Is the US a dystopia?

option 3 ftw

US perfidy always comes back to tea

not really

hm sounds like you're either a "no" or "The Beatles" but afaict you can still secretly vote however you wish

it's going to take a lot of restraint not to shoehorn this in to thread connections

I figured it was what it was for.

least serious answer is the correct one

by that you mean "yes"?

oh misread "least" as "last" nevermind

This question is unhelpful and I have no idea why it is being asked.

Badly trimmed shrub = dystopiary

Dropped the clay - dyspottery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeu3iH0R_GM

I mean, pulling up the forecast today and seeing tornado warnings for Chicago in mid-December doesn't make me not think it's a dystopia.

an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

not imagined, authoritarian rather than totalitarian and pre-apocalyptic instead of post IMO

so maybe it's not a dystopia but merely dystopic

dystopic? I dunno. but ilx is def dyspeptic today.

I did not remotely intend this thread to be serious, but there's an argument to be made that 1492 counts as the apocalypse

Can the apocalypse be local?

Americans rly struggle with not being the world and i think its quite telling tbh

let it beatles

Climate catastrophe is going to be pretty universal IIRC.

which is v little to do with the point about 1492 is it

you can get with dystopia, or you can get with datopia

just throwing this out there but maybe dystopia fans are blind to dystopias

I dunno I think most fans of the crust punk band Dystopia probably would agree that the USA is a dystopia fwiw

let me see, is the US a dystopia.

the republican party is trying to actively KILL a lot of people. let me just see how that plays in the polls

The approval rating among those who voted for [Biden] has dropped from 80% to 69% in the April survey. There have been notable declines among Americans 18-34 and suburban residents, both of whom, in dramatic swings, now register net negative views on the president.

As bad as Biden’s number may be, the polling data for Democrats in Congress is far worse.

Republicans now sport a historic 10-point advantage when Americans are asked which party they prefer to control Congress, holding a 44%-34% margin over Democrats. That’s up from a 2-point Republican advantage in the October survey.

In the past 20 years, CNBC and NBC surveys have never registered a double-digit Republican advantage on congressional preference, with the largest lead ever being 4 pints for the GOP.

“If the election were tomorrow, it would be an absolute unmitigated disaster for the Democrats,″ said Jay Campbell, partner at Hart Research Associates and the Democratic pollster for the survey.

yes it's a full blown dystopia

nah but rich people have never had it better tho

A 4 pint lead is difficult to overcome tbh. sorry

Can the apocalypse be local?

Americans rly struggle with not being the world and i think its quite telling tbh

― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Friday, December 10, 2021 8:10 PM (one hour ago)

I was addressing "the apocalypse" that it could be argued helps to confirm the US as a dystopia, the subject of this important poll. So I guess I do think it can be local, idk, why not? Anyway Columbus never even entered future-US territory, it's more of a symbolic hinge year for everything being terrible from then on

I'd figure most people using the term think in the sense of dystopian science fiction and I kinda think 2021 has quite a few elements that seem like out of such.

There's no utopia that's not someone's dystopia, and vice versa.

The notion of local dystopias is an interesting one. Could be that there was an egalitarian paradise unfolding just a continent or two over from Mad Max.

If the US ticks all the boxes- and there's a case- then clearly plenty of very nice places to live in exist besides so id say thats a clear yes

Have we ever not been? Slave state — apartheid state — Vietnam/Watergate — Corporate state — Fury Road (2016-present)

the people in the mayfield candle factory that collapsed worked 12-hour shifts that paid $8 an hour. 110 ppl were inside. 40 ppl are still unaccounted for. they haven’t recovered a survivor since 3 am. pic.twitter.com/CsIIfLw3Pc

— Tracy Moore (@iusedtobepoor) December 11, 2021

it’s legal in kentucky to fire someone for refusing to work mandatory overtime

— Tracy Moore (@iusedtobepoor) December 11, 2021

The notion of local dystopias is an interesting one. Could be that there was an egalitarian paradise unfolding just a continent or two over from Mad Max.

Zardoz is another one. Although The Eternals are mainly a bunch of insufferable bores and their egalitarian paradise is pretty lame, but you wouldn't complain about it if you were being held captive by Charlotte Rampling.

Slave state — apartheid state — Vietnam/Watergate — Corporate state — Fury Road (2016-present)

We didn't start the fire, etc.

Let's see what all we have...you got this one.

US combined laissez-faire capitalism on it's drug industry and combined with heroin blow-back from the 'war on terror' created the opioid epidemic for fun and profit killing over a million Americans since 1999.

Getting back to the topic at hand, Le Guin wrote a book about a moon. Also was there some Cold War global political framework in her gender-bender book? I don't recall.

Climate catastrophe is going to be pretty universal IIRC.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, December 11, 2021 1:14 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

which is v little to do with the point about 1492 is it

― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Saturday, December 11, 2021 1:17 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

It is though (unless I'm misreading). The USA is the biggest historical contributor to the climate crisis. An argument could be made that if 1492 never happened, there would be no global crisis. Same for much of global environmental destruction -- Amazon forest all gone? Thank Ronald McDonald.

Local teachers in South Dakota “Dash for Cash” to help their classrooms by fighting over $5,000 in $1 bills while the crowd hoots and hollers. pic.twitter.com/azwGJKhaKU

— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) December 12, 2021

they're going to remove that rug at some point

and then charge them for it!

An argument could be made that if 1492 never happened, there would be no global crisis.

Are we talking a world where Europe never came into contact with the Americas?

I can’t live without potatoes

-LL McCooljay

It would have happened eventually.

I can’t live without potatoes

OTM

Lol, Neanderthal.

well sheeeit i’m like— and then?

i "worked" more or less off and on from about the age of 14 (minimum legal age, working as a library page) until about... 27, i guess. had a probably-gender-dysphoria-related nervous breakdown in '03, lived with my mom in florida for a couple years, got addicted to benzos at the free clinic, stumbled into a job in '08 that i stuck with for the next eight years, until the company got taken over by a republican grifter who embezzled our raises and ran the company into the ground. i quit, moved to portland on the money from my dad's estate (he'd just died), immediately got a professional job, and i've been hanging on there ever since. the current company i'm at has been taken over by grifters who are running the company into the ground (i think they're at least democrats, though i could be wrong on that), but i don't really got anywhere else to go right now. my friends are either losing their jobs left and right, no explanation given, "right to work", nobody has to give one, or else grimly hanging on to meaningless and/or outright evil work. my workplace has paid for three month-long intensive outpatient mental health programs and three six-week programs of transcranial magnetic stimulation during the time i've been there. i guess it's starting to be routine - when my short-term disability gets replenished from last year, it's time to go into another intensive outpatient program. right now i'm doing a six month DBT program, not full-fidelity but closer than most people can get. occasionally i apply to jobs at different places, but the people who work there say that work there is awful as well. it's hard to say for sure. i used to feel like i was racing against time, that if i just held on until things changed that it'd be ok, that at some point it would be obvious enough that shit wasn't working that _somebody_ would have to do _something_, but i got tired of living my life waiting for things to somehow miraculously get better. maybe this is the best things get from now on. if it is, i guess i'm ok with that.

(the MH outpatient programs and the TMS weren't particularly related to my being trans, FWIW)

I got fired from a restaurant after they figured out I was using stolen manager codes to void off $50-100 every night, thankfully that had given me enough cushion that I got to spend almost four months drunk and unemployed before I got another job as a server.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2024/02/28/school-districts-giving-police-access-to-security-cameras-surveillance/72620671007/

Two of Arizona's largest school districts have decided to give police access to their surveillance systems.

Peoria Unified and Mesa Unified school districts recently approved agreements to grant local police departments access to live school camera feeds during emergencies.

The districts say the partnerships will help police better respond to emergencies by allowing them to immediately locate threats, medical emergencies, large fights or active shooters.

They also say it will help police departments respond appropriately to false alerts or situations that have already been diffused.

"In the world we live in, where we never know what's around the corner," said Allen Moore, Mesa Unified School District's safety and security director. "We just wanted them to have the best tools available so that they can respond with the proper amount of officers and resources."

Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers to Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts
https://www.404media.co/amazon-amazen-workingwell-savoring/ (free subscription link)

Amazon is telling workers to close their eyes and dream of being somewhere else while they’re standing in a warehouse. A worker in one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers, who we’ve granted anonymity, sent 404 Media a photo they took of a screen imploring them to try “savoring” the idea of something that makes them happy—as in, not being at work, surrounded by robots and packages.

Step 1. Amazon executive hears from warehouse managers that workers are unhappy, gripe a lot to each other and are hard to retain.

Step 2. Amazon executive decides to hire a psychology consultant to combat the "unhappiness problem".

Step 3. Consultant visits some Amazon warehouses, interviews workers, observes the fung shui.

Step 4. Consultant delivers a 153 page report on their findings with 14 recommendations for changes and improvements to raise employee morale, then invoices Amazon for $145,000.

Step 5. Amazon executive convenes a meeting where the recommendations are discussed over catered lunch and 6 of the recommendations are adopted, with another 5 table for later consideration.

Step 6. Memos are sent to warehouse managers, along with Powerpoints for employee training. In accordance with the 6 morale-boosting changes: break rooms are repainted in cheerful colors new vending machines are installed, the first aid supply stations are now to be unlocked and freely accessible, and employees are urged to think happy thoughts. Managers can't implement the other two for lack of budget.

I hope the US collapses.

It's a common saying: You do the crime, you do the time. But when people are released from prison, freedom is fragmented. It marks the start of new hardships, impacting families and communities.

Part of that is due to a Florida law many people are unaware of, further punishing second-chance citizens, preventing them from truly moving on.

It's called "pay-to-stay", charging inmates for their prison stay, like a hotel they were forced to book. Florida law says that cost, $50 a day, is based on the person's sentence. Even if they are released early, paying for a cell they no longer occupy, and regardless of their ability to pay.

Not only can the state bill an inmate the $50 a day even after they are released, Florida can also impose a new bill on the next occupant of that bed, potentially allowing the state to double, triple, or quadruple charge for the same bed.

Critics call it unconstitutional. Shelby Hoffman calls it a hole with no ladder to climb out.

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/pay-to-stay-florida-inmates-charged-for-prison-cells-long-after-incarceration

Damn, this is a soulless law.

jesus, and i cannot stress this enough, fucking christ. what a hellhole this country is.

Within three years, when applying for the exemption to work in case management, her dream job is when Hoffman found out that she — like thousands of others — still owes the state $50 a day for the seven years of her original sentence: $127,750.

not to detract from that evil shit but how about this evil shit

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/23/tennessee-bill-concealed-handguns-schools-teachers-staff/73431609007/

Armed teachers, who will be required to undergo training that some opponents have argued is not intensive enough, will be allowed to carry handguns in their classrooms and most campus situations without informing parents and most of their colleagues that they're armed.

and just staying on tennessee for a minute

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tennessee-would-criminalize-helping-minors-get-abortions-under-bill-heading-to-governor/ar-AA1nBqUR

Tennessee is poised to become the second state in the nation to make it illegal for adults to help minors get an abortion without parental consent, a proposal that is likely to face immediate legal challenges should Gov. Bill Lee sign it into law.

Passing those two bills back to back took special gall because the abortion one was sold as a "parental rights" bill — saving parents from having other people take their minor children to have abortions — but the armed-teachers one includes a whole section on confidentiality ensuring that parents have no way to find out which school employees are packing heat or even which schools have armed employees. And they had to clear a whole gallery of enraged moms chanting "BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS" just so the House could vote. "Parental rights" is a fungible concept.

I believe the Tennessee state legislature is actually really fucking deranged. Like literally. They are completely off the reservation.

I used to be like well, at least we’re not Alabama and Mississippi. But now we are

next you know they'll be deporting people to rwanda

Most teachers I wouldn’t worry about them having guns aside from incompetence but there were a couple who strike me as potential problems on their own. The Vietnam vet who trapped a wasp and then proceeded to cut it up on his desk…

I used to be like well, at least we’re not Alabama and Mississippi. But now we are

I know, and a lot of Tennesseans have a hard time believing it. I have to keep telling people that we're the actual literal worst state for a lot of this neo-confederate hateful shit, and close to the worst for the rest of it. There's still a tendency to think we're "normal" or something, we are really extreme. Bill Lee is the worst, the Legislature's terrible, and all of these people are so so so dumb.

oh yay, on to the next school shooting, when by the time they realize what's happening, panicked armed teachers will successfully take down a window, a wall, and a desk, while people still die all around them as before.

next you know they'll be deporting people to rwanda

― mookieproof, Thursday, 25 April 2024 bookmarkflaglink

That's right

Most teachers I wouldn’t worry about them having guns aside from incompetence

See why anyone on this boards listens to you on any topic after saying shit like this is 100% a mystery to me

Do you think those last three words mean I believe the idea is just grand? Incompetent people with guns - generally not good, I think most would agree.

The point was that some teachers are psychos and it won’t surprise me when one shoots a student for misbehaving down the road.

Which is not, as of yet, a problem since the psycho football coach being forced to teach geography has to make the conscious decision to break multiple laws by bringing his Glock to school on a regular basis. Not just removing those decisions but encouraging him to do so will inevitably result in new tragedies.

Much more worried about competence with guns.

i look at where i live and i see a sort of "laissez-faire" dystopia, where people do all kinds of fucked up shit and nobody does anything about it because what are you gonna do? talk to the cops about it?

alabama, tennessee, are they like that too? i don't really _know_ what the rest of the country is like these days. i don't know what "normal" is supposed to be.

stochastic incompetence doesn’t count the same

ahhhh, i don't feel that way. _334_ is a perfectly good dystopia if you ask me. for that matter stochastic incompetence is _part and parcel_ of any true dystopia, the way that incompetence is weaponized against marginalized people without even _needing_ any overt exterminatory action to be taken. that's what makes something a dystopia, when something is enshrined as an institutional norm.

Milo and I often don't see eye to eye but even I know what he meant

(my own 'stochoastic incompetence' comment was pure, unfunny in too too many ways, dark wise assery, sorry all).

no worries, that's one of those instances where the 'tism flared up and i literally didn't recognize the layer of sarcasm lol

Zeno of Elea: "bye, Hon, I'm just running out to the stoa for a few things."

Zeno's wife: "careful, bro - you'll never get there if your plan is to repeatedly travel half the remaining distance."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/flint-michigan-water-crisis

Years after the emergency, the Michigan city is yet to replace all lead pipes and affected families are still awaiting justice

replace this whole thread with one of the pictures of SWAT snipers setting up at campus Gaza protests

otm. I'm trying not to spam the board with stuff about the protests, but it sure feels like a police state this morning

It's simple. pic.twitter.com/M6pHdOA4YU

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 1, 2024

I no longer have a Twitter account but that seems destined to become the most-ratioed tweet since Elmo's

I used that exact four-word phrase the other week in a discussion of assisted suicide (I'm very pro-, and think depression is just as valid reason as, say, ALS to pull the plug on oneself). Wonder if President Joe shares my feelings.

quick, it's international workers' day and the cops are busy tear-gassing students protesting genocide, now's the perfect time to overthrow capitalism

going to a rally in a bit, will bump thread later if capitalism overthrown

"To Hatzifotinos, such tragedies were avoidable. “ ‘Don’t have money’ is not an excuse right now,” he told me. “I don’t know why people are choosing to get evicted. It never used to be a choice. Now I believe that it is.”"

https://harpers.org/archive/2024/04/the-eviction-experts/

"Can American Policing Be Fixed?"

"Lunch with the QAnon Shaman"

https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HA0424-0C1DS_001.png

NC legislature votes to ban the wearing of (medical) masks in public, with a carve-out for members of secret societies, aka the fucking klan

texas governor pardons a convicted premeditated murderer (who also sexted 16yos) but it's okay because the murder victim was a black protestor

Good luck with chemo in NC.

https://www.newsweek.com/jasmine-crockett-marjorie-taylor-greene-diss-track-1901743

The US world has always been a dystopia, with snatches of something slightly less horrible occasionally emerging from the morass for the sake of contrast

The US world has always been a dystopia, with snatches of something slightly less horrible occasionally emerging from the morass for the sake of contrast

― Great-Tasting Burger Perceptions (Old Lunch)

fuck this manichean blackpill shit

we can have better

we _deserve_ better

no personal offense to you OL

fuck it i'm just gonna post the thing i wrote here instead of the autism thread, #onethread

-

I mean the thing is it's not accidental, you know? The "top shortage" here isn't accidental.

With or without an autism diagnosis, people gotta find ways to get by. I went off to college when I was 18 and I didn't have the skills, social or practical, to take care of myself, so I moved back in with my mom. I moved out again to get a job, and again, I didn't have the practical skills or the emotional support network to function, so I moved back in with my mom. I spent a couple years addicted to drugs, cold turkeyed them, was fortunate enough to survive. Met someone who had low enough self-esteem to become my caretaker despite my, like, not having the skills to treat other people with basic kindness and respect, married her, and the trade-off with caretaker relationships is that it... Like you have a job that sucks and you steal office supplies, right? Being a caretaker is a shitty, demanding job. I don't blame my caretakers for doing the things they did. Judging them as beside the point.

I spent a long time trying to learn skills that I the people in my life didn't have the skills or support to teach me, and so I'm out here living on my own, taking care of myself. It's really hard, and I'm not really good at it. And it's not just me. I have dozens of memes humorously expressing the sentiment of "God, taking care of myself is so fucking hard." And some of them are puppygirl memes. I do know a fair number of people who are autistic puppygirls. The shit the right-wingers say on TV, that there are people out there who identify as dogs, who wants to sleep in a cage and drink water out of a dogbowl, that's true. That's not me, I'm not like that, but I understand where that comes from. I've looked at a guy out in public with his dog and looked at how he treated her and sighed and said "God, I wish that was me."

But it's not, and you know, I'm proud of myself and I'm happy about what I've been able to accomplish. I'm better off where I am now, to be able to live on my own, live independently. I buy my own groceries. I do my own laundry. I pay my own bills. I sweep my floor occasionally. I check the mail. I'm able to take the bus to and from medical appointments. I'm able to manage, by myself, the large number of medications I'm taking to be able to function independently.

I mean all this is a lot. Maybe for some people it's like "Oh well of course that's just normal people stuff" and for me it's not. It's work, it's really hard work. And I've learned to celebrate that for myself, what a good job I'm doing, how hard I'm working, because nobody's going to go out there and say "Good job, Kate! You checked your mail today _and_ you took a shower even though you really didn't want to!"

The hardest bit right now for me is holding down a job. Because, I know this is a very autistic thing to say, the job I am working for is meaningless and stupid, it has no value, provides no value to the world at large, and knowing this, it is very hard for me to do this job. I'm work from home, I'm isolated, I live on my own, and this is I guess supposed to be a "privilege". With autism, though, there's this thing called "parallel play", which means that when I'm around other people, it's easier for me to do things. Having friends is important for me for a number of reasons, and one of the main ones is that I can invite them over to my place. There's this assumption that when you invite someone over it's for, I don't know, immoral purposes, unnatural acts, and that's not how it is for me. I have someone over and once they're over it's a lot easier for me to do functional tasks to take care of myself.

Or even, like... just having a good time by myself, it's not something I can do. I mean like. I got a TV and a video game system and thousands upon thousands of movies I could watch. I want to watch these movies, they seem really cool, but it's just not something I can do by myself. So I have friends and I say "Hey why don't you come over, we can watch anime". Or not anime. I've been meaning to watch Jacques Tati's _Playtime_ for over a decade, and I had a friend over a couple weeks ago and I said "Hey, why don't we watch this?" And it is, in fact, a great fucking movie. Also I guess maybe a little relevant to autism, isn't it? These systems, these machines made of people, these small absurdities. And they're funny, but these little meaningless routines, walking slowly down a wall to press a button and pressing slowly back... sometimes it's how I make meaning of things. It's how I make sense out of a chaotic and overwhelming environment.

I mean I do get overstimulated by my environment and people act like that's, like, a functional deficit, and Christ, I don't understand how someone can _not_ be. There's _so much shit_ going on around me _all the time_. For me it's sound, I focus on sounds, and there are airplanes and drag racers and ambulances and shit that I don't even know what it is. Yes I have a hard time looking people in the eyes and it's not because I don't _feel emotion_ it's because there's so _much_ there. So much of everything.

And holding down a job I'm supposed to do ten thousand stupid things at once, and I'm supposed to do them by myself with a boss who makes frequent immediate and factually incorrect demands of me, and I'm supposed to do it while I'm sitting alone in my apartment by myself. Except for the lesbians and puppygirls and fetish artists and I don't even know who, the ones who I alt-tab over to. Because if I'm going to be by myself of course I'm going to want to be by myself with _them_. I don't even know how to talk to a lot of the people at my workplace. I'm sure they're fine people but they have no idea what my life is like. They want to understand, but they have no clue about how to go about it.

Which of course what people say about my "functional deficit". I don't think we're, like, equal. Me and allistic people. I don't think that the way I go about things is _equally valid_. I'm glad I've learned the social skills I've learned. I think it's necessary to... I mean when I was younger someone would say the stupidest thing I'd ever heard and I'd just say, without thinking, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I mean now I know it's not helpful or valuable or _kind_ for me to say that. I know how to not say that, and I know that it's not _lying_ just because it's true and I don't say it.

It's a lot of work, though, to be kind, because a lot of people in power say and do things that are very stupid and cruel and I say nothing because there's nothing I can do about it. I radically accept it, is what I've learned.

But it's hard and yeah I'd drink out of a dog bowl and sleep in a dog cage and wear a collar if it meant I didn't have to do that. Even though none of those things are really things I want to do. I just want someone to care for me. Sometimes. And so does, like.... everybody else here. And that's how you get a top shortage.

ahh cool, cool cool cool

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/15/harris-county-election-challenge-180th-district-court/

xpost That was just the inky sludge festering inside of me briefly escaping into the world, my apologies. Just getting harder to keep it tamped down these days.

no worries OL we all get that way sometimes, it wasn't about you personally

Billionaire CEOs didn't just reach Mayor Adams in a private chat urging him to arrest pro-Palestine Columbia students, they also offered PRIVATE staff to help NYPD. The Mayor accepted.

Members of the group also coordinated with Israel's war cabinet, UN ambassador and former PM. pic.twitter.com/r54yv87eqy

— Rafael Shimunov (@rafaelshimunov) May 17, 2024