Is the US a dystopia?

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.

from gluttony to asceticism, all packaged in convenient sizes for easy consumption

cf. Randall Jarrell's A Sad Heart at the Supermarket (1960) and the companion poem "Next Day"

Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All

You want to know dystopia? Sometimes I have to go to three different supermarkets to get everything I need.

I regret starting a thread that functions as an invitation to post the most depressing news you can find

You cannot design a thread that wouldnt fall prey to this within ten mins have you seen this site lately

no.

lol

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

whew I had doubts

"I can't answer without sharing my personal definition of dystopia"

5 voters just laying it all down

https://t.co/fFOE6vEXOc pic.twitter.com/PPoldWoOdT

— District Sentinel (@TheDCSentinel) December 15, 2021

we should maybe do a "worst living american" poll

impossible. polls are limited to only 50 choices

maybe a poll to make the poll

a poll of polls? better update the list of lists

don't visit ILB if you don't enjoy a poll of polls

glad we got this settled

got it sordid

Is ILX a dystopia?

just look around

As of today, 50% of women in federal prisons are Indigenous.

This is genocide.

— martha paynter (@MarthPaynter) December 17, 2021

Is the fact that's about Canada the point you're making or a mistake?

At first assumed US then saw the link below and posted because

Kyle Rittenhouse takes the stage at TPUSA’s AmericaFest to thousands of cheering fans chanting his name. He even gets his own Kyle Rittenhouse-themed song to come out to. pic.twitter.com/PD7nkjpQ81

— AZ Right Wing Watch (@az_rww) December 21, 2021

Kyle has merely fulfilled every child's dream of running away to join the circus. Taking two lives in the process.

Who could have seen THIS coming

a really well-written explanation by patrick blanchfield of the current disaster pileup of american culture in terms of freud's death drive. (i will fp anyone who points out that freud is now widely discredited or whatever.)

https://late-light.com/issues/issue-1/death-drive-nation

https://fair.org/home/a-for-profit-company-is-trying-to-privatize-as-many-public-libraries-as-they-can/

i think it was around the time that i learned about ALEC, and realized it was clear and in the open what was happening and how the GOP was operating, and absolutely no one gave a fuck -- that was around 2 years after i realized the usa was a dystopia

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.