows that the so-called epidemic of sex trafficking as cast by movies like Taken and that asshole's documentary, is a white-supremacist, right-wing conspiracy theory. No one is kidnapping white women or girls at Walmart. Anyone who emphasizes and benefits from the narrative around "rescuing" women and girls is automatically suspect.

That guy has ties to the Mormon Church, whose more extreme adherents are FAMOUSLY sex trafficking young girls and labor trafficking boys all over the US. He could start a lot closer to home and do more good with way less money.

Sorry--I've been down this particular rabbit hole a lot!! And I've had a right-wing weirdo cry on my shoulder about "saving the children" while being anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ and moving to Texas so they could keep their guns when the "woke mob" tried to outlaw them.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit)

dead fucking right, this bullshit about "trafficking" is very tied to the bullshit about "grooming"... a couple years ago when i first saw trans people being accused of "grooming" i was livid, now i'm just resigned and determined. this is how it's gonna be, huh? this is how they gonna fuckin' play this. nothing new. they did the same shit with gay people back in the '70s and '80s and now they're just going back to the same playbook. and the people who are making these accusations are the real fucking abusers. the mormon church? one of the two biggest organized patriarchal organizations in the country. the other one is the roman catholic church. i still get pushback here when i talk about what the roman catholic church is doing, institutionally, the way its patriarchy promotes a culture of abuse. the mormons, the mormons aren't any fucking better. people focus on "magic underwear" or some shit and they don't talk about how women are systematically degraded and abused by that church. because, you know, they say that's _anti-christian_, _anti-religious_.

a whole fucking lot of us know what's really going on, what's the scope of the problem, who's doing it. but people don't want to believe it. they don't see it, because they're looking the other way, they've been taught their whole lives to look the other way, and they don't want to see it. i don't fucking want to see it either. it wrecks me, on a daily basis, fucks me up. i can barely talk about it, but i'll keep doing it as long as i can, no matter how fucking crazy it makes me.

yes, the us is a dystopia. it's driven by patriarchy, predominantly christian patriarchy, and patriarchy is dystopian, particularly for a little over half of the population.

pardon my ranting, i'm having a really shitty week.

and the people who are making these accusations are the real fucking abusers.

qft. one of those things i wished i'd known sooner was just how common projection as a deflection tactic is. how was i supposed to know that 'he who smelt it dealt it' was a profound truth about humanity when i first heard it at 11.

see also: "i know you are, but what i am i?"

rubber/glue

https://mmiwusa.org/

Laurel - THANK YOU. Agree with every single thing you said. These white ladies thinking they're going to get kidnapped and trafficked at their local Target drive me fucking insane. I saw someone on TT try to claim that 1 in 4 American woman will experience either an attempted kidnapping or be kidnapped. Um. What? Don't get me started on the sound of freedom movie/guy. My dad's wife buys into all this shit and it's so infuriating.

one of those things i wished i'd known sooner was just how common projection as a deflection tactic is.

My God, is it ever!

Reminder that it’s also these sex trafficking goons that have helped get anti-SWer legislation passed (including by Kamala Harris, natch) and further endangered the lives of SWers.

it's interesting to me because a lot of my ideas and beliefs early on were modeled on what i saw in the media, how i saw other women, particularly other white women, act. early on i was really worried that someone would kidnap and murder me off the street. that belief didn't serve me very well at all. i found that focusing on those risks got in the way of my ability to protect myself from the actual risks i face.

i also feel like focusing on things that i'm not really at risk for, and particularly acting like i _am_ at a high risk for those things, is kind of rude and disrespectful towards people who do are at significant risk of being hurt in those ways. it's kind of like me trying to overwrite the terrible things other people have actually experienced with my disproportionate fears for myself. it's even worse to see how much institutions with power and influence lean into that narrative, reinforce and bolster these irrational fears. like i said, i had those fears, i was taught those fears, and i needed to unlearn them, it was in my own best interest to unlearn them.

and yeah otm table, i do have friends who do SW and this legislation to "protect" them doesn't, it hurts them. if people want to protect sex workers, they should start actually listening to sex workers, that's my controversial opinion

I saw someone on TT try to claim that 1 in 4 American woman will experience either an attempted kidnapping or be kidnapped. Um. What?

I saw discussion of this point, which I also think is likely, that this person is conflating their risk of being kidnapped/trafficked with their VERY LIKELY risk of being s. assaulted at some point in their lives, which IS about 25% of women as reported although I assume that's a massive undercount. So yes, the resulting panic and fear is doing the work of obscuring that we're most likely to be assaulted by our intimate partners, family members, and people we know. Duh.

i found that focusing on those risks got in the way of my ability to protect myself from the actual risks i face.

Yeah, exactly.

Otm re SWers obv

yeah actually io your saying that really helps me kinda put into focus just how those irrational fears helped to keep me in an abusive relationship

when i came out suddenly i'm part of a community where the lifetime incidence of being an SA victim is over 50%. and i have this tremendous fear of being sexually assaulted, and i say, you know, _statistically_. _statistically_, you know, i'm at high risk, so i need to be aware and take precautions. that's what i tell myself. and the precautions i take are precautions against _outsiders_, _strangers_. people i don't know.

at the same time, the incidence rate being what it is, i'm now around a _lot_ of SA victims. and i see what SA does to a person, see the ways in which people who've had SA respond to what's happened to them. this might sound weird, but the best way of being able to tell if someone is an SA victim is if they _act_ like an SA victim. when i see how SA victims act, get to know it firsthand, it starts being pretty clear to me that hey, wait a second, that's exactly how i react. my fear of SA isn't _statistical_, isn't _rational_, it's _visceral_. to the extent that i figure, well, i've probably been sexually assaulted at some point. probably i just don't remember it because repressed memories. i did (maybe still do) actually have repressed memories. generally they were things i avoided and didn't want to think about, and this was something i wasn't trying to avoid, but i figure, you never know. (That's the thing, isn't it? It's so hard to feel like I actually _know_.) meantime i'm apologizing to my then-spouse for the way i instinctively recoil in terror whenever they touch me. of course it couldn't be anything to do with _them_. has to be something wrong with _me_.

i genuinely... i'm genuinely shocked at how much denial i was in. how much pressure i still feel, internally, to say it didn't happen. all of the lies i was taught about SA - lies the patriarchy taught me - that still run through my head, even though i know they're not true. the way i have to talk about it over and over again, to reinforce and affirm to myself that yes, if i look at the facts, that was what happened. they sexually assaulted me.

i also kinda understand why. leaving my ex was very difficult. my life is materially worse in a lot of ways for having done it. and - ok i know every abuse victim says this - but i genuinely do believe i _was lucky_. i see some people try to get away from their abusers, and their abusers try to take everything they have, in terms of material resources. all my ex did was try to convince me to kill myself. i mean that sucked, i don't want to minimize how awful that was, but a lot of people have it bad in ways that i didn't. don't have the same opportunity to take control of their own life that i do. because there isn't support for SA victims. people don't even _believe_ SA victims, most of the time. for some reason people believe women more, particularly white women, when they talk about some shadowy nebulous conspiracy to kidnap women off the street.

because when some guy brags about sexually assaulting women and people like him _more_ for doing that... it's easy to feel helpless, hopeless. it's easy to feel despair. it's really tempting to me to grab onto anything i can, anything at all, to help me feel like... i mean, feel not just like i have some control, but so people will fucking RECOGNIZE me as a victim. because most women who experience SA don't get recognized or accepted as victims when it's an intimate partner, a relative, a co-worker. only when it's an _alien_.

so yeah i do feel pressured as a woman, particularly as a white woman, to act in ways that serve and promote patriarchy. and it fucking sucks that so many women give in to that pressure. i'd almost call the situation... dystopian.

geeez sorry for sucking at posting recently, i was tired posting and completely missed the context of this revive. the disingenuous right-wing obsession with "trafficking" is indeed nauseating. obviously when it comes to vulnerable communities experiencing this kind of thing, i mean, that's a whole different discussion

YES.

To get back to scott's original point a bit, I think -- America was already a dystopia for the unprotected. The most at-risk people in America are undocumented, indigenous, Black, queer. Policies exclude them, laws don't protect them, the news doesn't cover them.

Let the rage fill you the next time your sister in law or that other parent at T-ball says they heard that their friend's cousin found a piece of tape on their bumper and called the police, or tells you that 300,000 children are abducted from playgrounds each year so "Mamas be safe out there."

Literally just googling that catchphrase for this post brought me to a video someone made with 7 paranoid things she does at the gas station to keep her kids "safe" while pumping gas, INCLUDING LOCKING HERSELF OUT OF THE CAR. Maybe it's different with smart fobs these days. The idea that your kids are safer if you completely lock your car up while getting gas and standing right next to it--the only thing that's going to do is cause 300 people to lock their kids in the car with the keys inside because their hands were full.