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
#1
Jailing people for stealing food while throwing away tons more every day.
Image source: Vegan_Harvest, Markus Spiske
#2
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.
Image source: Foxlikebox, Daniel Thomas
#3
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.”
Image source: Eyruaad, Avi Richards
#4
Working full-time for a wage that won’t support a family.
A family?? How about 1 person.
Image source: Famous_Bit_5119, Maxime Agnelli
#5
Corporations being considered people and having more rights than real human beings.
#6
Subscription for everything
Image source: NotToast2000, alleksana
#7
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.
Image source: Spankywzl, Greta Hoffman
#8
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).
Image source: phoebeluco, RDNE Stock project
#9
Homelessness in countries with enough money to keep it from happening
Image source: AlthorsMadness, MART PRODUCTION
#10
The existence of billionaires whilst so many people are living in poverty. Justified cause they supposedly “work harder” or “earned it”.
Image source: intellectkills, cottonbro studio
#11
Ads everywhere you look 24/7
Image source: chopsthedrummer, Jose Francisco Fernandez Saura
#12
Credit scores.
Image source: raytaylor, Paul Felberbauer
#13
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.
Image source: Graceland1979, https://unsplash.com/photos/xlCmFoIS3oE?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink
#14
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?
Image source: Melvolicious, Manny Becerra
#15
The amount of trash we humans produce. How distanced we are from the natural world.
Image source: biscaya, Jas Min
#16
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?
Image source: kateinoly, cottonbro studio
#17
Anti-intellectualism.
Image source: Potential-Ostrich-82, Markus Spiske
#18
Working until you’re in your late sixties when 50 billionaires control most of the wealth in an entire country.
Image source: bkornblith, cottonbro studio
#19
Health insurance.
Image source: Rare_Cranberry_9454, Negative Space
#20
Reality TV.
Image source: Muadib333, cottonbro studio
#21
Food and housing insecurity in a world in which other people are billionaires.
Image source: tangtheconqueror, Siegfried Poepperl
#22
Running out of sick days, so you work sick.
Image source: inmatenumberseven
#23
Factory farming. Utterly horrific.
Image source: Singly-Errancy143, Mark Stebnicki
#24
Normalization of debt
Image source: Atotallyrandomname, rc.xyz NFT gallery
#25
The fact that we cannot do much on the internet without consenting cookies.
Image source: icsulescu98, picjumbo.com
#26
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”
Image source: Altimely, Venti Views
#27
Tying healthcare to employment
Image source: heyodi, National Cancer Institute
#28
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!!”
Image source: cruelsummersadness, Wendy Wei
#29
US ‘healthcare’
Image source: Realistic_Practice16
#30
Homeless people
Refugee boats and sinking
Anyone anywhere being hungry
Bombing civilians
Image source: buckwurst, Eric Masur
#31
Militarization of local and state law enforcement.
Image source: Strong_Somewhere_985, Diego González
#32
Obesity – everywhere… causing death, deceases and low quality lifes and btw impacting environment badly.
Image source: lavipeDK
#33
Having to work more than one job.
Image source: DanMontie, Annie Spratt
#34
Cameras everywhere.. “1984”.
Image source: CommissionOk9233, Reuben Hustler
#35
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.
Image source: GabeBlue180, https://unsplash.com/photos/NFvdKIhxYlU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink
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