Is the US a dystopia?

Pet kidney transplant, $25,000:

https://wapo.st/4cwCbIO

I see the cheap rural/semi-rural house listings across the rust belt/midwest, I don't really need the amenities of living in the middle of 7 million people anymore but even if I could up stakes for the $50k 1930s bungalow in BFE Illinois, how are you supposed to find a job? (also I assume they all cost insane amounts to heat)

There is a presumption out there that all white-collar knowledge workers can be remote, and can therefore easily pick up and move from urban Brooklyn (or whatever) to rural Whereversville without taking any professional hit.

This may be true for some people, but many have found that we can't count on a neverending spigot of WFH jobs that can be done from rural Whereversville. Or it may have been true a year ago but who knows about next year or the year after that.

i can't help but think about how much food that is. for pets. how much grain. corn. meat.

*SORRY DOG LOVERS NOT TRYING TO BUM YOU OUT BUT...*

Probably at least half of dog owners just want a mute stuffed animal that dances

I mean who doesn’t

It’s also just incredible how many dogs are in cities/suburbs that really should be running around on a farm all day or something, ok I’m done

Don’t fucking talk to me, you had human children.
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, June 24, 2024 8:25 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

WTAF dude

Scott, I’d like to see those pet ownership figures put up versus childbearing in those places. The results would be illuminating (if not depressing).

Which is to say: we all chug along through each day but we don’t necessarily feel optimism about whatever is waiting ahead. (And we want comfort.)

The environmental red flags I see raised about American pet ownership relate to industrial meat production - are many cows raised just for pet food, though? I assume that dog food is produced from the scraps of human production - Purina isn't putting filet in the kibble.

dogs need to kill their own cows imo

I always wonder why dog and cat food comes in beef flavor, chicken flavor, tuna flavor. A cat isn't catching a tuna. A dog isn't killing a cow. Cat food should be made from roaches (OK, fine, crickets) and sparrows. Dog food should be made from cats.

Cats like strong-smelling food, which is why they like fish.

there are way more pets then children. plus, people are supposed to have people. its what animals do. but people are the only animal that feels the need to own other animals.

i hate to say it, but i vote people. owning and training animals has always been weird to me. unless they run free. then it seems less weird.

There are those tarantulas that keep frogs for pets.

“We’re at an odd moment of obsession with pets,” Dr. Pierce said. “There are too many of them and we keep them too intensively. It’s not good for us and it’s not good for them.”

― scott seward

i'll one-up you

puppygirls

big upswing in puppygirls in my social circles in the last year

eating and drinking water from a dog bowl, sleeping in a cage, the whole thing

you know why?

pets are _loved_ and _cared for_ and treated with _kindness_

i'm not taking a position for or against pet ownership

i am, however, taking a position in favor of human beings being treated _at least as well_ as pets

animals should be wild. but that's just my opinion. i do have a cat. so i'm a hypocrite. but i leave the cat alone. i don't put hats on it. i don't even like calling animals human names. feels disrespectful.

puppyplay >>>> adult babies
puppies >>>> human babies

adult babies both as in people who wear diapers for sexual pleasure and Disney Adults.

to the dog freaks, i get it. everyone is freaky about something. its cool. bark on. i know how fanatical the dog-people are. oh i know.

Indoor Cats are better than kids if we are talking environmental impact

Earlier.. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/vet-private-equity-industry/678180/#

As household pets have risen in status—from mere animals to bona fide family members—so, too, has owners’ willingness to spend money to ensure their well-being. Big-money investors have noticed. According to data provided to me by PitchBook, private equity poured $51.6 billion into the veterinary sector from 2017 to 2023, and another $9.3 billion in the first four months of this year, seemingly convinced that it had discovered a foolproof investment. Industry cheerleaders pointed to surveys showing that people would go into debt to keep their four-legged friends healthy. The field was viewed as “low-risk, high-reward,” as a 2022 report issued by Capstone Partners put it, singling out the industry for its higher-than-average rate of return on investment.

In the United States, corporations and private-equity funds have been rolling up smaller chains and previously independent practices. Mars Inc., of Skittles and Snickers fame, is, oddly, the largest owner of stand-alone veterinary clinics in the United States, operating more than 2,000 practices under the names Banfield, VCA, and BluePearl. JAB Holding Company, the owner of National Veterinary Associates’ 1,000-plus hospitals (not to mention Panera and Espresso House), also holds multiple pet-insurance lines in its portfolio. Shore Capital Partners, which owns several human health-care companies, controls Mission Veterinary Partners and Southern Veterinary Partners.

As a result, your local vet may well be directed by a multinational shop that views caring for your fur baby as a healthy component of a diversified revenue stream. Veterinary-industry insiders now estimate that 25 to 30 percent of practices in the United States are under large corporate umbrellas, up from 8 percent a little more than a decade ago. For specialty clinics, the number is closer to three out of four.

And as this happened, veterinary prices began to rise—a lot. Americans spent an estimated $38 billion on health care and related services for companion animals in 2023, up from about $29 billion in 2019. Even as overall inflation got back under control last year, the cost of veterinary care did not. In March 2024, the Consumer Price Index for urban consumers was up 3.5 percent year over year. The veterinary-services category was up 9.6 percent. If you have ever wondered why keeping your pet healthy has gotten so out-of-control expensive, Big Vet just might be your answer.

My co-workers always ask me when I’m gonna get a pet. (I’ve had cats and dogs at various points in my life.)

My answer is invariably “when I hit the age when I’m not traveling and have significant disposable income.” Having watched what friends and loved ones have gone through in recent years with pets, not happening now - money is pretty damn tight, about to get tighter.

And look, I love pets too - they can be a wonderful comfort in so many ways - and understand the myriad reasons why people don’t have kids.

“We’re at an odd moment of obsession with pets,” Dr. Pierce said. “There are too many of them and we keep them too intensively. It’s not good for us and it’s not good for them.”

Elvis keepin' it squarely on topic. That shit is just bleak. Can the tumor of capitalism just fuckin metastasize already?

Damn, if we have to live in a dystopia at least let us have cats. They’re the best! (Kids are good too, I like mine — and most people’s.)

Jessica Pierce has also written about how dog owners should see the world from their animals perspectives more in order to be ethical dog owners. I agree with her about this.

I just don’t like being called crazy by someone who has 9 gazillion records. It’s called hoarding.

Where did he call you crazy?

and like fwiw i really like you scott, i just sometimes can’t with certain opinions of yours

also, from yesterday: Why You’re Paying Your Veterinarian So Much

spoiler: private equity

oh tablepaws

old records are dead though and i rarely buy new ones! like almost never!

its cool pup patrol i promise not to make people share one dog for every square mile of citizens in the futurtopia that i rule and i promise to only throw up a little when you french kiss your terrier in public.

futurtopia

london is one of the most densely peopled, populous cities on earth and my dog gets to run and play off his lead every day!

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Monday, 24 June 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Went to France last month and most dogs were well behaved and on a leash. Don't know if its a law but it should be one here.

Yesterday one person was allowing their dog to run about at the back of the bus. Someone had to say to them to get them.

Ofc they should be on a lead in the street. Personally that's not enough for me but I know I'm in a minority.

Hmm...

That bad huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ0n3itoII

Wha happen here?

Referring to the debate?

Yes.

Throughout this thread we have talked about a number of ways in which the US is a dystopia.

Didn't have "the public must vote for a piece of wood to keep out the other guy who will overthrow the government on day one" on the list.

Pre-2016 if I had read a dystopian novel about what is happening in the US now, I would’ve thought “this is kinda dumb - it’s entirely unbelievable that half a country of sentient beings would support such a caricature of a villain”. If someone so transparently noxious has managed as much carnage as trump, god help us if someone with a little brains and charisma comes along next, with the same agenda.

Parable of the Sower is pretty much non-fiction

The amazing thing is we might have someone who is unable to make decisions for himself -- never mind others or a country -- already in power, and the 'good' guys are putting that person in an eelction against someone who is guilty of crimes, a person who you'd think would easily lose to most

"god help us if someone with a little brains and charisma comes along next, with the same agenda."

this is kinda Reagan. people loved him. not actually dumb. came across in public as benign and cheerful. extremely destructive for 8 years. endless repercussions.

I’ve made very few IRL friends in the US since I moved here in 2008 but one of them - who I considered really smart and caring - just revealed she’s voting for RFK, which led to me finding out she’s antivax. She was someone i worked with until the pandemic and we have a sporadic texting/Instagram friendship, so we’d never discussed this stuff. I’m absolutely stupefied by the things she just said to me, like truly shocked. I can’t be friends with her anymore because her political beliefs have completely undermined what I thought of her. Like my husband said when I told him: the left-wing-to-science-denialism pipeline is depressing and very dystopian.

If you're interested, there's a chapter in the latest Naomi Klein book that's the best thing I've read so far on why presumably leftish ppl fall into these conspiracies; dunno if it's the case with your friend, but the way Klein describes it it's less about being left wing and more about being into yoga, healthy eating, stuff like that which used to code as left wing but is rapidly merging with right wing culture

Hmm...yoga coded as left wing? It was taken up by hippies but that isn't the same thing to me.

Its certainly co-opted by the right now (esp in India).

She’s very artsy, queer, a longtime Burner, not a health fanatic… like, just very chill and very Collectivist. That’s why I was so shocked by our convo today - everything she was saying was so the opposite, very much that individualist mindset of “well it doesn’t affect me and mine”. I knew she was a tiny but woowoo but I’ve also known her to be very practical and thoughtful.
“I never got the vax. I got Covid once. I’m fine! I don’t know anyone with long covid”. I told her that was literally the definition of confirmation bias and there are 8b other ppl in the world. I got the vax and all boosters and I’ve NEVER had Covid, despite sharing a bed with my husband when he came home with it!

Also her mum is like a retired rocket scientist or something.

I’m just so fucking bummed out, man. I was already an antisocial hermit too lazy to make a lot of friends and this is not encouraging me to put more effort into it.

This private equity / veterinarian thing is evil, because big businesses are taking advantage of people feeling overwhelmed by COVID / Trump etc. to pay attention.

Ditto the real estate bullshit going on.

Nobody knows how to find good news sources anymore. They find out when they get the vet bill.