Is the US a dystopia?

I feel rather ill until I get my 20 packs of cigs

Spent the weekend flying out to Ohio to be with my family. I hadn't traveled since 2018. It was interesting, interesting to see parts of the American dystopia I don't usually see.

Here's the bit that confuses me most. Lincoln said that thing about government "for the people, by the people, and of the people, and people talk like all those things are the same but the aren't, really. Maybe there's some people the government is for, by there's a lot more of us it's against, but it's still, like _of_ the people. I think it's been observed here that a lot of the Republicans' talk about "downsizing government", "draining the swamp", whatever language they use - it's not just corporatist, it's pretty nakedly white supremacist. When I think of the people who personify "the government" in my head, overall a _lot_ more of them are Black than you find in corporate America.

Looking around me this weekend, I found that to still be pretty true, even in situations where "the government" translates to "surveillance/security state". TSA agents, military personnel. They don't make the rules, they're just responsible for enforcing them.

And they're treated like shit. They've been treated like shit for so long, in so many ways, and it keeps getting worse and worse. Is going through airline security great? No, no it's not, and it's not something I have a choice in. Instead I look at the people who work these jobs. They're brutal, underpaid, demoralizing jobs. I'd have a hard time working a job like that. I think it's mostly because I'm autistic as hell but maybe there's some privilege and entitlement in there. I don't know for sure.

So I go through and the full-body security scan beeps and some TSA agent is supposed to examine my crotch. I mean it's awkward. Is there a reason for the security scan to go off? I don't know. I don't know how these things work or _if_ these things work. I'm a trans woman, but I don't have a penis or testicles. I have a vulva, but I don't have a vaginal canal. Most people aren't even aware that the genital configuration I have is anatomically possible. Does the machine know? Is the machine doing some scan where it can tell that I don't have a vaginal canal?

So I guess I'm overexplaining when I try to explain to the TSA agent that I have a vulva but not a vaginal canal. I just want to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Nobody really has any idea that I'm trans. I have an "X" on my driver's license but it's not like they give the people in this "Papers, Please" situation time to register that stuff. IDK, was it socially inappropriate to use the words "vulva" and "vaginal canal"? The poor lady seems really embarrassed and it's not like we're in an environment that gives her a lot of time to process what I can only assume to be _utterly_ unexpected information. How many times a day is this lady supposed to fondle someone's vulva on behalf of the United States Government? How much is she being paid to do this? It can't possibly be enough. And on top of that now I'm telling her about my vaginal canal for some reason.

They got some other agents examining my bag. My brother gave me a candle and a tin of pumpkin butter for Christmas and these two guys are trying to figure out if it's a security risk. Since the entire thing is theater, the guidelines of course make no sense whatsoever. They probably haven't been working there for a long time and they're supposed to spend their whole day trying to decide on very short notice how to interpret these rules that change constantly while being confronted with customers, a considerable number of whom are entitled racist white people. Shit, I could be one of those entitled racist white people. They got no way of knowing that. Mostly I feel bad for making their life harder. I don't know the rules. I hadn't really thought in advance that candles and pumpkin butter might cause trouble. If I'd thought about it I would've just had it mailed. These guys are just trying to do their job. Apparently if something is "spreadable" it's OK to let on board, but if it's "pourable" it's not. Later I tell my ex-girlfriend this and she says "C4 is spreadable." I've never thought about whether C4 is spreadable. I don't think it matters. In a just world, TSA agents would all be represented by Actors Equity and paid union scale.

The thing that's weird for me is that when the President-Elect says all of the things he's going to do, these are the people who are supposed to do it. If he declares me an Enemy of the State, the people in military uniform, the people in TSA uniforms, they're "the State". They're the reality he's out of touch with. Am I "in touch" with that reality? Not as much as I'd like to be. It's been six years. I'm looking at these folks and idly wondering: If the President-Elect commanded them to kill me, would they? It seems like the kind of thing he might do.

"I hadn't traveled since 2018"

that's a big deal. that you did that. good job.

I'm glad cigarette delivery didn't exist when I was binge drinking regularly.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-homelessness-rose-by-record-18-latest-annual-data-2024-12-27/

"I hadn't traveled since 2018"

that's a big deal. that you did that. good job.

― scott seward

awww, thanks so much scott!

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-homelessness-rose-by-record-18-latest-annual-data-2024-12-27/

― papal hotwife (milo z)

only 23 out of 10,000? wow. sometimes i forget how much of a statistical outlier my social circles are. i'm not sure if i was homeless or not. a surprising amount of it comes down to how you classify things. i don't think of myself as ever having been homeless, but i also tend to think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, so...

i lived in a truck from 2013- 2016, some of it off-grid and 20 miles from the nearest town. when i would apply for food stamps or other assistance, i would explain that i wasn’t really homeless, and the person would always listen to me and say, “with all due respect, that counts as homeless.”

People living in motels are also officially counted as homeless.

We asked people who lived in homeless encampments that were cleared out in city “sweeps” to write about what object was the hardest for them to lose.

“They took my baby pictures and my moms obituaries,” a 29-year-old in California wrote. https://t.co/qullOr6Dhm pic.twitter.com/GGDxTN5kpC

— ProPublica (@propublica) December 29, 2024

Yup, just here to post this.

Actually curious about homeless encampments not in California cities … for years I have heard how other states “solve” their homeless problems by giving homeless people one way bus tickets to California… one of the few states with areas where it doesn’t get below freezing.

A significant number of homeless people are from here though.

if so they're not doing it very often because we've got homeless encampments across the midwest

It’s probably one of the ways they rationalize not responding more compassionately

heard from whom

Lots of cities give homeless people one-way tickets out of state. But not all to CA. CA sends people to other states as well.

https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/democracy-now/clip/cities-give-thousands-of-homeless-people-one-way-bus-tickets-to-leave-town

A significant number of homeless people are from here though.

― sarahell, Wednesday, January 1, 2025 4:47 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Almost all of them. 75% of unhoused people in LA County (75%) lived in LA County when they lost their home. 86% lived in CA.

https://jacobin.com/2023/02/public-housing-new-york-affordable-rent-real-estate

they need to build and build until the supply shortage is solved and housing becomes affordable. tenant rights need to be strengthened, especially in the new social housing projects, which do not need to fall under the same problems of the old projects. you can make smaller units integrated into communities, but we need A LOT. housing and healthcare are human rights.

i think start here. if getting a roof over your head and a productive way to support oneself was more accessible, more people would do it. we make things hard for people to "punish" them for having diseases. mental illness and addiction. but these diseases are exacerbated by putting people under this kind of pressure.

medicare for all. housing for all. if we can give elon musk billions of dollars for bullshit we can do this.

i might be an idiot but i really think massive government initiatives that make life livable for people would have a profound effect. they aren't fancy or intellectual solutions, but if rent is $2500 and you make $2400 a week (15/hr) you can't afford an apartment. you have to find roommates, you sometimes need a "guarantor," you are made to feel like you aren't a legitimate member of society and that has all sorts of nasty effects on people.

But how can we pay for murdering people abroad with our terrorist squads? (Sorry, “armed forces”)

that's "make $2400/month"

they need to build and build until the supply shortage is solved

It's not clear to me exactly what this shortage looks like in real terms. I'd love to see accurate data about how many existing housing units that could be used as full-time residences have been converted to AirB&Bs or similar short term/vacation rentals. Short term rentals rates are substantially higher than yearly leases or monthly rentals, which makes them especially attractive to landlords looking for investment property. Also the lack of effective oversight of those conversions. One of the consequences of a decade of near-zero interest rates was to greatly accelerate the acquisition of real estate for investment purposes, but especially residential real estate.

that's "make $2400/month"

― nickn, Wednesday, January 1, 2025 10:07 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ya sorry typo

xp NYC banned airbnb and rents and vacancy rates did not change. short term rentals in residential buildings/neighborhoods are worth regulating aggressively for lots of reasons but they are at most a second or third order reason rent is a problem in most American cities.

Wait is airb&b really banned in NYC or just regulated?

New York City, New York: Rentals under 30 days are prohibited unless the host is present on the property. Hosts are required to obtain a license and relatively few licenses have been issued.[153]

the real reason rent is a problem is because of landlordism

xxp pretty much banned for practical purposes https://gothamist.com/news/after-crackdown-nyc-only-has-405-legal-airbnb-and-other-short-term-rentals-available

sorry paywalled, free link https://archive.is/20241217204055/https://gothamist.com/news/after-crackdown-nyc-only-has-405-legal-airbnb-and-other-short-term-rentals-available

the situation might change again though https://hellgatenyc.com/nyc-airbnb-wars-are-heating-up-again/

_they need to build and build until the supply shortage is solved_

It's not clear to me exactly what this shortage looks like in real terms. I'd love to see accurate data about how many existing housing units that could be used as full-time residences have been converted to AirB&Bs or similar short term/vacation rentals. Short term rentals rates are substantially higher than yearly leases or monthly rentals, which makes them especially attractive to landlords looking for investment property. Also the lack of effective oversight of those conversions. One of the consequences of a decade of near-zero interest rates was to greatly accelerate the acquisition of real estate for investment purposes, but especially residential real estate.

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5b4e21541900002b00c65f11.jpeg

San Francisco recently created legislation and changed building codes to allow for easier conversion of downtown office buildings to housing with extra allowances for affordable units iirc … because in general, it is cheaper to convert existing buildings than to build new ones in denser urban areas

the real reason rent is a problem is because of landlordism

well, yes, but more along the lines of who owns the housing. you look at the Bay or New York or any large city and most of the rental housing stock is owned by enormous corporations that are poorly regulated and can raise rent without providing an iota of a reason or any extra services “just because.”

sure, certain smaller landlords are also scum but in a different way.

It would warm the cockles of my heart to see state & local governments get aggressive on this crisis to the point of using eminent domain as a big hammer to force REITs and other corporate landlords to understand that cooperation and 'penciling out' a smaller profit is a better option than coerced divestment with the loss of ownership and all future profits.

Smaller landlords are now using rent-setting software, which is basically a third-party workaround for price-fixing collusion.

Smaller landlords are now using rent-setting software, which is basically a third-party workaround for price-fixing collusion.

It would warm the cockles of my heart to see state & local governments get aggressive on this crisis to the point of using eminent domain as a big hammer to force REITs and other corporate landlords to understand that cooperation and 'penciling out' a smaller profit is a better option than coerced divestment with the loss of ownership and all future profits.

I didn't say I expected it, only that it would be heartwarming. ;-)

California had a very reasonable ballot measure last year to extend rent control to almost all rental housing (buildings with less than 4 units, buildings constructed after 1995) … and it didn’t pass … because of the real estate lobby basically lol

I didn't say I expected it, only that it would be heartwarming. ;-)

"Some “investment property” is actually vacant"

eh, I mean yes, but the vacancy rate is in American cities is small, typically low single figures %. it's 3.2% in NYC so the average unit is vacant for one month every 3 years. it's literally what you would expect to allow units to be turned over between tenants (repairs, find new tenants, etc.). outside a couple of places (e.g. SF) it can't get much lower.

long term willful vacancy of units that would have willing tenants blights individual high end apartment buildings in commercial neighborhoods, and it's a huge problem for commercial buildings themselves, but does not occur on scale that has any impact on the housing crisis. it's an easy thing for local politicians to make noise about because "vacancy taxes" are easy wins that allow them to claim they are "tackling the housing crisis" without doing things that might actually work but are unpopular with reliable voters. the fact that everyone supports vacancy taxes is a clue that the phenomenon they seek to stop is already very rare.

one might think of the simple solution of local governments using funds for homeless services to rent these vacant units for homeless people and then they would have housing … but no

i hate CA local government more than most but in their defense ... you know why this doesn't happen, right?

The oversight issue is tricky… do local governments pay staff to scour Air BnB, Vrbo, etc and then match that data to their databases of buildings and units and then send threatening letters to owners?

yes? airbnb was effectively banned in NYC 15 months ago. the number of listings has dropped from 25,000 to 2,000 (most of which are permitted rather than in violation of the law). local governments do tons of things that cost more and are harder to do than regulate short term rentals. it if you think it will make a difference to rents, you can make it happen. (it won't help rents, but there are other reasons to ban it.)

Brandon Sutton is pretty good at breaking down a lot of recent American developments and which bits of the reactionaries are fighting with the others and why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK7LmOR7PWc

utopia is just around the corner...

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/472031225_1326988342032418_4104726699847201130_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=tr4vxfY6LZMQ7kNvgEUjLBc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=A9vGMtRBTY0AWLjvDBQuE9V&oh=00_AYB2GDXdY4Z30QWwe_-ODYM6rxSZcJf0kKCJZNN66dJoog&oe=677CE4D1

my kid took the best 2025 Amerika photo. props to Cyrus.

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/472478048_10162763034747137_719260018055399549_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=WJ9ORuA1BZMQ7kNvgFM6K9h&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=ANH1fCSRR0op-lzY9rpDYoo&oh=00_AYAoAvKQOhW1nHpPGtY8E1-3Phypfl5Z0acIN9GA0DNdLg&oe=677CCFC4

https://voiceofsandiego.org/2025/01/01/in-2025-san-diego-cant-look-away-from-the-screaming/

https://voiceofsandiego.org/2025/01/01/in-2025-san-diego-cant-look-away-from-the-screaming/

― sleeve

portland's the same way

i see men around me screaming (always white men)

i tried screaming myself, for a while

lost a lot of friends that way

a lot of my energy these days goes into finding ways to not scream while still, like

talking to other people

finding healthy ways to talk to other people

i feel like most people don't know what's happening and maybe like

can't cognitively accept it even if they do know

a lot of us do know, and what the hell can we do about it?

they don't tell men this, but a lot of women know that if you get attacked, you don't yell "rape", you yell "fire"

because if you yell "rape" nobody does anything