Is the US becoming a Dystopia ?

Once upon a time the human race had a dream a vision of the future where we had evolved beyond our petty military conflicts where every human was guaranteed equal rights where we had time to spend with friends and family to pursue hobbies and trades and to do meaningful work that we enjoyed not because we had to but because tedious unpleasant labor had been handed off to automated systems leaving humans the time to just live to really experience what life is all about as we approach the year 2022 i think it's safe to say that vision is no closer today than it was a hundred years ago in fact the consensus seems to have shifted away from this utopian vision of the future and towards something much less pleasant in this episode we're going to attempt to analyze some trends in the united states as we creep ever closer to techno dystopia there's a trend in modern entertainment we used to see a lot of optimistic movies and tv shows where the future was depicted as bright happy and peaceful there were exceptions of course but the general feeling towards the far future was one of hope these days that's no longer the case scroll through any list of movies and tv and you'll notice a pattern just about every bit of media dealing with the future now has a decidedly pessimistic tone the hunger games the maze runner divergent oblivion altered carbon snow piercer the expanse even kid-friendly movies like wall-e have a deeply dystopian undertone what's behind this trend well if you take a look around it shouldn't be hard to find the catalyst people today are more unsure about the future than at perhaps any point in modern history every day we wake up and there's a new catastrophe massive wildfires record-breaking heat waves disappearing glaciers melting permafrost political instability new diseases people are afraid and one way we like to cope with our fear and uncertainty is by turning off and watching a movie dystopian fiction is increasingly common these days for a couple of reasons first it's weirdly comforting we can watch snow piercer and say well at least my life isn't that bad another reason is that film and television offer us a way to engage with modern problems in a way that feels less traumatic we can watch altered carbon recognize the problems that mirror those in our own time and come away thinking yeah rapidly increasing inequality is a problem we need to address it's a more pleasant experience than watching a documentary about collapsing ecosystems and runaway climate change but it brings those same issues to mind people like to relate to what they're watching even if the subject matter is unpleasant in a way dystopian fiction performs a useful service in this regard people who would otherwise ignore the news and the challenges we face are forced to see the similarities between these fictional worlds and the one we inhabit but simply recognizing the problems doesn't do much except make the average person miserable we often feel powerless in the face of monstrous crises like climate change and inequality that exceeds that of the gilded age but we're not as helpless as we might feel we'll get to that a bit later but first we need to take a look at where the u.s stands on the dystopia timeline okay picture a generic near future dystopia what do you see grimy cities pollution crushing poverty juxtaposed against glistening neon towers and usually a handful of massive all-powerful corporations running the show that description may already be ringing alarm bells in your head but let's break it down a bit good dystopian fiction usually relies on a handful of tropes some kind of environmental collapse absurd levels of wealth inequality and powerful technocrats ruining lives and often the planet to fund their empire and their megalomania let's evaluate the united states based on these three factors we'll start with environmental issues unless you've been living under a rock you know by now that climate change is happening and it's not looking good the fallout from the rapid warming caused mainly by human activity will be severe and it's already begun as of writing this script greece has been burning for over a week and is showing no signs of stopping thousands of people have had to evacuate under red skies blistering heat and suffocating smoke other countries face similar conditions as we saw in australia not too long ago coastal regions face unprecedented flooding as i saw firsthand while shooting a documentary in the marshall islands we're beginning to see the first climate refugees as entire regions become uninhabitable the ipcc an international group at the forefront of climate research has just put out their most recent paper and it's shocking you may be thinking yeah yeah i've heard this before it's true the entire scientific community has been begging policymakers to listen for decades but guess what it's looking like it's too late the new report is full of data that even the experts didn't expect at least not so soon glaciers are melting at rates that should be happening at higher levels of warming permafrost is melting at rates climate scientists didn't expect we'd see for another 70 years flooding exceeds expectations as do droughts wildfires and extreme weather the bottom line is that 1.5 degrees of warming which has been the number scientists have urged us to try to stay below is going to produce consequences that look more like three degrees of warming the climate crisis is accelerating we can no longer ignore the fallout it's only going to get worse now it's only dystopian if we refuse to adapt and mitigate the fallout right surely world leaders are working tirelessly to solve the problem come on you should know better than that without fail world leaders are refusing to take sufficiently radical steps to stave off the worst effects of climate change in fact here in the us the current administration is carrying on with business as usual while republicans will openly deny climate change to muddy the waters and keep their corporate donors happy plenty of well-meaning americans believe the democrats actually care they do not while they pay lip service to long-establish science the democrats are beholden to the same corporate interests as their more repugnant colleagues for example biden recently said we can't wait to tackle the climate crisis the signs are unmistakable the science is undeniable and the cost of inaction keeps mounting that's nice and yet approvals for oil drilling are on track to reach their highest level since george w bush was president a politician's words don't mean anything if they constantly act in a way that contradicts their flowery language the situation is pretty grim politicians understand this but they are invested often literally in the preservation of the status quo which benefits them and the rest of the rich and powerful read the ipcc report for yourself i've left a link in the description voting for the less awful presidential candidate isn't enough anymore while climate change is definitely the most pressing issue facing our species and many other species dystopian fiction often focuses on smaller scale human-centric problems one of the most quintessential of these is the issue of rampant inequality the wealthy looking down on the unwashed masses from their glittering towers in altered carbon the rich have found a way to essentially become immortal the final hurdle for the elite while the poor are left to suffer and die far below the cloud top utopias of society's upper crust the quest for immortality is something that our own billionaires are absolutely pursuing there's one startup which offers plasma transfusions from the blood of young people in an effort to slow the aging process some of the more dedicated elite like paypal founder peter thiel routinely spend 40 000 per quarter for blood transfusions from 18 year olds we also have the absurdly wealthy going on little joy rides to space just because they feel like it jeff bezos spent 5.5 billion dollars to spend 11 minutes as far above the poor people as he could possibly get meanwhile his workers who do the actual labor that produces amazon's profits face some of the most inhumane conditions in the country to get a sense of just how absurdly rich these people are consider this there was one open seat on the flight the person who had the winning bid nearly 28 million dollars cancelled because of a scheduling conflict can you imagine that sorry can't make it to my 28 million dollar space flight something came up bezos has long been the subject of intense criticism from the left but he's really done it now even older more conservative people saw this little stunt as an obscene waste of money in a way i'm glad it happened it is nearly impossible for people to understand just how much money our modern day robber barons have hoarded watching jeff bezos blow 5.5 billion dollars on an 11-minute joyride helps put it in perspective that 5.5 billion doesn't even put a dent in his wealth while it's easy to point at the richest handful of people on earth and say bad there is still tremendous inequality several rungs below them for example jamel brown a hospital janitor in missouri was awarded employee of the month after contracting kovid trying to keep other people safe for his efforts he was given a six dollar voucher to the hospital cafeteria meanwhile the ceo who has likely never set foot on the premises got a 13 raise to 30 and a half million dollars this executive receives 1 000 times the compensation of workers society called essential for six months and then cast aside jemele brown once considered an essential worker can't afford his own apartment and hasn't gotten a raise in two years absurd offensive stories like these really help to drive the point home for average americans our lives continue to get worse while the already rich continue to get richer here's another example larry fink the ceo of blackrock the world's largest asset manager went on the record to say that americans will have to work longer and make risky investments in order to retire people like fink are the same ones who say the economy is doing great and anyone who works hard can succeed yet here he is with a tacit admission that people can't get by on the same number of years of work as their parents or grandparents people in today's job market simply aren't paid enough money to save for retirement but if you want to get really dystopian let's take a look at how the state treats its least fortunate this video was taken in venice beach here you can see a few people in a makeshift shelter not bothering anyone with nowhere else to go being forcibly evicted by police armed with assault rifles as the country faces a wave of evictions unlike anything we've ever seen remember this video this is how the homeless are treated over 30 million americans are facing homelessness because their savings were destroyed by the pandemic 30 million inequality in the united states now exceeds even that of the gilded age the most extreme disparity in the country's history with every crisis the rich get richer those who consider themselves middle class lose everything and the poor fall deeper and deeper into crushing poverty the final trope in our dystopia comparison is the ever-present hand of the technocrats and the giant corporations i think it should go without saying that this country is run by corporations in all but name why haven't we acted on climate change because exxon has lobbied against it for decades despite being among the first ones to realize their activity would cause problems down the line they fund both parties so does the military-industrial complex companies like lockheed boeing and raytheon why do you think we're always involved in low-level wars it's absurdly profitable for these companies why don't we have universal healthcare like every other industrialized nation because the insurance and pharmaceutical companies make massive donations to both republicans and democrats then you've got the mega corporations like amazon google and disney want to buy something amazon has it cheaper streaming video amazon has it delivery amazon groceries amazon space flight apparently if you have 28 million dollars disney is slowly consuming all other media companies and ips google dominates web traffic this country is run by corporations and they want to make sure it stays that way but let's talk about the really dystopian stuff there's a nevada bill up for consideration that would allow tech companies to create their own cities complete with governments the right to develop their own taxation and essentially equal power to traditional counties that's exactly as terrifying as it sounds your job would have complete control over your life determining what you can and can't do how little they're allowed to pay you how much you owe them in taxes we have this weird fixation on the private sector especially tech in the u.s and it's going to get us into real trouble so-called industry leaders like bill gates also enjoy essentially limitless positive press for even their most alarming projects for example gates wants to shoot dust into the atmosphere to block the sun if that sounds familiar well it just so happens to be the catalyst for one of our dystopian movies then there's every internet dweeb's favorite oligarch elon musk neuralink the company determined to put a computer chip in your brain will be starting human trials in the very near future and musk has just announced that spacex will launch a satellite into space with the purpose of displaying advertisements any interested parties will be able to buy ad space with crypto soon even the night sky will not offer an escape from the intrusion of capital so is the us becoming a dystopia our climate is collapsing inequality is at its worst level ever our politicians are corrupt and in the pocket of massive corporations millions of americans are on the brink of eviction at which point they will be threatened with state violence tax startups may soon have their own autonomous cities where they will have complete control over the inhabitants we've got space billboards on the way and people are lining up to get microchipped by the world's least responsible twitter troll i don't think it's a stretch to say that the us is not becoming a dystopia it already is one we just don't have the flying cars or cyberpunk aesthetics so what can average people do about this i'm not going to lie we face some serious problems including the biggest one humanity has ever faced but we're never powerless the best thing you can possibly do is get involved somewhere every little bit helps want to organize your workplace for better conditions join the iww or another union applicable to your field want to build political power join an organizing group or a socialist party start small see if there's something you can do to help your neighbors look around to see if you can find a local mutual aid effort building community resilience is critical to weathering crises a group of people working together is much stronger than a bunch of isolated strangers if you like to read start a reading group introduce people to anti-capitalist ideas and help them learn about alternatives if you're good at graphic design see if your local union socialist party branch or dsa chapter needs help producing posters or flyers there's always something we can do to lend a hand it may not seem like much to you but by working together we can make a big difference take care of yourself help others where you can and throw sand in the gears of the machine if our elected representatives and their corporate overlords continue to make our lives worse at every turn if they aren't going to fix these massive problems that they've created we need to do it ourselves. i