Is the US a dystopia?

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