Is the US a dystopia?

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.

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.

This is definitely the case with most amusement parks, fortunately Disney World is pretty good for this. Plenty of places to cool off when you need it and you can bring outside snacks and drinks. We just brought our water bottles and some snacks and saved several hundred dollars doing that.

as a kid, Disney was a magical experience. one that no doubt waned as I got older and had been there a gazillion times.

I don't recall what the pricing was like then, but it's absurd now. annual passholders pay way more for Disney than any other theme park. I've only been three times since 1998, all of them I was comped in because I can't justify paying a single day admission.

I prefer Sea World/Busch Gardens tbh. much more affordable for annual pass, less people, and animals/sea wildlife.

Universal Islands of Adventure, I loved so much when it opened, and had an annual pass for years, and then just hit a wall, like everytime I go there I'm cranky from people crashing into me because they're not looking, the crowding, the heat....and I love coasters but as I got older they give me headaches now

But Ms. Leach, 38, who works in sales, relies on quarterly bonuses to cover vacation costs. She and her husband earn about $250,000 annually, combined, though that figure can fluctuate each year. Her family doesn’t always have the money to pay for vacations upfront. Instead, she books first, then pays off her balances as the bonuses come in.

...maybe not the best example to start with considering they clearly CAN afford these trips outright and it's just a timing issue re: bonuses.

there are definitely much poorer folks who basically mortgage their futures to go to Disney

I went once when I was a kid on a family vacation, flew down to Florida and stayed at some resort there and went to magic Kingdom and Epcot. Honestly my favorite part was probably the monorail system. Went to Disney in California a few years ago with the kid, just an overnight stay, it was fun. But even going there on a weekday in spring, letting him skip school to do it, it was 45 minutes to an hour in line for everything. He liked it, doesn't want to do it again. I know a few adults who have passes and they go all the time.

The lady with the 18 month old saying her son will never be a kid again, but she can make more money…
Kids won’t remember anything that happened at that age! I guess if you
rewatch videos and look at pictures regularly with the kid they’ll have constructed memories of it. I hadn’t thought about it, but people must visit Disney parks for the parental experience of seeing their kids in awe. Still, 18 months…

My parents took me to Disney World when my mom was 5 or 6 months pregnant with my sister. My dad won the trip in some raffle. I very vaguely remember grabbing Pluto’s tail and a breakfast where Snow White visited. That’s it.
I also visited in high school when our city’s high school orchestras pooled together to construct a large enough group willing to pay for the trip. We took a bus and it took 26 hours to get there.

I guess if you’re with kids old enough to remember it, it’d be a family experience but the closest I’ve gotten in the last several decades was humoring my friend’s proposal we go to the food/drink festival at Epcot.

WDW is absurdly expensive these days, nevertheless I'm going with friends in late September. Florida residents get pretty good deals on the hotels. I plan to eat, drink, and lounge around the pool. I haven't been to one of their theme parks in years.

fuck the commoditization of wonder imo

It doesn't bother me much. Albums, Library of America reissue of novels -- commoditizations of wonder.

"Forced joy" irks me more.

re: the resident thing

the guy who was proposing we go to epcot had passes from when he and his ex/her child would visit with his former on-laws. after they broke up, he became a Disney guy having become accustomed to the catered tourist experience and went so far as to have a faux-Florida address to get the resident discount. there’s apparently an entire cottage industry catering to fake residents

no offense to Floridians, but imagine pretending to be a resident solely for Disney purposes. the closest we have here is people with expensive or multiple vehicles pretending to have residency in, say, South Dakota in order to have cheaper vehicle registration

I went when I was eight. I remember it! It was fun. My parents had never taken me anywhere like that and would never again.

weirdly the strongest memory i have of theme parks (we went to disneyland and knox berry farm every year for like 5 years when i was a kid) is watching dudes in line ahead of us stick two fingers down past the lycra waist line into the top of the buttcrack of the girls they were with and just like keep em there for 30 minutes.

someone would have to pay me at least $500 to spend a day at a theme park. seeing as that's not going to happen, i'm never going to one again and perfectly happy about it. i also steer clear of disney fans / disney gays bcz ewww. i don't necessarily hold it against them, we just aren't going to relate.

exactly— like we went when i was 4 to WDW, and i think my parents took me to one or two other amusement parks during my entire childhood? i went to a ton of museums and outdoor playgrounds and stuff tho, and beaches. and guess what? i never felt deprived!! in fact, i always felt great about spending the week at the beach or on a mountain somewhere for a few days and then a city for a few days.

i got mixed feelings about simulacra. certainly there are _endless_ possibilities for dystopian simulacra. the potemkin village, for instance, i'd call that a form of simulacrum. you look behind the curtain and you see a nightmare. that said, i'm personally very fond of simulacra and i think there are a lot of positive possibilities there.

so i'm gonna talk about trans shit again. there are those people, you know, who say i'm not a "real woman", someone like me can't be a "real woman". those people are minoritarian and increasingly marginal. they weren't when i was young. i kinda internalized that. these days, that's a not credible statement, you know, trans women are women, trans rights, that ought to be obvious to everyone here. and i agree with the people who say trans rights, i agree with what they're saying. i mean ok, i'm a real woman, i guess. but also so what? what if it so happens that i'm not a real woman, that i'm a simulacrum of a woman, a woman's hormones, face, voice, clothes, that there is something that makes someone a "real woman" and i don't have it?

i mean, drag queens, it's a performance, whoever or whatever they really are, they're performing as simulacra of women, and people get mad about that, and honestly i think it's silly.

i like simulacra. i like cosplay and kink and, just, the possibility to see ourselves as other than who we are, to see our world as other than what it is. i don't know anybody who does that better than disney.

weirdly the strongest memory i have of theme parks (we went to disneyland and knox berry farm every year for like 5 years when i was a kid) is watching dudes in line ahead of us stick two fingers down past the lycra waist line into the top of the buttcrack of the girls they were with and just like keep em there for 30 minutes.

I love this