Everyone just keeps acting like its normal
That’s a common trope in dystopian settings.
The youngest people in the society don’t understand that anything is even wrong. The rich folks have a vested interest in people being more afraid of foreigners and domestic terrorists than any government malfeasance. And the working class is so occupied with simple survival that they see no real opportunity to revolt… until something really falls off the rails, at which point the military moves in to suppress dissent with maximum bloodshed.
In those dystopia settings however, they never seem to have all the literature describing dystopia. We do here
Eh, it depends on the author. I’ve seen a lot of modern Post-Apocalypse/Cyberpunk stuff make comedic quasi-self-references by way of media-within-the-media (A piece of modern literature in the Fallout setting describing a “dystopian” world in the self-proclaimed utopian Vaults, for instance).
But the point of the media-within-the-media is often to illustrate how we fixate on the drama of dystopia without acknowledging the banality of social evils.
Right now, in the mostly-free-press parts of the world, I now think that dystopian scifi no longer serves as a warning of what not to do but instead acts as a numbing agent to increased oppression.
This is going to sound very Maoist or whatever but we need more utopian scifi like Star Trek TNG. We need utopian visions imagined for us so we have something to work towards.
It was so refreshing to watch the Chinese TV show for Three-Body where the world was at peace with each other and trying to solve this bizarre global mystery. Sure, the Chinese government was painted as much more competent than American & European governments but Hollywood does the same thing with the US government too.
1984 literally has a manifesto describing what’s happening.
In fact, the brainwashing of the kids in 1984 to report on their parents having / reading / discussing “controversial media” is a major element of the dystopia. Those media are not explicitly named, but I don’t think they have to be.
I feel like this describes pretty much every western society since we moved beyond tribalism.
I’m too broke to worry about much more then working enough to feed myself and afford my shitty apartment for another month.
It’s really not. At least no more than it has been in the past
The same people that quote that these are the least violent and most progressive times we live in will turn right around and say we’re in an ever increasing dystopian hellhole despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary.
They will continue to bemoan mainstream media and social media pushing propaganda on them they continue to link on THEIR better social media.
You’ll then be yelled at for Green washing and unironically saying that progressives are in the democratic party for a reason despite saying all politicians are the same from their useful idiot basements while pretending to be a Bernie Bro despite him endorsing Hilary, and Biden lol.
The point being that Hilary’s and Bernie’s platforms were near identical. They agreed and voted together on the same issues 94% of the time. More than any other candidate they had ever run with.
The progressive Democrats are not that different from mainstream Democrats not because they’re so far right like everyone loves to espouse but from a constant track record of Democrats regularly becoming more progressive.
Don’t believe bullshit internet memes and lies about centrist Democrats being far right. They’re not. They’re working in the framework of American culture and despite what everyone thinks is going to happen every time we get a forward thinking leader, the government is slow by design and quick changes are not reality for almost any government except dictatorships.
Having a benevolent dictatorship would be phenomenal. The form of government doesn’t matter as long as lives are being bettered. Representative Democracy tends to keep it from going full on off the rails in the span of a decade though.
The world looks like a horrible place, barely hanging on by a thread, until you step outside and see that society and the people in it are generally pretty chill.
Of course, that said, I don’t live in the states. Everything could be literally on fire there for all I know.
Yeah standard of living overall is factually better than at any other point in the last few hundred years.
Medicine alone has made getting to or living past your mid-30’s far less hard or filled with pain - even for those in poverty.
And hell I’d argue that if the original commenter really believes it’s a dystopian shit-show…it’s crystal clear how to make your own lot better.
Yeah standard of living overall is factually better than at any other point in the last few hundred years.
Really depends on who you are and where you live. I’m watching my Houston ISD getting torn apart before my eyes. Police were running around UH campus clubbing students and dragging them into squad cars just a few weeks ago. The derecho that blew through downtown knocked out 5-10% of the windows in various buildings and killed the power for a few days. Electricity costs have doubled in the last ten years, while summer heat is up a sold five degrees Fahrenheit on average.
Is my standard of living better than it was for someone living in the city a generation ago? Doesn’t look like it. But hey, we’ve got weird new AI and the stock market is very up. Is it better than someone living in Houston in 1824? Yeah… I guess? But so much of that seems to hinge on having electricity and running water. And the more pipes keep bursting and lines keep getting knocked down, the less reliable these services seem.
Medicine alone has made getting to or living past your mid-30’s far less hard
Average life expectancy has been over 60 years of age since at least the 19th century. A lot of that came entirely out of the advent of vaccinations.
Good think we’re not having trouble convincing people to get vaccinated in the modern era, I guess.
Not to forget, how we now “only” work 40h (for most people), but productivity went up and a lot of down times and social interaction in the past, were replaced by workload grind in a now stressful office environments.
Except now there’s nukes, end stage capitalism, and climate change… Sure up until like 100 years ago shit sucked hard for just about everyone, but at least there was no way they could literally end all life on earth
It’s always been terrible, this the best we’ve had, and it’s still still terrible.
Reminded me of this:
https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
I’m still to pessimistic to feel hopeful by this, but maybe someone else can :)
That whole article you linked is about convincing you to be optimistic.
Yes, the world is awful. But it is so much better than it ever was before, and we have proven that we have the means to make it so much better still.
Even if all we did was get everyone up to the standard of living where they experience first-world problems, that still means making the world so much better than it was. And we can make the world even better than that. Even if you’re pessimistic, you should still be optimistic.
I totally agree with your assessment. I think it’s just that maybe something inherent in me is hopeless/pessimistic that I can’t bring myself to see/have this positive outlook, also in my personal life. Maybe it’s just a phase or something
I’d argue we peaked between 25 and 50 years ago, and now we’re sliding back down the hill.
The overwhelming majority of people just live where they were born and accept whatever good or bad things come along.
This!! I’ve been trying to tell people this for so long but no one every listens. Most people especially Americans are the boiling frog. They choose to live in blissful ignorance because it’s easier than actually fixing the problem, and now the rest of us who can actually acknowledge what’s going on have to suffer
LOL… how could anyone live in a country with free healthcare, subsidized higher ed, public transit that covers the vast majority of the population, practically zero gun battles daily… oof, yeah, how could anyone?
pfft
