Is the US a dystopia?

it's going to take a lot of restraint not to shoehorn this in to thread connections

I figured it was what it was for.

least serious answer is the correct one

by that you mean "yes"?

oh misread "least" as "last" nevermind

This question is unhelpful and I have no idea why it is being asked.

Badly trimmed shrub = dystopiary

Dropped the clay - dyspottery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeu3iH0R_GM

I mean, pulling up the forecast today and seeing tornado warnings for Chicago in mid-December doesn't make me not think it's a dystopia.

an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

not imagined, authoritarian rather than totalitarian and pre-apocalyptic instead of post IMO

so maybe it's not a dystopia but merely dystopic

dystopic? I dunno. but ilx is def dyspeptic today.

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

Its gaslighting from the 1/3 that is like that, wanting the end times

And also from another 1/3 that’s just like “well it’s religion so I can’t criticize!!!l”

Meanwhile in the middle 1/3 we’re just squishing around, horrible

see idk how to interpret this study

cuz i'm an ex-doomer, or someone _trying_ to be an ex-doomer, it's still something i struggle a lot with

i'm pretty miserable a lot of the time, i deal with a lot of learned helplessness

i used to want to "burn it all down" and i've moved on because, well

america isn't "the world", capitalism isn't "the world"

and the things that are burning down don't really need my help

i don't think the world is going to end. i don't think there's going to be a nuclear conflagration destroying everything. mostly this is pascal's wager. i don't see a point in living _as if_ the world is about to end, because god knows it's not up to me. when i was young, there was this person who led something called the "church of euthanasia", went around saying "save the planet, kill yourself", and last i checked they were some variety of transfemme, had come out as some variety of transfemme, and god we work so hard to stay alive, we fight so hard to stay alive, and here's someone who i consider one of My People - i want to believe there is such a thing as My People - saying that saving the planet means self-selecting out, and i believe they're _wrong_ and they influenced me a lot, when i was younger, even though i never believed them, i never thought that what they were saying was _right_. i'm not going to tell them what to believe. i don't see a point in telling them what to believe. and i've had so many friends who have self-selected out, in whatever form.

the problem is that the stuff that i've grown up thinking as "normal", thinking as "the world", these things clearly have no future. i'm no longer arrogant enough to believe the world won't survive me. i no longer believe what i have been taught all my life, which is that what i say, do, feel, think, doesn't matter, that i can't, won't, am _not_ changing the world.

am i making the world a better place? i'd like to think so. does it feel like enough? no. do i deal every day with people who believe it will never be enough, that we're all doomed? yeah, i do. and it takes a toll. to stay alive while my friends are dying and people in power either don't notice or praise it. i don't want to be 'the last person to die for a mistake', but if a mistake kills me, like it's killing so many of us, does it matter whether i die _for_ it or _against_ it?

i don't know what drives muslim apocalypticism, but i do know that america has been trying to eradicate muslims for a very long time, that america is currently strongly supporting a genocide against a majority-muslim country. sure, we should fight. and it _feels_ like we aren't, it _feels_ like evil is winning, and that these people, given their way, will, well. kill everything and everyone.

the world's not going to end in my lifetime and it's statistically likely that a billion or more people in the global south will die this century and that those deaths are, to some extent, going to be on america's head. how am i supposed to _feel_ about that? how am i supposed to _feel_ as someone who has been taught all her life that she is a "citizen" in what is, in practice, pretty obviously an "evil empire"? it's not on my head personally, and "collective guilt" is useless, but i believe that as a white american i _do_ belong to a group that bears collective _responsibility_ for these monstrous actions. no guilt in that. no shame in that. just, i mean, when the world survives what the american empire is doing to it, i hope they choose macarthur's approach over morgenthau's. i wouldn't blame people for choosing morgenthau's, even though it wouldn't, i don't think, be as effective as macarthur's, even though it would repay blood with blood. people have the right to judge us, as americans, because america has arrogated to itself the right to judge others and act on that judgement. i don't know how to justify myself as one of the "good ones", because right now to be a "good american" is not that different from what it meant, not long ago, to be a "good german". and there _are_ lots of good people who believe in america in a _good_ way, and are acting to try and make america a better place. i think that's different from being a "good american". and whether or not they succeed, whether or not they _can_ succeed, i believe that what they're doing is good. i wish i could believe what they believe. i would be happier. things would be easier for me. the world would be a better place, i think, if i could believe what they do.

i don't really have any hope for myself, for a lot of us. the time when we had a voice, a say in america, has passed, and i don't see how that time can possibly come again. the people in power seem to see _tolerating_ so many of us - muslims being one prominent example - as something that will lead to _their own_ extinction. i think that belief is wrong, but they have the power to act on that belief, and do, and in doing so destroy their own future, as a _direct result_ of their seeking to destroy the lives of those of those of us who _aren't_ in power. well, who's left? can i truly say that "mutually assured destruction" is not just another form of chekov's gun? i have no malice, no hatred, no desire to destroy left in me. i grew up in school being taught the words of chief joseph, "i will fight no more forever". was he wrong? about america? i want to believe that we are more than that. i do believe we are more than that, i guess. it's just really hard sometimes.

i'm gonna try and go back to sleep. i'm so tired. i'm so fucking tired. i know people are worried about me, both personally as an american. it's not good here. not good at all. i'm doing what i can.

i don't know what drives muslim apocalypticism, but i do know that america has been trying to eradicate muslims for a very long time, that america is currently strongly supporting a genocide against a majority-muslim country. sure, we should fight. and it _feels_ like we aren't, it _feels_ like evil is winning, and that these people, given their way, will, well. kill everything and everyone.

to be clear - which is something i struggle with - i _oppose_ the genocide being perpetrated against the palestinian people. the people perpetrating and supporting that genocide are the people i characterize as "evil", as the ones who, given their way, will kill everything and everyone. i believe that "we" - people who oppose genocide - should _oppose_ them, in a non-violent way, because violence wouldn't be effective, because violence only breeds violence.

end-of-days people often seem like they have an egotism-based belief. as if my life, or my lifetime, is somehow happening during the most consequential time in human history. kind of the flip side of people who think they're going to magically create a settlement on mars despite the fact any effort to do so would require decades of work completing interim steps that no one wants to do. just skip to the end

It’s definitely a form of narcissism to think the world’s gonna end with you and yours: apocalyptic narcissism.

i think apocalyptic belief is a mythical thing that arises out of the human psyche. i think it's true that the curve of human population growth is gonna go down soon. maybe stronger apocalyptic belief right now reflects that, i don't know. i kinda think what's narcissistic is believing that somehow the world is going to end if there are no more humans around.

great book on the subject fwiw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us

https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/ai-error-jails-innocent-grandmother-for-months-in-fargo-case

that is fucking PSYCHO shit. that poor woman.

she barely even looks like the woman on video!

this clavicular fellow seems like some kind of character from a dystopian novel.

He seems like a Bruce McCulloch character from a Kids In The Hall sketch.

lol otm

https://placesjournal.org/article/the-warehouse-in-plain-sight-a-disappearing-machine/

Weirdly after I posted this I learned that an acquaintance is friends with clavicular’s mom, who is concerned for him.

Then a student who in the past has asked me if I had made a will yet because of my gray hairs told me I looked like clavicular. I do not so I am not sure what his point was. I told him that the looksmaxxing scene is a road to unhappiness. If you try to find fulfillment in “perfecting” yourself, you will always come up short, and that he should be very careful if he is engaging with this type of content. By this point he was completely disconnected and I might as well have been saying blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

https://abcnews.com/US/doj-arrests-soldier-made-400000-betting-maduros-removal/story?id=132325426

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/24/prediction-markets-could-soon-be-available-in-your-retirement-account.html

Alex Ip 葉清霖‬

in April 2026, *every single one* of the 1,570 refugees admitted in the United States were white South Africans.

In FY 2026, the U.S. has admitted a total of 6,066 white South Africans, three Afghans (back in November 2025), and nobody else.

the white supremacy court of the united states

Prisonculture‬
✧@prisoncult✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 9m
They spent at least $50 BILLION over 2 months to bomb people in Iran. I don't want to hear a single thing about what can and cannot be funded in this country. Ever. The End.

Source?

Of the south africans info i meant

it’s from early april but it looks like:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g89kkvenqo

US has let in 4,499 refugees since October - all but three were South African

only 3 of the several thousand refugees admitted to the u.s. so far in FY26 were not white south africans. but each of those three people started a band

And Paul Simon jacked their sound

There must be fifty ways to leave your country

Make a new Klan, Stan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJj7WiwcadU

Make a new Klan, Stan.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR),

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J-gzwilQyk

https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-inmates-sew-flags-americas-250th-anniversary/71387967

Massachusetts inmates sew flags ahead of America’s 250th anniversary
Demand for the flags rises ahead of July 4

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. —
As demand grows ahead of the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration, inmates across Massachusetts are sewing thousands of American flags by hand.

Inside MCI Framingham, rows of American flags are carefully stitched together one stripe at a time.

With the nation preparing to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary in 2026, demand for those handmade flags is rising across Massachusetts.

Since last July, inmates at correctional facilities in Framingham, Norfolk and Shirley have produced more than 700 American flags, nearly 500 Commonwealth and POW/MIA flags and more than 220,000 cemetery flags.

The flags are displayed at schools, parks, police and fire stations, and placed on veterans’ graves throughout the state.

"We really take pride that they are hand sewn here and that people can really participate in that process," said Shawn Jenkins, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction.

people i used to say, i remember, that there were "two americas". i don't know how many americas there are, any more than i know how many bands named "black flag" (the irony is unintentional but fuck it let's go with it) there are. sometimes i'll ride the bus past the hawthorne theater and the sign outside will say that "black flag" is playing. and i always wonder if it's the Black Flag with Greg Ginn in it. sometimes I'll be with someone else and I'll say that, "do you know if that's the Black Flag with Greg Ginn in it?" And they don't, of course. I like "Damaged". I like the "Nervous Breakdown" EP. Hell, I even sort of like "The Process of Weeding Out". None of them are perfect records, but the first two at least are really good ones.

I don't want to see Greg Ginn's Black Flag. Greg Ginn is a fucking asshole. He has the legal right to use the name probably and fuck that guy. Maybe I'd go see another version of Black Flag, but for me to go see a band called "Black Flag" I need to know that not only are they playing Black Flag songs, that they're not _Greg Ginn's_ Black Flag. And Dez Cadena or whoever is probably a good guy, and fuck it, let me look it up.

OK I guess they're just called "FLAG". I guess that's fine. When Wall of Voodoo with Stan Ridgway broke up a bunch of the backing folks went on to play with Nervous Gender. I don't think they recorded with them, just played live. I like Nervous Gender with the Wall of Voodoo backing musicians, even if Paul Roessler had left. I have some bootleg tapes of that lineup and I listen to them sometimes. I don't really listen to Wall of Voodoo with Andy Prieboy, even though it's all the same people from Stan Ridgway Wall of Voodoo except for Stan and with Andy Prieboy, even though "Far Side of Crazy" is a pretty good song.

I guess that's my preference. If you can't be in Black Flag because Greg Ginn is a piece of shit, try and find something else to do. I know that's hard. People are always going to think of Dez Cadena and Keith Morris as "those guys from Black Flag" probably. Henry Rollins post-Black Flag is fine I guess but that's just one dude, one dude isn't the same as a band.

I wanna find some better band to be with, even though I'm not a musician and I can't sing, because the guy who owns the name to the band I grew up with is an asshole who fucking sucks.

I love music, but I don't listen to it as much as I used to. I don't really know why that is. It's pretty weird and confusing.

i only go for the finest, artisanal prison-labor flags

Eugene Robinson (formerly of Oxbow) and Chuck Dukowski (ex-Black Flag) formed a band in 2011 called Black Face. They released one 7" before ceasing operations. I believe Greg Ginn came after them.

I know he was reputed to be hassling Flag when they existed as a thing, but does Ginn really come after anyone anymore? Also I can't imagine Eugene backing down from a fight.

https://eugenesrobinson.substack.com/p/in-defense-ofgreg-ginn

Later during a session for the Black Flag inspired Black Face, a band Dukowski and I had formed to play all of his Black Flag tunes, as well as his unreleased Black Flag songs, he had told me that Ginn was “evil.”

“Totally fucking evil, man…” and we sat in the fading light of a Los Altos Hills evening where we had just been rehearsing.

I heard it all. But, and this is the thing with me…Ginn had always been nice to me. Though the list of people who I had met who had always been nice to me — Charles Manson, Anton LaVey, John Wayne Gacy, Bill Clinton — doesn’t seem to say much, I did value this.

More than that when perusing all of what he had contributed to my life it seemed almost easy to forgive. Records by Bad Brains, Minutemen, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, nevermind Oxbow.

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

most damning thing i can say about bill clinton is that i was watching the chevy chase documentary and he opened a birthday card from bill clinton, and chevy chase said nice things about bill clinton

CHEVY
CHASE

the man who's so evil that hardly anybody loves him

i mean i can say more damning things about bill clinton, a lot of us can, but that's the most damning thing i can think of right this second

Obviously Clinton had to get on Chevy's good side to avoid a devastating parody where Clinton falls down a bunch of times.

is Greg Ginn a dystopia?

is Greg Ginn a dystopia?

― The Immortal Bird of Avon (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, May 26, 2026 9:50 AM

known close associate of donald rumsfeld

(that's a pun, i'm making a pun, to my knowledge that's not literally true)

Rumsfeld also had an album called “My War.”

I love Eugene but his riff in that essay about not knowing if Ginn smoked weed must at best be some deadpan comedic thing

Rumsfeld also had an album called “My War.”

LOL