Is the US a dystopia?

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.

I highly recommend a book called McMindfulness, which details how meditation became co-opted by businesses, the armed forces, and schools

if i read that book will i be given better options for the country's future

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

Well we've all read the texts that explain why hippies weren't actually left wing and etc but within the context that say my boomer German parents operated in, the people doing yoga/going vegan/doing organic farming and the people reading Marx/starting discussion groups/going on protests were def mostly the same people.

kennedy-stan is something that's long been coded as left-wing which really really isn't

(a way bigger red flag for me than yoga, yes im looking at you oliver fkn stone)

Well we've all read the texts that explain why hippies weren't actually left wing...

I thought that mostly related to US hippies though?

kennedy-stan is something that's long been coded as left-wing which really really isn't

(a way bigger red flag for me than yoga, yes im looking at you oliver fkn stone)

head just stopped doing that

Well we've all read the texts that explain why hippies weren't actually left wing and etc but within the context that say my boomer German parents operated in, the people doing yoga/going vegan/doing organic farming and the people reading Marx/starting discussion groups/going on protests were def mostly the same people.

― Daniel_Rf

sure. "left wing" is more of a coalition than anything else. i guess what i'd say is that there's nothing _inherent left wing_ about new age thought. a lot of it is woo, and with woo, when you have an ideology that has...

i mean a lot of it is magical thinking and right-wing thought kinda relies on magical thinking. i think it's important to note that he also reaches out to a lot of people who _don't_ have strong christian beliefs. reagan did the same. the backbone of his policy people are hardcore fundamentalist christians putting those ideas into practice, but as far as trump himself, he doesn't go out and perform christian moralism.

so culturally, yeah, new age stuff was left wing. culturally, the center-right was denouncing _the simpsons_ as "morally degenerate". the hard right was saying _rock music_ was a tool of satan. fascists these days love zep. the church of satan are kinda fascists, that's the funny thing, they've split like the baptists, you have the satanic temple who are the cool trans rights satanists and you have the church of satan who stan Traditional Satanism and probably are insistent that Crowley was in _no way shape or form_ queer. if the Church of fucking Satan can be fash, people who love yoga and hate vaccines can be fash too.

that said, the satanic temple is a lot more popular than the church of satan around these parts.

And the Order of Nine Angles and Joy Of Satan are both straightforward fascist sects.

i guess what i'd say is that there's nothing _inherent left wing_

Agreed! This is why I said "coded as left wing" and not just left wing.

And the Order of Nine Angles

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo

oh god, i had to look up the Order of Nine Angles because i genuinely wasn't sure if it was a typo - catholic theology claims that there are nine orders of angels, and that's more along the lines of the mystical/hermetic catholic tradition... anyway NO not a typo but ok i know these people are evil but order of nine angles "theory" is the stupidest fucking shit i've ever read. like this shit is dumber than fictitious occult fascist sects invented specifically to make fun of occult fascists.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/bullet-vending-machine-texas-middle-school/

re: the bullet vending machine, i think part of the dystopia is that i heard about the bullet machine a few days ago, and then yesterday thought i saw one in my local grocery store and just immediately accepted it. "yes, it's here too, i see". it turns out it was for lotto tix but it was weird to know that i had already processed the fact that there would be bullet vending machines where i am too

On the plus side, I'll bet it's probably fairly easy to make a bullet vending machine pretty much self-destruct.

honestly it's also very video-gamey. need bullets or ammunition or health? just stand near the vending machine and tap X. yesterday i saw an energy drink for sale in the airport that said "DEFENSE UP" and for a second thought i was in a Yakuza-themed dream

https://www.si.com/olympics/american-athletes-taking-full-advantage-of-free-healthcare-olympic-village-france

“Ask for it by name” pharmaceutical ads are a dystopian element a director throws in the background to illustrate the extent to which this world is fucked up.

I almost posted that SI article in this thread last night

In the "Passing The Torch" report posted in that SI article was this...

One step forward in recent years to alleviate a small additional financial burden on those who make it to the Olympics and Paralympics was Congress’s enactment of legislation in 2016 to eliminate taxes on the value of medals and on medal bonuses. Rep. Robert Dold introduced the U.S. Appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians Act two weeks after the Rio de Janeiro games concluded. The House and Senate moved quickly to pass it, and President Barack Obama signed it into law on October 7, 2016, ensuring that those who had brought glory to our country on the medal podium that year would be the first to benefit from this change.148 In the past, Olympic and Paralympic medalists were taxed not only on their USOPC Operation Gold bonuses; they also had to declare and pay taxes on the value of the metal contained in gold and silver prize medals.

People go into debt to go to Disney World. The kind of mindset needed to be like the people described in this article is unfathomable to me, it’s like they’re aliens.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/business/disney-vacation-debt.html?unlocked_article_code=1.EU4.b9w_.4-G4-EguG83L&smid=url-share

The costs are insane.

I never wanted to go - when I was young and my mother asked me, and post divorce when my ex and my son were going (they went like 3-4 times). A lot of that is due to a dislike of crowds and particularly amusement park crowds; I’ve been to Maryland area parks and just never really had that much fun. Too overwhelming.

I also don’t like amusement parks— I don’t mine rollercoasters but am not a fanatic, and one of the things that I hate most in the world is being compelled to have fun, and amusement parks feel like one booming voice ordering me to have fun or else.

Well said. It’s like “are you not entertained, and if not, what’s wrong with you?”

And even in the 80s local amusement parks were overpriced.

mandatory amusement parks really does sound dystopian certainly

The lack of shade, and the ban on outside drinks to force you to buy cold drinks, is the most dystopian part of the experience.

I’ll admit I went to Disneyland once when I was a lad and enjoyed it.

I was too young when I went to Disneyland to have any memory of it. I went to Disney World once and have vague memories of going to EPCOT. I also went to Busch Gardens in Virginia once, which had an excellent roller coaster that put you through a pair of interlocking loops.

I also went to Action Park in NJ and survived.

My family went to Disney World in March, we didn't exactly go into debt to go, but it did slow down the repayment of other debts related to some home repairs we had to do last year. It was definitely a bad economic decision, but at the same time this is basically my kids dream vacation and they are getting older, I mean what are you gonna do, I would regret not going way more than I'm ever going to regret the cost.