#DYSTOPIA

[hellsgate-roadhouse]

[4lxcxrd20]

Back into my Maze Runner obsession

[whereserpentswalk]

The genetic engineer on the spaceship you work on tried to create a species of insectoid creatures to eat any litter in the ship hallways. Nobody knows why but they didn't work, the result was these blue crab like things that could barely see what they were doing who slowly walked across the floor. They didn't do their job well at all, they could barely tell where garbage was so they could neither clean the floors nor keep themselves fed.

The company expected the crab things to die on their own. Slowly letting them wander until they all died out from starvation. But for some reason, people fed them. They must have thought they were cute, and truth be told, even the most exhausted people at work didn't want to watch these little creatures die. So they stayed and reproduced.

And it was nice seeing them around, on a relatively grim work ship the crab things gave it a bit more color and joy. Tired office workers who barely slept due to crunch, and didn't remember when they last saw a blue sky or living plant, had their day brightened ever so slightly when they saw a crab thing crawling through the endless white halls of the ship. Traders who stopped by the ship, who spent their lives wandering from station to station and planet to planet became happy seeing that this station was unquie with these strange creatures on it, and it gave them a happy story to tell. And the janitorial staff (or just anyone who needed to throw something out) would give the crab things their garbage to eat to keep them alive, and because it was nice getting to feed a little animal, especially on a station that didn't allow cats or dogs.

At some point somebody realized it was very easy to put something on the crab things heads and they wouldn't slide off. So people made little hats for them. Useally just personal hats. But the ship would come together to make special hats for them at different times, little Santa hats for Christmas, little sparkling top hats for new years, and little devil horns and pumpkin tops for Halloween. And on the anniversary of the crab things arrival everyone gave them little birthday hats. Technically you weren't allowed to have something like miniature hats on the ship unless they were personal items, but nobody had the need to take them off the crabs, not even the worst of the wannabe space marines in the security staff.

The crab things became like a ship mascot. Your ships teams in video game tournaments all renamed themselves some variation of the crab things. People got custom shirts or hats or dolls of them. It became part of the stations culture to like them, to like the little joy that they give. If someone came to the ship and insulted them they weren't welcome. The crab things did so little but they were your own, all of your own.

About two years into the crab thing's existence the company that owns your ship decided to wipe the crab things out. They said they were a distraction, or perhaps a health hazard (as if there weren't far worse hazards almost everywhere you went on the ship). They never gave a reason why, they just said they'll poison them, and that anyone feeding them would have their pay docked. And that was it. You think it wasn't even that they were a distraction, it was just that the crab things belonged to the people of the ship, and not the people who own the ship, and the type of people who own ships don't like that.

Slowly you watched them get less energetic day by day, and watched their blue shells turn grey, until all that were left were corpses. Everyone morned, they did so little, but everyone mourned so much. There were funerals and graffiti done in commemoration, and prays to countless gods all crying for the same loss, all kinds of mourning avoiding the watchful eye of security. They tried to make them clean the graffiti but every janitor on the station said that they couldn't, made the excuses they needed to. Mention it to anyone working on the ship now and they'll still be upset over it all.

It's hard adjusting to life without the crabs. Which is silly, they didn't do much. But they gave a few small joys on hard days, living without them, it's like if they took away the thank yous and your welcomes from mundane exchanges. The white halls of the ship feel so much more empty and lonely and lifeless with them gone. More then they ever had before.

[codenamestasis]

When Hitler killed millions of Jewish people (and others who were deemed "undesirable"), his evil was obvious. When the colonizers murdered natives without batting an eye, their evil was obvious. When anything like this that isn't widely known happens, we can spot the evil easily, especially with hindsight.

We're living in a new era of evil people. Their killing and genocides are far less obvious (in Billionaire US) and, hey, they have all sorts of mechanisms to hide behind. They control the narrative via the news outlets that they own, they control our government and they have us hating each other to keep our focus off of them and the wretched deeds they're doing.

Which brings me to Brian Thompson, United Healthcare's former CEO. Did he walk into hospitals and/or homes and put guns to anyone's heads? Did he or his executives pull life support and cackle as they did so? No. They hid behind "denying claims" for profits.. which pulled the life support for them.

People died, people ARE DYING, because of greed that won't stop. We tried changing things "the right way" via legislation, peaceful protests, even lobbying.. but we couldn't beat the cash flow. When people are desperate and they see no other way out, violence becomes the only answer. The only thing these ghouls value more than money are their own lives.

Which is why i must say.. Luigi Mangione is a hero. And just look at them.. they are trying so hard to turn us against him however they can bc they are scared. They see that we see that it's not the right vs the left.. it's the rich vs the poor. In their fear, they're showing us that the life of ONE CEO is more valuable than all the kids who have died in school shootings and all of Brian Thompson's victims, etc etc.. and that's on top of watching billionaires being appointed to government positions, even sadistic ones like Elon Musk. Large scale evil isn't obvious when you're in the middle of it and it's hard to see when they're doing everything they can to hide it from us. We have to keep going. That's my stance.

(And honestly if you couldn't tell that from my writing, i dunno how to help ya >.>)

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT CONDONING VIOLENCE.

[alethianightsong]

Around a couple weeks before the CEO got shot, I made a comment on my other socials that said "Everyone wants the benefits of revolution, but no one wants to roll the first head." I'm not arrogant enough to think my random shout into the void inspired the Claims adjuster tho.

[mysharona1987]

[netscapenavigator-official]

Once the bugs get ironed out, AI Image Generation will forever change propaganda and how easy it is to make and distribute.

[myjetpack]

My latest @guardian books cartoon.

[cant-find-anyone-elseeee]

there was a moment when the people in the movie theatre and the capitol audience in the stands were laughing at the same things, having the same reactions to the games, to the deaths, to flickermans jokes, to the doctor's announcement...i wonder aren't we watching it for entertainment too

suzanne collins' books may exist in popular culture as "dystopian", but they have always been a meticulous and startlingly close social critique of our world. at what point does our own idolization of the movies and the books repeat that story? we watch just as the capitol audience does.

all dystopia eventually crosses a line from realistic futurism to current relevancy. how long will it take us to realize we've already crossed that line with these books? and the very people who need to realize this are the ones in that audience...real or fake, we're the same: consuming and consuming.

[ralfmaximus]

beginning in at least 2014 infotainment systems in the company’s vehicles began downloading and storing a copy of all text messages on smartphones when they were connected to the system. An Annapolis, Maryland-based company, Berla Corporation, provides the technology to some car manufacturers but does not offer it to the general public, the lawsuit said. Once messages are downloaded, Berla’s software makes it impossible for vehicle owners to access their communications and call logs but does provide law enforcement with access, the lawsuit said.

Yikes. Your car is probably keeping all your text messages and sending them to its manufacturer if you connect to your infotainment system.

The manufacturer does two things with this data:

shares it with law enforcement

sells it to advertisers for extra revenue

HOW WONDERFUL

[hellsgate-roadhouse]

[4lxcxrd20]

The beauty of the maze runner trilogy

[scipunk]

Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017)

[resisteverything]

One time I heard a dude online compare new and obscure LGBT terminology to newspeak. This I think is one of the biggest examples I have seen of people with their whole chest ignoring the basic themes of 1984.

In 1984 the whole point of newspeak was that it shrinks. Ideas that could once be communicated now cannot. Everything is simplified as much as possible. You cannot explain complicated ideas of freedom or equality because the words no longer exist, or they don’t mean what they once did.

More specifically, there is canonically no word for “gay” in 1984. There are only two words for the entire spectrum of sexuality. “goodsex” and “sexcrime”. If you’re gay it’s the exact same as being a pedophile. And those are is the exact same as cheating on your wife, which is the exact same daring to fuck your wife just because you feel like it. Which is no different than literally any sex act that might offend big brother.

Do you see what’s happening? In 1984 can no longer ask someone of the same sex to fuck you because the word for gay sex is the exact same as the word for pedophile. And you can’t come out as gay because all you can say is that you did a criminal sex act, which means you cannot make a case for your rights either.

Inventing made up words to describe obscure things that previously lacked words would literally be a perfect remedy to newspeak. This language would counter every barrier to communicating the necessary concepts. Because it’s what literally every normal non-dystopian language does.

[tentacion3099]

"This smart camera is able to collect information about customers in a coffee shop as well as workers, converting their actions to readable data. Fooling a camera from recognizing the form of a human is easy enough, but what happens when they track actions instead?"