Is the US a dystopia?

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.

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.

Paper routes

I had a paper route, it was awful - I was classified as an 'independent contractor' and had to buy my own rubber bands and plastic bags, and do the collections

Pretty sure I was making about ninety-one cents an hour, if that

I'm not quite sure what you're saying YMP, but:

At least 250,000 more teenagers are now working compared to before the pandemic, part of a gradual but consequential shift that is boosting employment at restaurants and stores, and changing cultural norms. In all, 37 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds had a job or were looking for one last year, the highest annual rate since 2009, according to Labor Department data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/21/teen-jobs-pandemic-wages/

"looking for one" is a bit squishy, but children/teenagers can and do get jobs

Yeah, it was a shit job, but now it's all done by adults. At least they don't have to go door-to-door to collect anymore.

I hear there's big money to be made in print journalism

I had a paper route too and I liked it, outside of having to get up early on Sundays. getting a bunch of tips on Christmas would be awesome too like suddenly I'd have $200

they wanted us to deliver samples of random products, mostly cleaning stuff. I always just gave 'em all to my Mom, lol

the collection thing *did* suck but luckily everyone in my neighborhood was nice. some of these folks fell so far behind though

Lol jimbeaux, you say that as if newspapers still exist.

I never had a paper route but was definitely carrying golf bags at 12, bussing tables at 13, laying out newspapers at 15, waiting tables at 16, selling clothes at 18... I have worked constantly since 1981.

But my children? We just spent a week on a single camp-counselor application and the idea of McDonald's (or whatever) seems like a non-starter.

Rob, I'm not sure what I'm saying either (apart from what I have already said). But it is a different employment landscape now, and I don't think that is a controversial statement.

Lol jimbeaux, you say that as if newspapers still exist.

I have a friend that helps his day by delivering NYT print edition, but it's mostly to stores, not to individual residences

We still get the daily paper, and I get my wife the print NYT every Sunday.

When I was working at grocery stores from 5PM on everyone working front of house was a high school student, if we needed an adult we’d have to call up a manager from stocking or another department.

I’m terrible at guessing ages but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a grocery store crew that seemed to have anyone I’d assume to be a high school kid.

the Piggly Wiggly here has kids who I think aren't even in high school. I remember seeing one who looked like he was almost my son's age! (my son is 9) he was super nice too! but there's no way he was older than 13!

I had a paper route when I was pretty young — 13 or 14 — but I only lasted a couple of weeks. Getting up at like 5 in the morning to fold all the papers into my delivery bag and then riding my bike all over the place to deliver them? Fuck that shit. I wound up throwing them down the sewer and calling the paper to tell them I quit. Then when I was 15 I got a job at Baskin-Robbins and have been working ever since. One of the greatest times in my adult life was in 2009-2011, when I got fired from Metal Edge magazine because the publisher went out of business, but because of the Great Recession I was able to collect federal unemployment for two straight years. Thanks, Obama! (Seriously. That shit was awesome.)

The pandemic has killed well over a million people in the US. The pandemic stimulus injected considerable amounts of cash into every household in the nation. The federal government's border policy has drastically shifted toward strangling immigration from poor countries. Boomers are aging and retiring.

There's plenty of macro-economic reasons why historically underemployed groups like teens and Blacks are getting jobs at an unusually rapid pace and no surprise that the jobs they're getting are among the shittiest lowest paid ones, or that those jobs are seeing wage increases -- even though the working conditions for those jobs remain as bad as ever.

How all this fits into dystopia is a tangled thread, but... capitalism!

I definitely started working summer jobs and after-school stuff around the age of 11. Nothing “on the books” until I was in high school, but walking the neighbors’ dogs and fetching their papers and mail for them when they were out of town was a sweet and easy gig.

Other than a stretch between January and June '96 and two months in '00 I've held some kind of job since Poppy Bush was prez.

i never had to risk being flayed alive at a meat packing plant.

Aside from the paper routes (I echo unperson's assessment of the job), I got my first actual employment at Burger King when I was 15. Working in fast food is a great way to learn that you are entirely fungible.

but because of the Great Recession I was able to collect federal unemployment for two straight years. Thanks, Obama! (Seriously. That shit was awesome.)

I never got unemployement - I was lucky enough to land a job during the recession, in fact I was the only hire in that department for nearly 18 months. but I had friends who did this and indeed it was pretty awesome - everyone was just hanging out all day, but they had money to do stuff.

I remember cleaning a neighbor's junk-filled yard when I was about ten, spending a couple hours... and getting a shiny fifty cent piece for my trouble (no this was not 1940)

A tender age to learn about worker exploitation

Great Recession unemployment insurance was awesome! Just when you thought it was coming to an end, they'd re-up you... did a lot of day partying, all my buddies were similarly unemployed

lotta people criticized my friends for staying on it so long but it's like come on, they're gonna be paying into this system for 40-50 years, let 'em have it now. and it's not like there was a lot of steady work around. they weren't like...*not* trying to get a job, but they weren't exactly trying to get one either (it was pretty well known which places you could apply to with basically no chance of landing anything)

My GF at the time was like "So... are you even looking for work?" with a frown

I would do under the table odd jobs but I didn't want to jeopardize that sweet federal gravy train

i feel like i've always worked. full time for 40 years or so. i had a paper route for years before i was 16. it kinda sucked and i don't know why i did it that long. i made like no money doing it. i did odd jobs too for whatever money anyone would give me. also, i would wake up early every sunday morning at around 6am and go across the street to the village store and put together all the sunday new york times by hand. they came in bundles of sections back then. you lined up all the sections in order and then it was like an assembly line. a hundred papers took awhile. i would get paid five bucks and two apple turnovers. i smelled like the new york times all day every sunday when i was a kid.

Strangely - I had a few old skateboarding buddies who helped create the Great Recession. They'd all moved down to somewhere in Orange County (I think Laguna Beach or Santa Ana, not sure) and were selling these amazing new mortgages at a very bro Glengarry type office.

"Andy, you want to buy a house? Let's get you into a new home!"
"I don't have any money."
"That's the thing - you don't neeed any money! And you can take loans against the property!"

I think OC was the subprime epicenter for awhile, and then spread all over the place.. I wanted nothing to do with it, but these guys were making bank until it all fell apart

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.