Is the US a dystopia?

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.

NEW: Drone startup BRINC, which just pulled a $25 million VC round, says it was inspired by the 2017 Vegas shooting to build non-violent robots. I obtained a video showing their original mission was a border patrol drone system designed to tase migrants https://t.co/TclkWOO3eM

— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) December 13, 2021

It would have happened eventually.

Right but I'm saying the timeline where America turns the Earth into a toilet wasn't necessarily predetermined.

Maybe ecocide is the dharma of the human race idk.

this is all god's fault. god put the oil in the ground, fully formed, 8000 years ago

it was all predetermined

idk these guys predicted it pretty early

https://i.ibb.co/f4P96K0/index.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/cFmrLPX/index.jpg

Yeah I never loved the band but those album titles stuck with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CczFit6tGhs

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kentucky-tornado-factory-workers-threatened-firing-left-tornado-employ-rcna8581

personally idgi. fresh produce in american supermarkets is quite bad and expensive, every major city in the world has decent markets, etc. i guess it's better if it's brightly lit and you can listen to an instrumental soft jazz version of after the gold rush? https://t.co/g3b5LOgBcD

— joolsd (@joolsd) December 14, 2021

which Publix plays that?!? I'm happy if I get early '80 Boz Scaggs.

I regret starting a thread that functions as an invitation to post the most depressing news you can find, but more narrowly the degree to which the US seems to be embracing core elements of the most prominent fictional dystopias is pretty striking! Sadly not cyberpunk this time:

https://pen.org/scope-speed-educational-gag-orders-worsening-across-country/

And it’s getting worse. In the month since the report’s release, state lawmakers introduced 12 new bills, bringing the total to a staggering 66 educational gag orders for the year in 26 states, 12 of which have passed into law.

Here’s what’s happening:

The recent group of bills includes seven in Missouri and one each in New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.
All 12 of these bills target K–12 schools, four include provisions that would impact colleges and universities, and four include a focus on state agencies, other state-funded institutions, and “places of learning.”
Six of these bills specifically ban “critical race theory,” making a total of 20 state-level bills introduced this year with such explicit prohibitions.
Six of these bills contain explicit prohibitions against teaching or using curricular materials from “The 1619 Project,” bringing the total of these to 17 for the year.

xxp I remember back in the 80s, we hosted some soviet kids. When we took them to the supermarket, they lost their shit.

I think the original tweet is referencing that, not that Safeway is better than a local French produce market.

we do have abundant food (not everywhere, of course) of mostly mediocre quality. it's ok.

the critical race theory mess is one of the factors in favor of dystopia

to me

xxp I remember back in the 80s, we hosted some soviet kids. When we took them to the supermarket, they lost their shit.

I think the original tweet is referencing that, not that Safeway is better than a local French produce market.

So was communism.

I guess that’s the kind of joke that lands better with boomers.

And that's the kind of joke that lands better with people from 2017.

the tweet is responding to libertarians tweeting photos of american grocery stores to prove a point

american supermarkets are among the purest products of american capitalism and therefore accurately reflect all our most popular theories about health and happiness, from gluttony to asceticism, all packaged in convenient sizes for easy consumption. it's a design that's been copied all over the world, with appropriate modifications to suit local tastes and incomes. almost any praise or criticism you want to make about supermarkets can be justified using real world examples.

A drug that promotes muscle growth could significantly reduce the loss of lean body mass when using slimming jabs, research suggests.

Reminds me of those superbowl ads for a drug that combats opioid-related constipation

I saw the Flag tour, it was absolutely great, Morris, Dez, Stephenson, Dukowski, and Steven Egerton from Descendants/All doing a note perfect Ginn impression

Got behind a SUV this morning that had an "Army Mom" license plate frame and window sticker, but the other sticker was "Live, Laugh, Love but if that doesn't work Load, Aim, Fire".

I mean, I hate the "Live, Laugh, Love" signs as much as the next person, but that's a deeply fucked up thing to put on your vehicle.

Keep Calm and Carry Arms

Is there any way to interpret that other than being pro-suicide?

I thought that too

there used to be an army dad in the vehicle but he stopped loving

Is there any way to interpret that other than being pro-suicide?

Pro-homicide?

Presuming there isn't much actual "aiming" involved in suicide

"He Stopped Shooting Her Today"

not to waste too much of my precious life parsing a sociopathic bumper sticker, but I did try to think about it as homicidal and it doesn't really make sense imo. of course, I assume the owner of the sticker thinks it's just an amusing pro-gun statement, but still: they should have workshopped this one a little longer

Definitely pro-homicidal. It's basically a "bless his heart" for our times.

Otoh I'm glad they wore a "I'm a terrible person who should be shunned" nametag on their car. Saves me the time of finding out later

there's a lot of pro-homicide signs in this country. my neighbor across the street has a big sign on their front door that says "warning: you are no longer trespassing, you are a target" with a big gunsight on it. i live in a residential neighborhood

a good friend of mine is the mail delivery person for my block, i should ask him about that door i'm sure he knows it

we live with sociopaths, what can I say

I mean, people spend lots of money on the “Stormtrooper Edition” of a white Jeep, utterly missing the point of the film and thus showing themselves to be both a fascist and a fucking moron.

One of the things I appreciated about Star Wars retroactively is its depiction of the First Order. when The Force Awakens came out, I'm not even sure if Trump had declared intent to run yet. We knew a little about the alt-right but we considered them cosplaying dorks. So I saw that movie and I'm like "man, this is just lame, the First Order is just a copy of the Empire".

but really, they were like the radical racist right in America, who are obsessed with the Civil War/Confederacy but won't admit the real reason why, and they incorporate that old iconography into their clothing, flags, bumper stickers, "The South Will Rise Again", etc. From the ashes of the Confederacy, they have sought to re-institute the cis-white supremacy and strengthen the patriarchy, and have helped enact this by lobbying, entering and winning political races, getting appointed to the White House/etc.

like in the original Star Wars, Vader and the Emperor are truly evil motherfuckers, true believers swayed by the Dark Side, and they seize power through violence and a coup. People acquiesce out of fear, whilst propaganda wins new devotees over time, but you get the impression over time that the coalition is held together mostly by fear and eventually it even gets to be too much for Vader himself. The shit's in the ash-heap of history, the Republic reforms, and it is clear to mostly everyone how evil the Empire was and 'never again', but below the surface, young fetishists of the Empire who bought into the lore, iconography, and broad strokes, probably learned from the distorted, wistful memories of older, unrepentant collaborators, decide "the Empire wasn't WRONG, it was ineffective", and they actually create a more fucked up version where people are snatched from their families to be trained as Stormtroopers from birth, and entire solar systems are vaporized.

the parallels are unintentional but so glaring.

seriously if only the sequel trilogy had run with that concept fully, but we were stuck with JJ Abrams and not the Gilroy brothers.

also Kylo Ren was an alt-right teen rebelling against his lib parents.

Alex Keaton in space

seriously if only the sequel trilogy had run with that concept fully, but we were stuck with JJ Abrams and not the Gilroy brothers.

― omar little, Monday, July 6, 2026 1:21 PM bookmarkflaglink

yeah tbh much of this content existed in the canon novelizations only, lol

i had to do radical surgery on the Edge (...)

― The Immortal Bird of Avon (Boring, Maryland), Friday, May 29, 2026 6:58 AM (one month ago)

my brain stopped reading at this point, this would make a great short story prompt

Got behind a SUV this morning that had an "Army Mom" license plate frame and window sticker, but the other sticker was "Live, Laugh, Love but if that doesn't work Load, Aim, Fire".

I mean, I hate the "Live, Laugh, Love" signs as much as the next person, but that's a deeply fucked up thing to put on your vehicle.

― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, July 6, 2026 8:23 AM (five hours ago)

a couple years ago i was out getting a haircut when i saw someone with a bumper sticker that said "I'M OUT OF ESTROGEN AND I HAVE A GUN"

i laughed because i remember that meme from, like, the 90s, the whole erma-bombeck-but-edgy- / if-you-can't-handle-me-at-my-worst- / white-women-whose-personality-is-betty-boop-and-who-assume-betty-boop-is-also-white- core thing. it's always been with us. do they still run "andy capp"? do they still run mel lazarus' "momma"?

anyway it was funny because i could never in a million years get away with saying something like that lol, i'd be in a men's prison so fast your head would spin

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/06/nx-s1-5883784/dhs-ice-critic-lawsuit-free-speech

yeah, I just heard that story.. really scary that they feel empowered to do this, cranks have been writing letters far worse for decades

Kate, Andy Capp is still with us:

https://www.gocomics.com/andycapp

Momma, however, was discontinued after Lazarus passed away in 2016, at which point (according to the Comics Curmudgeon) the strip had been in reruns for some time.