35 Things That Sound Perfectly Normal Until You Realize How Dystopian They Are, As Listed Online
While there is progress in certain areas and certain things are better now than in previous historical times, the need to look out for the downside of various processes is undeniable and possibly more urgent than ever, for the simple fact that power becomes dangerous without developing one’s responsibility accordingly.
No wonder some of the mental or real-life pictures of the contemporary world can leave us feeling… dystopian. These can include the massive amount of non-nature-friendly trash being produced and dumped all around the world, or attempts to imagine the implications of AI on our near future if we don't take the necessary precautions to play it safe.
People online stepped up, trying to raise awareness, answering one Redditor's question: "What's something that is accepted as normal, but is really dystopian when you think about it?"
More info: Reddit
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Jailing people for stealing food while throwing away tons more every day.
Sell by and use by dates are guidelines that are considered law in many countries. There's no real health science behind it as most foods are absolutely fine until opened. Reduced sticker shopping is perfectly fine if you eat or freeze the product. If supermarkets don't sell it all they should be legally required, as in France, to donate it to food banks and shelters.
Advertiser friendly language in daily life. Like people getting used to not being able to say words like "dead" on Tiktok because advertisers don't like it, so then you see a bunch of people saying words like "unalive" in real life.
It does lead to some funny euphemisms tho, like "unsubscribed from life".
All of those "Feel good stories" about people working extra super duper hard just to barely scrape by.
"Kids make business to help another disabled child buy a wheelchair"
"Teacher runs out of PTO days fighting cancer so the whole school district started to donate sick days"
"Man walks 15 miles for a job interview, community raises money for a bicycle."
It’s honestly really depressing what people have to do to simply LIVE nowadays
Working full-time for a wage that won't support a family.
A family?? How about 1 person.
Corporations being considered people and having more rights than real human beings.
Subscription for everything
Never being able to own anything online. Used to be, you paid for it once and it was yours. Now you can’t do that— and you’re paying the same amount every year that you used to pay to buy it and permanently own it outright.
Claiming drag queens are child predators, and ignoring all the abuse going on in the church, cause that, and all the new laws being proposed...seems kind of dystopian.
Privatized-for-profit prisons, healthcare, and education.
Corporations and foreign entities buying up all of our land and housing.
Lack of Congressional term limits and self-oversight of Congress and Scotus.
2A absolutism.
Forced sex, forced birth, forced sterilization, and the medical community treating women as if being female is a "condition" while using male bodies as the standard.
Outlawing the act of collecting rainwater, while charging for the amount of runoff attributed to your property (my city has both of these).
It's illegal to collect rainwater? That's completely screwed up.
Homelessness in countries with enough money to keep it from happening
Homelessness is a complicated matter, though, and is not always caused by not having money. Some people make themselves homeless, while others have become homeless based on their lifestyle and consequences. There are people out there who want to be homeless. They don't view paying rent, having their own home to go to every night as a worthy thing.
The existence of billionaires whilst so many people are living in poverty. Justified cause they supposedly "work harder" or "earned it".
Credit scores.
Credit Scores are a zero sum game. If you use your card you'll get dinged on your credit score. If you don't use your card you'll get dinged on your credit score. Even if you pay your bill on time you'll get dinged on your credit score.
The cost of rent. Or mortgages. Or the wealth gap. And the way minimum wage was ignored for decades while the top 1% took higher and higher raises and bonuses while paying very little to no tax. Trickle down economics.
The way women have control legislated away from their own bodies. Not even just abortion, but abortion laws that prevent women from being able to get medical care for their own conditions. Women who have to get close enough to death to get treatment, regardless of their present suffering or other long term effects. Prostitution laws. Certainly parts of them make sense but why is it illegal for some stay at home mom to give handies for spending money at home while the kids are in school?
I've never understood why prostitution is illegal, particularly since there is no longer a need to increase the population for the species to survive, and contraception is so easily available.
The amount of trash we humans produce. How distanced we are from the natural world.
Sadly old as civilisation...I heard there is a big hill in Roma, that is in fact made of Antique Roma trash: broken amphoras etc...
American burial traditions. Spend thousands of dollars to preserve the body, pack it in an expensive box and bury it, sometimes in a concrete vault. To keep it from naturally decomposing? Why?
Anti-intellectualism.
I remember when Obama was first running for President, and the commentary was, "He thinks he's better than us." He's running for President. He SHOULD be better than us!!
Working until you’re in your late sixties when 50 billionaires control most of the wealth in an entire country.
Health insurance.
Healthcare should be, if not free, at least affordable. Basic preventive care should be free, as well as emergency care. When over 500,000 people in your country go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and especially when 3/4 of them HAD HEALTH INSURANCE, that's f---ed up.
Reality TV.
I wrote a post a few months ago when i worked on a "reality TV" show. I can 100% confirm that it is all fake as f*k. If you were behind the scenes like me you wouldn't/couldn't keep a straight face of how these "actors" "work"!! I can't mention too much but......they have to learn their lines and have to hate/love certain people on the show. Then when the cameras are turned off it's like.....sup dude/girl. Then they go off to stay with their boyfriends/girlfriends in the hotel. Fake as f*k
Food and housing insecurity in a world in which other people are billionaires.
Running out of sick days, so you work sick.
Factory farming. Utterly horrific.
This looks more like a free range farm where the cows come in to get milked, I've never seen a factory farm but the place where I get my milk the cows are outside and then gets called in for milking. I'm not saying the factory farms doesn't exist, but I highly recommend visiting a local milk farmer to learn how it functions, then one can choose wheter to get milk or not.
The fact that we cannot do much on the internet without consenting cookies.
The way big companies have conditioned us to say things we pay for are free.
"You can watch it for free on netflix"
"It's free if you purchase this bundle"
"They keep updating the game, the next DLC is free!"
Anytime you go to say something is free, try saying "it's included" short for "included in the base price"
Or advertising it as free, but forgetting to mention it’s only free during the initial trial period. If it was truly 100% free, they wouldn’t be asking for your credit card number when you sign up.
The complete lack of privacy we have in 2023. People can record you in public for their TikTok, and everyone will say “BUT ITS LEGAL!!”
Homeless people
Refugee boats and sinking
Anyone anywhere being hungry
Bombing civilians
Caring about five ultra-rich people who perished in a submersible more than 500+ refugees who perished when their boat capsized. And they were already suffering horrific conditions before the capsizing, after paying a fat price to escape.
Militarization of local and state law enforcement.
War is pointless. Everybody loses and it worsens the situation
Obesity - everywhere... causing death, deceases and low quality lifes and btw impacting environment badly.
Being obese is bad. It’s not fatphobic its a fact. It’s bad for your health and it needs to stop being normalised.
Having to work more than one job.
The rhetoric and life behind social media. It's totally a landscape that determines your worth by how others feel about you. It's kinda scary the more you see its use.
Note: this post originally had 42 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
Everyone in the US NEEDS to vote! Vote for the right people and maybe we can change some of these.
If voting for the right people in the US made any difference, then what happened to Obamacare? It really boils down to the president's power being negligible.
Load More Replies...
A lot of the articles in this topic are related to Overpopulation of the World. Yes, a billionaire could offer to feed everyone in Asia, but at a dollar each his billion wouldn't last very long.
Everyone in the US NEEDS to vote! Vote for the right people and maybe we can change some of these.
If voting for the right people in the US made any difference, then what happened to Obamacare? It really boils down to the president's power being negligible.
Load More Replies... A lot of the articles in this topic are related to Overpopulation of the World. Yes, a billionaire could offer to feed everyone in Asia, but at a dollar each his billion wouldn't last very long.
