Is the US a dystopia?

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.

So was communism.

I guess that’s the kind of joke that lands better with boomers.

And that's the kind of joke that lands better with people from 2017.

the tweet is responding to libertarians tweeting photos of american grocery stores to prove a point

american supermarkets are among the purest products of american capitalism and therefore accurately reflect all our most popular theories about health and happiness, from gluttony to asceticism, all packaged in convenient sizes for easy consumption. it's a design that's been copied all over the world, with appropriate modifications to suit local tastes and incomes. almost any praise or criticism you want to make about supermarkets can be justified using real world examples.

from gluttony to asceticism, all packaged in convenient sizes for easy consumption

cf. Randall Jarrell's A Sad Heart at the Supermarket (1960) and the companion poem "Next Day"

Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All

You want to know dystopia? Sometimes I have to go to three different supermarkets to get everything I need.

I regret starting a thread that functions as an invitation to post the most depressing news you can find

You cannot design a thread that wouldnt fall prey to this within ten mins have you seen this site lately

no.

lol

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

whew I had doubts

"I can't answer without sharing my personal definition of dystopia"

5 voters just laying it all down

https://t.co/fFOE6vEXOc pic.twitter.com/PPoldWoOdT

— District Sentinel (@TheDCSentinel) December 15, 2021

we should maybe do a "worst living american" poll

impossible. polls are limited to only 50 choices

maybe a poll to make the poll

a poll of polls? better update the list of lists

don't visit ILB if you don't enjoy a poll of polls

glad we got this settled

got it sordid

if i have faith in anything, it's ordinary people. in spite of everything i still believe that people are really good at heart.

― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, July 11, 2025 1:46 PM

i wanna be clear and unambiguous here - i am _not saying this sarcastically_. if all of the people who are saying and doing all this awful stuff are genuinely terrible human beings, then i don't see any justification for saying that i'm not also a terrible human being. i've said homophobic stuff, transphobic stuff, racist stuff, and anybody has the right to judge me as evil for any of that, because whatever i say and do, i'm _accountable_ for. i'm just not going to judge _myself_ as evil.

i also know that most of the people who are doing this stuff _won't_ be held accountable for what they're doing. not really for any moral reason, but because it's not practical. it's the whole _munich_ thing. there'll maybe be some form of justice meted out against the worst people, the eichmanns and what have you and the rest, well...

well, what does justice _look_ like? i can say that most nazis didn't face any consequences for what they did, and legally? legally, that's true. a lot of the true believers, the people who bought into the propaganda broadcasts until the end, they killed themselves rather than live in a post-nazi world. is that justice? um, no, what hermann goering did is pretty much the exact opposite of justice. to the end, innocent people suffered for his evil. at the same time, this is why it's not a question of "if". because the only thing fascists are capable of doing is destroying, and among the people they destroy are their own children.

when i look at justice, i see, for instance, dan white being acquited of murder for killing milk and moscone, and is that justice? no. and in 1985 he killed himself, and is that justice? also no. and am i glad that dan white killed himself? yes.

for a long time i wanted to kill myself, and now i don't. if that's the closest i get to justice, that's enough.

no, i didn't think it was sarcastic. i mean, i'm pretty much 100% with you through that whole post. i do think things are likely to get far worse, in ways that people are afraid to admit. i think the other thing that's very upsetting is that for a large number of people, pro-trump and not, who do not belong to the communities targeted by trump, and who don't have sufficient ties to them, a lot of this will be able to play out far off in the periphery, perhaps even out of sight. and, i also think, as bad as things might get, that it's possible that in a period of years (say, somewhere between 3 and 30 years), there will be some kind of swing back into a more "normal" state of affairs. and i assure you that, if that happens, the democrats will be there to minimize and scold the people who feel compelled to tell the truth, and point fingers, about what happened. and like you say, part of that will be a practical consideration. idk. sometimes i get so frustrated when i hear this "we're on the right side of history" lib talk. not because i disagree really, although truthfully i don't give a shit, but i just mean that there's this implied redemption, like jd vance's smug face is going to get shoved in the dirt, and EVERYONE will call him a loser, and there will be justice, finally, in the end. and my point is that i'm going to keep fighting in spite of the overwhelming evidence that there never will be, and maybe that is what hope is, i'm not sure

i get so frustrated when i hear this "we're on the right side of history" lib talk

people who say this aren't talking about history at all, but morality, and all they could possibly mean is "I agree with my own values". the idea that it is possible to project 'history' forward as if it were some kind of legible trend line that can be counted on to supply a desired outcome is pure nonsense, but believing in nonsense because it is comforting or validating is a very human trait that pretty much everyone indulges in to some degree.

This fall, an expanding number of top schools — including Columbia, M.I.T., Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago — will begin accepting “dialogues” portfolios from Schoolhouse.world, a platform co-founded by Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, to help students with math skills and SAT prep. High-schoolers will log into a Zoom call with other students and a peer tutor, debate topics like immigration or Israel-Palestine, and rate one another on traits like empathy, curiosity or kindness. The Schoolhouse.world site offers a scorecard: The more sessions you attend, and the more that your fellow participants recognize your virtues, the better you do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/college-admissions-essays.html

of course

doesn't China have some kind of 'moral currency' index or something like that?

I'm not sure I can muster up outrage over a system that asks students about a time they dealt with disagreement, or a system that allows conversation and debate to be included as part of an application process rather than solely relying on an essay? Maybe I'm missing something

yeah, pretty low on my dystopiameter

I mean, I guess the 'rate your peers' thing is kinda icky but it's also completely voluntary and doesn't seem like it will be weighed heavily in the admissions process

logging into the web 3.0 portal to demonstrate that you're a compliant little automaton who will definitely never occupy the quad to protest genocide is pretty gross IMO

On the other hand it is very good preparation for the modern workplace

and ILX

I agree w him that universities have to revalorise difference, disagreement and debate internally but the admissions innovations he cites seem designed to encourage that so I don't really get his beef