Is the US a dystopia?

FWIW, in 1981 General Dynamics took my entire high school to Disneyland for free. All of the rides were free. Way more effective propaganda than Cyber Patriot

i recently went to a book fair where the author of this book happened to be and i meant to check it out -- has anyone read it?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61108472-palo-alto

I read his first book, but the length of Palo Alto put me off.

yes it is HUGE! i would only read as ebook

I kinda lost a bit of interest in that book after reading this review: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/grieving-redness-in-the-west-reading-malcolm-harris-after-mike-davis/

I guess this could go into one of the general COVID threads but running an anti-vax psyop in the middle of a global pandemic as part of Cold War II: The Coldening seems pretty dystopian.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/

fuuuuuck.

Americans when they need to grocery shopping in the suburbs pic.twitter.com/XlCvI3eIB8

— sean (@_sn_n) June 15, 2024

Can't believe this isn't an SNL skit.

This seems like the inevitable accoutrement for those at the top of the disaster capitalism pyramid (not even joking)

Better looking than the Cybertruck

have we considered not having an Orange County?

not a high bar, but milo otm

on the other hand, what could possibly go wrong with a lot of terrified people driving around in vehicles that can blind any vehicles behind or in front of them?

Looks to me like some small time chop shop is modifying Cadillac Escalades to cater to some role-playing lunatics (or drug lords) with money to burn, hoping to make a few bucks from an ultra-niche market. They'd probably quote you a price in crypto if you ask them to. Not exactly representative of anything more dystopian than capitalism in general.

There was a time when profound face-melting psychosis might have been a barrier to owning a tricked-out Psychomobile but luckily for unhinged maniacs capitalism keeps hurtling towards it's inevitable conclusion

https://www.rezvanimotors.com/rezvani-vengeance#vengeance-home-page

based in Montana

Ha, of course.

"Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the LORD? SORRY GOD! Vengeance is yours for $1499 a month for a 48 month lease!"

Hopefully that thing is incredibly top heavy and hard to drive resulting in a rash of single vehicle fatalities (sorry mamas).

She blinds everybody with her super high beams,
She's a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine!
Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!)

I like how she shot one take with the gas mask on and another without, and then cut them together all willy-nilly

silly to ask i know, but... surely smoke-screens, "blinding" lights, pepper spray and electrification are not legal on US roads?

The existence of laws that prohibit owning or equipping a vehicle with such devices would be very unlikely, just because who would ever think to write a law so specific? But using such devices would presumably fall under laws against reckless endangerment, or other similar statutes, depending on the outcome of their use. If you cause an accident resulting in serious injury or death the exact cause won't matter as much as the culpability.

ain't no rule against a dog playin basketball

^has not heard of the Air Bud Accords apparently

I am sure there are no laws specifically prohibiting those things. But a creative prosecutor can get the driver using one of those stupid laws banning neon underglow lights that were passed in the 90s, when those were the public menace of the moment.

end times: Dolly Parton in the crosshairs of cancel culture

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/19/opinions/dolly-parton-conservative-liberal-centrism-hope/index.html

There's no way that little hole-and-corner dustup can 'cancel' Dolly Parton. She's up in the same Pantheon where Elvis lives on. (Yes, I know that Elvis gladly accepted a "Jr. FBI" credential from J. Edgar Hoover. This only proves his political naivety.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/19/louisiana-ten-commandments-schools/

Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed legislation Wednesday requiring every public classroom in Louisiana to display the Ten Commandments, becoming the first state with such a law and inflaming tensions over the separation between church and state.

“This bill mandates the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom — public elementary, secondary and post-education schools — in the state of Louisiana, because if you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Landry said at a bill-signing ceremony.

well its MY idea of a dystopia anyway.

Landry might want to post them in his own office. There’s a little known commandment he will want to refresh his memory on: “thou shalt not kill”

Governor Landry now plans to authorize additional execution methods and start up executions after a 14-year pause in the state

“which was Moses” my dude has problems with relative pronouns, perhaps he should focus on that instead of imposing his christofascist vision on the citizenry

Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed legislation Wednesday requiring every public classroom in Louisiana to display the Ten Commandments, becoming the first state with such a law and inflaming tensions over the separation between church and state.

“This bill mandates the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom — public elementary, secondary and post-education schools — in the state of Louisiana, because if you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Landry said at a bill-signing ceremony.

― scott seward

hammurabi was robbed

i’m not sure moses was really responsible for those laws, which is kind of the entire point of the ten commandments iirc

- related, to both hammurabi and the thread - i was walking my dog this morning and someone was smiling at her big and clearly wanted to pet her, so i walked over to let her get some adulation and spread the good dog vibes.

DOGS ARE SO SWEET! DON'T YOU LOVE THEM?!
aw, yes i
CAN YOU BELIEVE PEOPLE HURT THEIR DOGS?! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!
yeah that is really bad, i
WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING? YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN NORTH COUNTY, RIGHT? THE 11-YEAR OLD BOY AND THE DOG?
yes (lying, trying to walk away now)
WHO WOULD DO THAT? THAT'S JUST SICK!!!!
yeah i can't believe
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SHOULD DO TO HIM? EXACTLY WHAT HE DID TO THAT BOY AND THAT DOG!
mmhmmm
DISGUSTING!!!

times were simpler back when the code was posted nice and tall in the town square, nobody could read it, and everyone's eyes were ripped out

I walked my young spaniel this morning, he freaks out at any dogs he isn’t roommates with, and got caught in a dystopic Stalkker-esque no man’s land stalemate when two dog owners on opposite ends of the road stopped walking to watch me try to calm my dog down while he did his insane Fred Astaire on lsd impression or whatever.

i’m not sure moses was really responsible for those laws, which is kind of the entire point of the ten commandments iirc

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand)

that's the whole point, though, that's why landry calls him the "lawgiver", that's why it's a portion of mosaic law and not the code of hammurabi that he's mandating be in there

folks like him don't believe they're enforcing human law over a civil society made up of many different people of many different backgrounds and faiths. they believe they're responsible for enforcing the One True Divine Law as given to Moses by the One True God Himself, as interpreted by _them_, God's faithful servants. it's that law that says that guys who get it in the bussy must be put to death (pretty sure those are God's exact words). it's that law that says that AMABs who dress femme must be put to death. now, that belief is a gross distortion of mosaic law, but that's what they _believe_. that belief is what makes them categorically unsuited to hold civil authority. but they do, and hey presto, dystopian theocracy!

still my fave pre-christ law:

"If a man is accused of sorcery, he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu

seems fair!

3 shekels went a long way back then too. hell, a single shekel

on the other hand if somebody had a lot of shekels well... you wouldn't want to get on his bad side.

there's a particular Cradle of Filth shirt that I would love to cover up the commandments with

Louisiana schools have routinely tried to flout the law - this happened in 2014, but never made it to SCOTUS (though that SCOTUS was further left than this one obv): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/14/buddhist-student-louisiana-settlement/6440001/

https://i.imgur.com/eU6mshE.png

if i had the gift and curse of a photographic memory, i would file this away so that if for some reason in the future a dude was making a bold claim that relied on the macarthur study bible, i could say "i hate to be the guy to break it to you, but there's no reason for you to be confident about anything you read in the macarthur study bible"

honestly, imo wrongful accusation of sorcery should be more like 5 or 6 shekels

well it would be now, these days, in this economy

yeah, thanks Biden!

Ordeal By Water is the name of my xtian metalcore band

just in case other people are also wondering what exactly the ordeal by water is:

"The Code of Hammurabi dictated that, if a man was accused of a matter by another, the accused was to leap into a river. If the accused man survived this ordeal, the accused was to be acquitted."

this is a good wikipedia page by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal