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Hello and welcome back to Now We Consume. I'm your host Gibbs. Along with me is my co-host.
It's Pip.
Oh yeah. So today we have an episode that this is really something that I want to talk about and I know it's something that you're also into.
We are talking about the allure of the apocalypse and dystopia.
So there's been a long kind of running thing in humanity where there's been so many novels, so many TV shows, movies, everything written about a dystopic type future.
And why that is so really prevalent? Why is that so common? What's evolved with it?
I'm really kind of diving into what really makes it up. And why is there that allure? Why do we like discussing it so much?
There's something about it that makes people's pants tight and we want to know why.
That is a way of putting it. I don't like it, but it is a way.
Anyways, so dystopia future is usually described as the loss of, you know, civil rights, individual freedoms, environmental degradation.
It kind of becomes usually a government totalitarianism technocracy, usually characterized by some sort of either apocalypse or economic catastrophe, political catastrophe, social catastrophe, something to where the world as we know it now doesn't exist.
And a lot of things are almost kind of like reset in a weird way or kind of the status quo is completely changed.
Think of examples like 1984 Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Hunger Games, I was amazed by many episodes of Star Trek.
There's even you can even say like Irobot and a few other ones where it either is fighting towards a dystopic type future or that's kind of in play.
Now, one of the big key things is usually there are several factors that are, I guess, overwhelmingly against the individual that are either unable to be changed by the average person or it's just insurmountable.
There's no way to change it. And you're effectively left helpless.
And that's one of the really key driving factors, the average person being left helpless without really anything to do. The external factors on them have made it so that unless they make a drastic change, usually while there's a hero in these stories, they have to make the drastic change in order to be able to change the situation for the better.
And really, if you've seen any of the movies or any of the TV shows that I mentioned, you're probably familiar with the average kind of setup.
The I guess the thing that we want to talk about is why? Why are people, especially in the last probably last 20, 30 years because dystopic wasn't really dystopian type novels and movies weren't really popular back in the the height of sci fi back and while the writers and everything back anywhere from the 1920s up until the 40s and 50s.
Right. They were there, but they weren't quite like as mainstream or not even necessarily mainstream, but they weren't as popular or as prevalent as they are today.
Yeah, a lot of was very positive looking at science like science is the answer and politics can be the answer and the world will get better.
Whereas starting roughly like the 60s to the 70s, all of a sudden now there were small changes where people are having a negative view on it. I think George Orwell is probably one of the first mainstream people.
Oh, yeah. That really disgusted between Animal Farm, I think, dystopia. Yeah.
And one of the reasons why it's required reading, I think for everybody's same thing with Fahrenheit 451 with Ray Bradbury is all of the a lot of these things have become true.
Which is a scary part. Yeah, they're becoming far less of a novel and far more of hate to say it becomes like a checklist, which is kind of scary.
I don't like it, but it's becoming a checklist. Right.
So, with with this happening. It's becoming kind of alarming when you watch some of these older movies or even read some of these older books.
And then you see the similarities like, oh no, a lot of these things are happening.
And we're getting close to the point where people are taking drastic actions, you know, people are making great changes in their lives.
And things are kind of happening to people without any sort of repercussion, any way of changing it yourself.
It's kind of the world is being done to you are happening to you.
You know, you could look at, you know, the current economics situation with a lot of people struggling.
A lot of people struggle to pay bills and can't buy houses, really stagnant labor rates.
You're talking about also a lot of people can no longer grow their own food, have their own crops.
The list goes on and on. But the allure of it. Why?
It's a lot of it has to do with where a lot of us are living through it.
At least that's my take is that a lot of us can look outside the window and kind of see it happen.
You know, we're kind of seeing people not really talking to each other as much.
We used to there's not a sense of community that we used to have in a lot of places.
It's hard to grow crops where you live on your own land.
Now it's harder as well to have careers and jobs that can support like what it was in the fifties and sixties where, you know,
a single parent can work, the other one can take care of the kids, like the old kind of American ideal.
I think that being shattered for a lot of people has really forced people down this dystopian path
that have a naturally very negative view of the future.
Because I think that's where the dystopian kind of thing is really mirrored, where a lot of people now,
especially younger people, have a very negative view of the world.
But also a lot of very, very younger, a lot of younger people watched a lot of dystopian movies recently.
Like think about how big the Maze Runner series were, how big the Hunger Games were, how big even Star Trek was in the nineties.
I know I'm only picking up those three things, but holy crap, a lot of people have seen all of those.
And for a lot of people, they were very influential.
And on that, I mean, when you're talking about looking out the window and seeing that all this stuff that's changed,
what you can do, what you used to be able to do, a lot of people are in places where they themselves cannot do what you're talking about.
But just beyond their little section, they can see where it's doable.
You know, hope is just out of arm's reach.
And they get into that mindset of, oh, if I can just get out of this situation,
I can get myself into a place where I can make my life better.
It's almost that grass is always clear mentality, but there's no way to get across the fence.
Now, and for a lot of people, they are seeing that pasture that's greener slowly getting further and further away from them.
Like for a lot of people, there is nowhere else to go.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of places in the country where a lot of jobs have left. A lot of people are kind of left kind of stuck and stagnant with where they're at.
It's kind of becoming a serious situation.
And especially and I did want to bring this up because I think this is important with what Luigi did with the shooting of that CEO for that was the CEO of a medical company, medical insurance company.
The reason why I want to bring this in is because that's the first that that's kind of the tipping point of what we've seen with a lot of frustration with the situation at hand when it comes to the lack of other transparent medical system,
but also a function medical system where people are starting to react.
And it's not just his action, but it's the sympathy for what was done.
It's that is the biggest cultural impact. It's not what he did. He did. I have to disagree with it, obviously, on a moral standpoint, but the same thing.
Yes. Pure and simple. But a lot of people are pissed off because these insurance companies have been committing essentially murder to other people for decades for profit.
It's the problem of like, either way, it's bad. But there's a lot of sympathy for what he's doing. And that's the dystopian aspect that we're starting to see becoming way more prevalent now.
The reaction that it generated from people, you know, the free Luigi, all this other stuff that's going blatant support for him and his actions.
It's kind of scary. And the stuff that these other companies have been doing to safeguard against their employees and even the people running the company.
It's a sign that it's working. They're taking their pictures down. They're about us information. They're trying to shield all that stuff.
To what extent, you know, people talk. Oh, yeah. And it becomes a question of you're seeing, which I find very interesting.
You're seeing the government was able to investigate and find this guy quicker than anything that happened against any go beneficial in the last 20 years.
For some reason, they weren't able to deal with him faster than we deal with Epstein or any any other high profile person that was linked to the government.
This guy gets shot and all of a sudden every single tip line comes in. They find this guy within a couple of days.
Somebody that supposedly had made preparations and everything.
It to me just seems like we know where things are skewed.
So that if you are somebody that's quote unquote part of the oligarchy, I guess that's rich and powerful.
You know, the government services are far more available to you.
However, someone like Epstein that has a lot of the government in your pocket, you can get away with doing this stuff for decades and it be an open secret and it doesn't matter.
And then you still don't kill yourself.
So that is the dystopian future that really has gotten me in the last couple of years is seeing between what happened with Epstein where come on, we all know something.
We all know something was happening, but yet that was all swept under the rug.
Yet this guy does something that, again, I disagree with.
But at the same point, when you look statistically, that company was denying roughly 30 to 34 percent of all medical claims, which is insane.
When you look at it, wasn't what wasn't it them that was that had just announced the refusing to cover anesthesia that was Blue Cross Blue Shield.
OK, that was BCBS. All right. That was them.
The day after he got shot, they they reversed that decision.
Did they not? Now, I do not agree with the method.
However, I will say, damn it, that affected some change in a positive manner.
The do not justify the means on that.
No, they do not. But there is a but.
It's one of the things, unfortunately, with this world, nothing is ever absolute.
And and and those people that were saying that the anesthesia is not needed, I would invite them to please go under and do a long drawn out surgery.
Let's take the anesthesia away halfway through that surgery and see if you need it.
I will pay for your root canal if you do it without anesthesia.
Correct. Yes. If you can survive that and tell me at the end of it that, oh, yeah, it was worth it.
Yeah. Mm hmm. No, no frigging right.
And anybody tells you that's lying.
And that's the thing is they're looking at it as a for profit thing, which is totally wrong.
They deserve to make money. But that's what companies do.
Without companies making money, we have no jobs. Yes.
We are a capitalist society, for better or worse, that exists.
People in some positions have to make money so other people in other positions can be there to earn money.
Absolutely. Now, where those lines get drawn, as far as like CEO salaries being twenty five hundred times that of other employees, that's a discussion for another episode.
Mm hmm. There there needs to be some trimming, I think.
But you know, other other episode, I think.
Oh, yeah. But what this comes to one of the core principles when it comes to why people looking at the world being a very dystopic in nature is
it's the I guess the runaway of capitalism to where as you know, I am a capitalism supporter, obviously.
But it's also the problem of certain groups and certain people are allowed to blatantly break the law and blatantly make money off of other people.
Whereas other groups are not. It's the favored capitalism.
And really, it's basically it's a selective oligarchy is what it has become.
And that's the issue. If we were truly a free market capital, which they say we are, we're not.
We're over. We're heavily regulated capitalism in which certain people basically the government picks the winners and the losers.
As we found out with Enron and a few other situations where and too big to fail with certain banks and certain automotive manufacturers, which we for the bill for.
That was lovely.
I went on my rebate check on that one.
But that I understand why there's and again, I disagree with it, but I understand some of the anti-capitalist rhetoric
that fuels a lot of this dystopic idea because they look at this and say capitalism is the problem.
Unfortunately, it really more has to do with the fact that the government doesn't allow other companies to compete in the same space because they make it so prohibitively expensive and so many regulations and so many taxes on unnecessary layers of paperwork.
To be legal rather than letting people compete in certain spaces.
But I understand the anger and aggravation though, because the amount of people that like I know of that have straight up been denied life saving care for complete BS reasons.
And from what I have heard again, I'm waiting this this something I will.
This is my opinion right here.
This is not fact.
This is one of the rare rare times I will say this from what I have heard.
Some of these companies were using AI to sift through the medical claims to basically be able to approve or deny them.
And then we're having people go back later.
That's why you saw a lot of cases where people were denied and then a few months later they were approved.
But unfortunately, that person already passed away or had medical complications or whatever.
The reason I bring this up is I have a family friend of mine.
They got cancer.
They applied for it.
They got denied the cancer treatment.
They died and they got a letter in the mail two months later being like, oh, yeah, you're approved.
It's like, well, that really helps now.
That's great.
Emotherapy does not do well on a corpse.
You could try, but it's just not going to work.
And it sucks.
So anyway, in terms of the medical system with all of this, I understand the anti-capitalist rhetoric is really kind of symptoms of how people are feeling with a broken system.
And again, I don't agree with how people are going about handling it, but this is inevitable.
This is what's going to happen with these kind of systems.
Unfortunately, yeah.
Yeah.
And this is people can only be stretched and pulled so far before they start trying to act and react.
Oh, yeah, because especially not to make it like a medical episode, but this will be a couple minutes on the switch.
But with the amount of crippling debt that Americans have, particularly Americans, it's not just a Western society.
I think it's Americans that are shouldering a lot of that with the amount of people being forced out of their homes, losing their jobs and their careers over medical debt that other countries don't really have to deal with.
I'm not going to get the politics of yes, no, why, why not?
But because of that fact, a lot of people are feeling helpless and they're they're they're feeling completely left out to dry and there's no system to help them.
There's no safety net for these people.
And unfortunately, they're just getting gobbled up by the system and getting spit out and to hell with them.
They don't care.
Which absolutely sucks.
Right.
But that leads into one of the kind of kind of the the cornerstones of the dystopian societies, which is with a societal reset.
This is what a lot of people are kind of I'm not saying glorifying, but in a way they're hoping for or looking at as kind of the tipping point of maybe to restart a life, to start a new, even with the negative changes or aspects that come with it.
In a lot of cases, you're looking at independent societies or even I would say almost like not communism on like a large scale, but kind of the small scale communism, where it's the communes of like small groups of people working together, that kind of thing.
It almost brings a harkening back to kind of the simpler times kind of mentality of, oh, you know, I wish we lived a simple life of just get up and farm, do all that stuff.
They kind of forget how much grueling work that is and how terrifying it is to actually work on a farm and how dangerous and how far is actually one of the most dangerous professions you can have.
But that's for people that really live in cities that have really done farm work.
Someone that I have the most forging they've done involves going to from store to store.
Their version of forges going to grapes from Whole Foods or Walmart like, you know, I can't get the sandwich grapes.
But it's like what I'm looking for mushrooms.
I love mushrooms. I used to forge for them on my bathroom mat when I was younger.
I have so many questions.
Oh, I hope somebody gets that reference.
What?
What's the future Robert? Oh, okay.
I thought you were serious. I gotta be honest.
God no.
It's this it's this problem of people wanting to kind of get back to a simpler time and kind of have their own control.
And what if that's that that that kind of regaining of the control of the variables of their lives that are outside that are currently outside of people.
You know, it's it's it's that refocusing on self reliance because I think a lot of people have become so used to oh we need all of these outside factors in order to survive and thrive and get by.
We want to take the reins. We want to secure our own future. We want to provide for our own families.
We want to be able to, you know, have our own little chunk of paradise and just go forth and prosper.
You know, essentially the the settler days, more or less.
And like you said, yeah, those days were horrifying.
You set your kid down behind you to go till the field you turn around and you've got a bobcat eat and your child.
Those are terrifying days.
But at the same time, nowadays, if you have a reset like that, it's not going to be quite that bad.
You know, your kids are going to get eaten by wildlife. It's going to be kidnapped by people who will make a trade for supplies.
And I hate to say it nowadays would be far more of a fair trade kind of economy or bartering economy.
It would be a much heavier in barter.
I think I mean, barter was like the the the premier system back even into the 18 early 19 hundreds.
Oh, yeah.
That was like the the primary way people would trade what they could for what they could.
I mean, that that's how we got to where we are today.
That's exactly what that's really all we still do.
We just currency is just a more complicated way of bartering.
That's always the promissory note of, you know, I will give you this value at some point or it could be redeemed at a bank.
And that's a whole nother currency episode.
We talk about what bank notes really were and currency notes and everything.
How it's not what it's supposed to be. But look into the history of interest in banks.
That's that's great reading.
The Federal Reserve, too. That's that's that is an episode that we are going to do because I get very pissed off about that one.
Let me write that one down. Yes, absolutely.
But one of the things we could think of is I hate that.
I don't know if these people realize it, but this dystopian idea was most recently kind of done with some of the occupied zones
or like the Chas Chopp kind of zones like the Chas.
It was a decent shop that was in Seattle. Sorry, not Seattle, Portland.
But those did not go well. In fact, people got shot.
People got murdered. There was complete lawlessness, kind of a shame that the people there had to put up with it.
And those shops got closed down and they got destroyed.
Things happen. It's the problem of people have this idealistic view of a dystopia where they assume that some of the laws still work.
People still pay attention. People still care about one another.
I don't think they understand how quickly people devolve into absolute savages, especially this is America.
We have a lot of why I was laughing. We have a lot of firearms and a lot of us know how to use them.
And a lot of people that could grow their own food, do their own things, be self-sufficient.
So it quickly devolves into kind of this warlord situation, which I hate to say it like I'm not I don't want it to be that way.
But it's just naturally what it would be.
Right. So let me let me pause you there for just a second.
Several years ago, there was a show on TV called Revolution.
The brief synopsis was all electronics were essentially not usable. No power, no electronics, nothing.
The entire country was essentially broken up into more or less warlord controlled areas.
That's what happened.
You had people who could fight, people who could control and people who couldn't.
It's kind of reminiscent of that because if there were any kind of, you know,
a high level war, the the ever popular zombie apocalypse,
bring on the zombies. Good God, please bring on the zombies. I want that so bad.
That is not our official opinion. We as a podcast do not endorse that. That is just your personal opinion.
That is my personal. Now, not not I am legend zombies.
Oh, no, they're all screwed. Not not World War Z zombies.
Talking like Walking Dead. Just Walking Dead type zombies. Oh, yeah.
Just give me the walkers. I don't want those quick bastards that could get me before I get my pants changed.
No, thank you, sir. I that I have a whole tirade about Walking Dead for another episode.
Again, that's another episode why I want to do why zombie movies are complete BS.
But you will have areas of the country that will be completely unpassable simply for the fact that anybody that goes there will be vultured upon.
Oh, yeah. You will be a walking target simply because you exist in a state where you have something that is wanted and or needed by somebody else who's already there.
Why do I very distantly hear West Virginia? God, if something like this happened, you walk through there.
No, you're not making out alive. Absolutely not. That's that's part of my survival plan.
I'm just going to have banjos be my warning system.
Anybody with half a mind turns right around.
I know you're 100 percent right or I'm just going to yell out, you sure got a pretty mouth.
I'd see a mouth like that in a few months.
We are for me, big boy.
Oh, God, just just imagine like the Michael Myers mask is just a big guy who pulls a prank behind you out the West Virginia woods just the middle of the night.
Do you hear that? Do you crap yourself or do you just have a heart attack?
Do you even bother taking a crap at that point?
You just you look at that.
But no, side note, that's also one of the reasons why I desperately want the clown horn for my shotgun.
Someone comes in my house or near where they're not supposed to be with be in vicinity.
They will first hear the racking of the shotgun and then I get to tell them, sorry, you have chosen poorly.
Okay, okay.
The plan.
I would love to get like, you know, like the the buttons that that was easy button.
I want to get one. Oh, yeah. I want to get one with Ralph saying there is many doors, Ed Boy.
Oh, but anyways, I think people kind of look at the dystopian stuff way too idealistically.
They look at it as a way to get out from under everything the society has put on them.
A lot of it is victim mentality.
But a lot of it is kind of I say this air, quoting Lee, justifiable just from the perspective of, yeah, life kind of sucks.
Life piles shit on to you.
And if there's a way out of it and a way to get out from under all of it and just kind of get a little personal reset, I know there's a lot of people that if they didn't have
crippling debt, they could do so much more with their lives.
Absolutely.
It's it's one of the things where, unfortunately, a lot of people, I think of the false idea that they would be in control, that they would somehow be the ones in charge.
The reality of it is 99% of the people that even think they're for dystopia, they're not going to be a position in charge.
They will be lucky to even survive something like that.
It's that high.
But I understand.
I think you're hitting the nail on the head.
They were talking about a financial or social reset to try it again or to try something new or to be able to make it better for yourself.
That's where a lot of that comes from.
That's where a lot of that allure comes from.
The idea of you can make something of yourself.
And I think with a lot of the dystopian ideas is always the hero that stands up, but does the right thing, that tries to change a system.
I think a lot of people want to be that person.
And one thing about it, people kind of look back to like the maybe the mid 1800s when you could literally wake up.
And if you had the means, you could go and just start a business and you could make your own way in life.
You could just go west.
If you're in America, you could go west and just claim land.
You'd be like everything I see in this valley.
It's now mine.
Right.
And now today, if you want to start a business, what do you have to do?
You have to go and get permission.
Yeah.
And approval.
Why?
Why do I need permission to do my own thing?
I thought this was the land of the free.
And then I have to pay money to do what I'm supposed to be allowed to do.
Are you shitting me?
Not just money once.
We have to pay money all the time.
Every year.
All the time.
Sometimes you have to pay quarterly depending on the business and you have to be certified to do certain things.
Then you sometimes aren't allowed to do certain things.
You have to hire accountants.
You have to hire this, hire this person.
If we have become a world of such unlimited regulation and red tape, exactly of just unnecessary bureaucracy at every level.
If we could export our bureaucracy, we would not have national.
I mean, God forbid, we just don't make things simple.
I mean, it's America.
But for some reason, they seem to be allergic to that.
But if people could simply I think you're 100 percent right.
If people had control over their lives and they could say, I want to start a business and try it and do it and make something for themselves, it would be great.
But unfortunately, some people don't have that chance.
Yeah.
And then there's also the aspect of some people who want to start over, want to take the hard reset.
They want to get away from not just society and the other life paths that they've taken.
They want to get away from their actual lives altogether.
There are people who would walk away from their families.
Yeah, there are people who would walk away from whatever previous life they had and start a completely new life if they could.
And again, in that kind of a setup, there may not be records.
So who is to say you are John Jacob, Jake, O'Hammer, Schmidt?
Exactly. Well, I hope I'm not that person.
But that all depends on the type.
Like if it was more of a pop apocalyptic scenario, then yeah, everybody gets a clean slate.
Exactly.
Which for a lot of people, that's enticing.
Exactly.
But then there's the vice versa of what happens if you're in a scenario more like maybe like 1984 or 45 or Fahrenheit, 451, where the government knows everything.
There is no clean slate. There is no reset. You can't change your situation.
You will forever be blank. You are known for this. That is your one role.
That is your identity. That is your everything. They know everything about your marriage.
They know everything about your relationships.
I remember in 1984, there was a part where they had to get a permission to have a child, to conceive a child, to do things like that.
That's the other flip side. That is terrifying.
That is terrifying. However, I will say given today's structure of population, maybe there are some things that aren't the worst ideas out there.
Well, it's clearly not to get too political, but clearly it's...
I thought you were going to say personal.
Hey, you know what you're about. I know what I'm about. I'm not going down that road.
But maybe not to get too political, but it's clearly not America that has the population problem.
That is clearly other countries, and we have no jurisdiction to say about that, unfortunately.
That's on them, but we shouldn't also be having to pay for their problems either.
But I'm also kind of leaning into the aspect. And again, we're not going to get into that whole topic much. I just want to kind of dip my toe.
Maybe the families that cannot support a bunch of children should not be having a bunch of children.
You're not wrong.
Now, who's to dictate what makes somebody happy?
Sure, I get that. But there's got to be a line, people. That's all I'm saying.
Well, yeah, it's either you can't afford to take care of them and make sure they have a good life, or at least are well cared for enough, or you can't.
And that's kind of your choice on the career you take or the actions you take in life and other things.
And that's why one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was pick a career that supports the lifestyle you want.
If you want to have a bunch of kids, that's cool. I have no qualms either way.
But you got to make good money, especially nowadays. Having kids nowadays is a privilege, not a right.
And I hate to say that you're going to say expensive, but yes, because I can speak from that.
Yes, they are. They're very good.
Let me tell you, but it's only going to become more expensive every year.
Oh, yeah. And I think that's something people forget where while it was before a necessity because you needed people to take care of you when you're older.
Now it's becoming less so and more about it's swinging to a privilege where it's a privilege to have multiple children because.
And let me say this. I got three boys. I love those kids to death. I'm proud of each and every one of them.
There's not a thing in this world I wouldn't do for them. But damn it, it is expensive raising them.
And there have been times in the past where I went without so that they could have and I'd do it again if I had to.
But you do what you got to do. And that that's part of being a good parent.
You know, that that's part of doing the best you can. And nobody can foresee the future of what's going to happen.
But I guess that's something for people to think about where we don't know where the economy is going to be 30 years from now, 40 years from now.
Exactly. And that's why we have to be telling like our kids and grandkids like, hey, if you want to have these privileges,
we might have had them as what we consider a right or like a basic right, which is great that we have that.
But that's not always going to be the case. That's where many of these type of dystopian ideas really start becoming strong.
Where a lot of the things that we take for granted today might not be there in the future.
Your right to say whatever you want, the right to have children, the right to own property, the right to start a business.
There was a time and place in this country where you could start a business and no one could stop you. You could run it out of your home.
You could do whatever you wanted. Now it's do you have the permits? Do you have the licensing? Do you have the permission?
Do you have the planning board? You have this, that and the other thing. I mean, I can't even run a guitar shop out of my house.
Like I have a wood shop and I've asked about it and they're like, well, you have to get the planning permitting, other thing.
And also, if you're going to have any customers in there, there has to be a public bathroom, public this and public that and separate public parking separate from your drive.
It's like, come on, I just want to repair guitars on the side. Like I don't want you know what I mean?
But it becomes that level where the permissions, the rights we have today eventually become allowable permissions and eventually become only for the oligarchy and then eventually nobody has them.
And that's the way it always goes with every single government. Unfortunately, you look almost every any government historically.
How many governments give rights back to the people? Very, very few. How do you know it? Google it. Try to find it.
There's very, very few. Usually always goes in one direction. Unfortunately, until a revolution happens or something happens, there's some physical conflict and it sucks.
But that's historically what happens. So anybody that that really studies history or really studies what's going on.
I get why a lot of people are really think we're heading that direction.
And thankfully, we're not heading a direction of like the hunger games or anything crazy.
We're like people are going to start playing games, being selected at random to play games for the honor of your district.
We're not doing that. Although if we did it by state, I feel like that'd be weird because Florida would every year with my Florida man.
Like, I don't know. I feel like every other state would lose in a Hunger Games to Florida, man.
Either that or like we're like some some guy high on meth from like Alabama or something.
The Florida man of bath salts versus Alabama on meth. I don't know. Yes. Yeah, let's do it. That's kind of that's kind of what it would become.
But the only time I've seen in recent history where rights have been restored back to the people,
I'm trying to remember the country in South America, they had an election and their new president is like absolutely kicking down walls and restoring a lot of like common sense to the people and getting rid of a lot of the bureaucracy and red tape.
So I like it. Bolivia or or yes, I might be.
I think so. Is it Bolivia? Yeah.
What I was going to say is, but you know what the sad part is? We both have a decent knowledge of history.
And neither one of us could think of out of the 200 plus countries that have come that they're either here or the several have come and gone over the last hundred years.
We can't think of any. Where governments have restored rights to citizens.
No, they've really only ever taken away. Now, obviously, yes, we're talking America, you know, Civil Rights Act, right to vote stuff like that. That's obvious.
But I'm talking about past that point. Where like general equality happens, anything past that, it's always restrictive.
It's never laws allowing this to happen. It's always, oh, it's more restrictive, more restrictive, more restrictive.
It's it's something to really keep a lookout for, because in terms of dystopians, it really becomes government control is probably the number one overarching theme with a lot of these.
You could talk about something like, you know, if you've ever watched any of the movies or any ready, the Maze Runner books, I like those ones a lot because it combines the idea of humanity has a crisis.
The government and a private company is going to take over handling this. We're going to basically genetically alter children to be able to handle this and use them as a survival of humanity.
It's like, OK, I guess your end goal is the survival of humanity. Great. But the way you're going about doing it is torturing and genetically modifying children and sacrificing people to do it.
Horrifying, right? Absolutely horrifying. Also, let me let me interject real quick. It's Argentina.
Argentina. Sorry, we were close. But yeah, he's the one that's literally dismantling his country's bullshit. Good for him and and doing all the stuff that literally.
Kind of needs to be done here. Well, yeah, hopefully it gets done here, but. It's that layers of bureaucracy that is finally getting rid of and just some downright crazy laws they had there. Oh, yeah. But.
Yeah, it's it's the government overreach. It's the government justification or really any sort of companies justification for doing this for the quote unquote better good and the greater good.
And that's the problem when you talk about the erosion of individual rights, individual liberties, individual freedoms, it's always for the collective good that these dystopian type ideas, novels, things kind of happen.
Well, let's remember when it comes to the greater good, the needs of the many outweigh the need of the few.
I know. We'll see that's that's part of Star Trek. That's why, like as much as much as much of Star Trek fan as I am.
There's also a lot of that kind of socialist undertone with it, because yes.
Okay, so my Star Trek narrative show throw that out there. All my friends. Yeah.
I I'll be honest, I got a touch of the tism when it comes to Star Trek. I really get into it. Just a touch. Hey, be nice.
It might be a firm grasp. Okay, firmly grasp it. But.
But that's one of the things with Star Trek, where because of the utopian idea, they were able to establish a government where the ideas, there is no money, there's no currency.
You do the job that you like to do or want to do. And that's great about cold press, let them. Oh, that's the Ferengi. That's the dare to.
I would love to do an episode on the subtle racism and bullshit of Star Trek. God.
But that is another topic we will get into another time because Star Trek, while it is awesome, it also definitely exposes some of the craziest crap that we deal with as humans.
And it's it's satire that is very well thought out. Well, there are some stupid episodes not going to be wrong.
Oh, yeah. But anyways, in this kind of fictional world where you are able to do whatever you want.
They assume that humans will all work together collaboratively to make big changes happen.
I think that's the optimistic view. We've already discussed the pessimistic view of everybody becoming becoming savages, basically in local warlords, which I hate to say that a pessimistic view of it, but I do.
If something were to happen.
Whereas the optimistic view in Star Trek is everybody goes and does what they want to do.
They have no currency. There's no expectations, no big deal. Other than just be able to provide something of use to the people.
Be useful. Sit around, hold hands, sing Kumbaya and everybody gets along and we're happy.
Yeah. Until the Kardashians decide to invade.
Up until you get into a war that realize, well, we don't have anybody that's competent at war at all.
And they have to make a secret part of the government to be able to handle at war because the people that actually live there, that are citizens, are terrified of the idea of war.
How could you build warships? How could you? Yeah.
Star Trek is basically, hey, what if the human race were full of a bunch of wussies that that is most of Star Trek until they get that they have to go and modify humans to fight.
We can take away all their nice traits and make them super mean and evil.
And then those turn on humans and then you have the whole eugenics war.
Oh, yeah. Which actually that that's one of the more like anything we're doing now.
All right. You're not wrong.
You're not wrong there. But I think that does go into one of the other type of dystopian novels, which usually does either some sort of civil war, some sort of eugenics war is kind of one of the more unique ones.
But typically it's other civil wars, world wars, that kind of thing.
And along that vein is where I think we have some of the more other interesting conversations where, for example, in America, if there was a quote unquote civil war, a lot of people, Lord of the Fact, do you count?
Do what? A second one. We already had. I know we had one, but I'm talking about a little while ago, a little while ago.
You're not that old. That's OK. Hey, listen, listen, I've had a day.
All right. Let me let me have my day. But if if we had a second civil war, how would it go?
What would happen? How would it really affect people?
And a lot of people assume that somehow I don't know how these people assume this, that, oh, yeah, they would be able to write off their debt.
They wouldn't have to worry about all this stuff. They would somehow have like local businesses.
But things would somehow just sort of continue to happen the way they the way they are.
Whereas if the U.S. entered a second civil war, the world economy would collapse.
Like, I don't think basically, yes, I don't think they understand that.
But money would mean nothing. It would be more useful as toilet paper or to keep a fire going.
Oh, yes. No, it will have no value.
So everything that you do with your revert to the to the precious metal exchange.
Yeah. Would you hate to say all those people that are hoarding gold will suddenly be rolling, you know, golden bullets and you own the place.
Yeah. And food. Yeah, that's food.
Yeah, because you can't eat. You can't eat gold or or bullets. You try.
Well, you can you can eat a bullet once. I mean, you're not wrong. I don't like it.
I don't recommend that we in this podcast do not support that, by the way, for legal reasons.
No, we do not. But you're not wrong, though.
It was what was when only. What's the old phrase?
When when only the rich figure out that you can't eat food, when it was when they will value the farmer or something like that.
And then you eat the rich. Well, Luigi.
No, it's a.
Mario. That's what the mushrooms were this whole time.
All right. Gross. That all makes sense.
But anyways, so why is this becoming so lower?
I want to get back to the core of the point here.
The reason it's becoming so lorries, because as of everything that we've discussed.
Everybody's seeing what's happening around them.
Everybody's seen we've been closer to war than we've had really since World War Two.
There have been a lot of weird things happening that have been left unexplained.
Things like pipelines exploding, nobody taking the nobody taking the blame for them, nobody owning up to it.
Unidentified drones flying around weird military movements, weird things happening where places catching on fire or being destroyed or blowing up.
A lot of weird facilities blowing up. They were blue.
Yeah, I'm lightly touching on that topic, so I don't want to get too close to that one.
But the point touch the point I'm getting at is for the first time in human history, we're able to document all this weird stuff and share it and share it almost instantly.
Mind you, with the fact that information is now 24 7 3 65 at a moment's notice.
Yeah. You know, 100 years ago, none of this would have.
Battered. No, even up until 10 years ago, this amount of information, it kind of gives information overload to most people nowadays, but this amount of information being easily accessible has fundamentally changed how humanity that the direction that we have, but also how we consume and really effectively analyze information.
And so I should have used that word.
What do I do? I'm such an amateur. I should.
I'm so disappointed in myself, my days ruin, but it changes. You should be. Thank you.
It changes. I'm disappointed in you and you should be too. Thank you. I wake up disappointed myself. It's fine. I too have a mirror at the end of my bed.
Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed that one.
I just awake with a disappointment. It's fine. It's a fact of reality. It's okay.
But it has changed how we perceive information in the world around us.
And that's I think why we've really be able to document and kind of understand where we're heading.
Because before this, governments didn't really like credit. They covered up stuff don't can be wrong, but not in the blatant ways that we have seen in the last 20 30 years.
Well, well, I mean, there's a there's a long list. Again, a hint to another podcast we will be doing about why the government lies to you and how often they do it because they lie to you and want MK ultra.
Oh, yeah. I mean, the Tuskegee experiment alone just kill.
But for so many things that we've seen the last 20 30 years with the government blatantly lying to people that was never really an option before people would never have known that people thought of Pearl Harbor.
We had no idea the Japanese were going to attack us. We knew several days ahead of time.
Like same thing with what happened just to find Vietnam. Again, we didn't think they were going to attack that ship.
We already knew that was going to happen.
And don't get me started on the false flag operations to that's the thing that that's some of the US government like is really good at.
So the question then becomes how have people like before this, they always trusted the government kind of the news and agencies of people to report factually.
The question is, how can you trust the government or anything else that's around you in this links?
Let me let me I'm sorry. Let me just kind of step on your peepee for a second there.
Please don't when you have that. Have you seen the have you seen the videos of all the different news agencies repeating all of the same words verbatim.
That is 1000 percent dystopia in today's society.
I will try to find some links to a few of those little productions that have been put together a good little from news networks, a good little plug.
If you want the links, shall I shout out the discord at this point and show up and do it.
OK, the discord on the YouTube channel, because we're going to have all those links posted up over there.
That's the easiest one to do for right now.
But yeah, what we're going to be doing just you guys know in the future is any of the links or any stuff that we're pulling from in the episodes will be posting in the discord.
It's a free open discord. Any one of the members of followers can join it.
So please meet us over there. You could possibly talk with us.
Oh, yeah. We'll traumatize you there.
No charge, no charge. OK. So yeah, now that I've regained my sense of what the hell I was doing.
Don't laugh at me. I'm not that old. Your mind says otherwise, sir.
You. The audience will never know how long we took.
The audience will never know.
Yes. So we will try to find clips of the news broadcasters from all the different agencies across the country, repeating the exact same words verbatim.
And we'll put it up in the discord, the discord and stuff.
We're going to start getting that stuff out on the YouTube channel.
That's our easiest way to post up all this stuff right now because the social media stuff is giving us issues.
I remember during covid, especially during the lockdowns, the first couple of years, because most of the advertising revenue was from the pharmaceutical companies.
There were a lot of times are all of the news corporations are parrot the same thing.
But word for word, line for line, they say the same thing about any sort of medical stuff.
I'm going to be very loose on that. But they just repair it the same thing.
And I hate to say it, but yeah.
And then from there, it transitioned from not just medical situations, but political and any kind of, oh, we must do against this person because they are bad for said situation.
And it was just lockstep verbatim.
There was no place for any dissent or critical thinking or even just asking questions.
And oh, God, don't you dare ask questions.
How dare you have a critical thought you think the news is for finding out the truth.
Oh, naive. How dare you? How dare you?
Which is so true. Right.
But yes. So with with with all these different factors between the government lying to us, the media lying to us, our economy, I hate to say it, but in a general downward spiral, we'll see what happens in the next few years.
But generally the downward spiral, the American dream kind of going away, our personal rights being curtailed, government, you know, government taking away a lot of that kind of stuff or invading personal rights, personal freedoms, private corporations, invading your personal rights and freedoms.
And, you know, not even our own government, but who's to say anything happens if another government decides to kind of shloop their lubed or unlooped once and aggressions into our country?
Why you have to bring lube into the situation.
That they might just stealthily or not so stealthily try.
I don't think a government ever uses lube, man. I've seen my taxes.
I've seen my pay stubs. I know it's not listen.
It's it's like trying to get into a gypsy. Okay. I would not have any experience with that, sir.
You have to speak of experience on that one.
Maybe in another episode.
The episode. But no, if if another government decides to try to take advantage of any kind of a downward situation that we're in, it could literally just be the domino or a bigger domino that plays into a situation cascading and getting out of or further out of control, which leads us into some sort of, you know, a crisis that's a four becomes a seven.
And then people are stuck trying to figure out, oh, is it us? Is it them?
Is this, you know, our government? Is this the North Koreans, the Russians, the Chinese? Is this?
And and and not even that with the amount of I swear I will stop touching AI one of these days.
Now, with the amount of AI stuff that's out there, you could have one government trying to launch an invasion and make it completely look like another.
Oh, yeah. Well, America is king of the false flag operation.
Yes, we are the kings of that.
So we wrote the book on it.
No way that but it goes to show you to even if a disaster does happen, the government has no obligation to help you.
Look what happened after they're not going to at that point, you will win your own.
Well, look at what happened in a real survival situation.
How many people can just pick up, you know, a bag or two worth of shit.
Leave their immediate area and be OK. Very, very few.
I would venture a guess that maybe 20 percent of the population of the US would be able to make that work.
I'm saying a carload of stuff for them and their family.
Yeah. Could leave their their home, get somewhere safe and be OK.
I think you're being optimistic.
I probably am. I hate to say it, but probably I'm just a positive guy like that.
Right. Well, what I would say that we have proof is look at what happened to the survivors of the hurricane down the Carolinas.
Well, the hurricane devastated entire towns and the government did nothing to help them.
Yeah. I mean, we're we're what, three, four months out from that.
And those towns are still basically craters.
Not only that, but people were refused medical care.
They were refused food. There are people that were donating food that got confiscated.
People weren't allowed to go and help.
They were turning away our own citizens that had trucks and equipment, equipment that was desperately.
They were saying no, because they weren't government run.
Yeah, they weren't government provided.
The government said, no, because we're FEMA and all these other.
Meanwhile, we're giving billions of dollars to these other countries so they can do stuff.
Absolutely, because they're more important, right?
We give we give a few hundred billion to places like Ukraine or Israel, any of these other countries.
And they're clearly more important than our own citizens. Right.
Absolutely. Yeah. Don't get me started on that.
Oh, that's that's part of the you know, the other episode of the government lies to you.
Yes. Discussing a lot of that.
It may not be the next one, but it will be soon. No, it's on the list.
That's the problem. It's an ever growing list of topics we have.
But this is where I'm getting as almost every major disaster.
Like, look at the people in Hawaii and all those houses got burned down.
And then what the government did.
Maui has fallen off the radar. And how long ago was that?
You know, was that was that back in June?
I want to say it's back in June, but I could be wrong.
May, June, something like that.
But anyways, all those people, the government just wrote them a seven hundred fifty dollar check and said, here,
here we go. Sorry, it happened.
The the wildfires in Maui were in August of twenty, twenty three.
Oh, God, it was over a year ago.
Geez, my perception of time is off. Yeah.
Anyways. So all those people that lost their homes, lost everything.
People weren't even allowed to take photos. We'll give you a seven hundred dollar check.
Yeah. Now, you know, no, fuck off.
The National Guard wasn't deployed until after people were being denied to go down roads and save their houses or save people.
It's a mess. And unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that like we can't say on the podcast because there's been government regulations about some of this stuff.
But like because I've seen people get arrested for talking about Maui too much in depth, which is insane.
Yeah. But hey, let's just remember the nine scariest words you could ever hear are I'm from the government and I'm here to help every single one of those words is a lie.
Well, they might actually be from the government. I don't know. I don't trust that.
I mean, they get I don't know. I I just plainly don't trust it.
I'm sorry. Someone could say because then what's to stop me from going up to people and say that free candy.
All right. I from the government and I have candy.
It's just no, that's not going to work. Take me to your van.
I sold that years ago.
That really kind of wraps us up into with all these different factors.
You can see why for so long.
The the allure of dystopia has really been hitting a lot of people really maybe not even the allure, but kind of observing the fact that we're heading in that direction.
And we have to say it's maybe more the observance and realization that it may be like you said earlier, it's becoming more of a checklist than a storybook.
And it's happening in front of us at a rate that's even scarier than I think movies and books could make it seem possible.
We've referenced that movie Idiocracy a couple of times and that movie is quickly becoming not just a documentary, but yet again, another checklist.
Oh, yeah. Because we're getting there.
I'm from Costco. I love you.
Welcome to Costco. I love you.
It's just every time I enter Costco, I just picture that.
Because I when the day that happens, I know we've lost on the day that we're done.
That's it. Well, I mean, I'm convinced that we're on that timeline.
And you know why?
Rocks exist.
The rocks exist.
Crocs. Oh, crocs. The shoes.
What do you mean? Idiot people shoes.
Maybe they're idiot people shoes. They're rubber shoes. They're waterproof.
Yeah, but the idiot people wear them.
Maybe? Look, Idiocracy.
I don't know about that. That's that's that movie is why they exist.
You know that, right? No.
What do you mean? Oh, dear God.
OK, sidetrack. So when they were making the movie Idiocracy, they were trying to find shoes for everybody in the movie to wear.
They needed them to look futuristic, but ridiculous.
And they found crocs. And so they approached the people making crocs.
They were like, hey, we need like 250,000 orders of these shoes.
And they were like, OK, cool. We'll fulfill the order.
But then when the movie was being filmed, somebody was like, what happens if these are like become a thing?
And some of the guys were like, are you kidding? Look at these things. They look absolutely ridiculous.
Yet now we have crocs everywhere. We have attachments for crocs like croc nuts.
I thought they were popular because people liked them and their convenience.
They're idiot shoes.
I don't like every word you just said to me.
Like, I don't own them. I wear boots. But like, bro. Yeah.
They're you know, they literally only exist because of Idiocracy.
Oh, I know what Christmas present you get next year.
Oh, I know what Christmas present you're getting next year.
Oh, yeah. Be prepared. You get a fully decked out pair of crocs, a four wheel drive.
I have the torch, my friend. Oh, I will not own a pair. I'm sorry.
You would torch torch a present that I give you.
Fine. No, it's OK. I'll just I'll just I'll just pull on them. How about that?
I mean, you have a power washer for a reason. I mean, I do. Jesus.
I never knew you thought that that's strongly about crocs. That's such an interesting.
I hate them with every fiber of my being.
Well, I know which emoji to add to the discourse can be a croc emoji.
That's that's going to happen. I've got a croc reaction every time.
Oh, I'm looking forward to it.
And I am going to double check your story about crocs with Idiocracy.
Do it. I will find the link for you. How about that?
All right. I'm more terrified now that you can find a link for that.
Yes, I have terrified you once again. That seems like your goal every day.
I live for it.
But yeah, so with all these points, with all these things come into fruition with the way our world is going,
it seems like the dystopian future is I don't want to say inevitable, but parts of it are.
It would not surprise me if there are many countries in this world that go that direction.
Oh, no, you said inevitable. I was thinking that Thanos snap.
Oh, I am inevitable. Oh, I thought you snapped because you were like, we're like, trying to say or like do something.
No, no. Oh, OK. That makes more sense.
Like dystopia. I am inevitable. Yeah, I do.
I genuinely feel like is the direction we've been going. Yeah.
It's it's one of those things where, yeah, we could use a little bit of a reset,
but it's one of those things where there is no amount that is a good amount that won't be too much of a reset simply because there is just too much at play.
Yeah, because where somebody could win, others could lose. So it's always that back.
It's not a could. It's a will. Yeah.
There's there's no way of doing it. Where you make everybody happy.
Right. And as or to where someone doesn't end up with too much power or control or anything and it just gets out of hand.
Yeah, that was kind of the point of our government to be able to regulate.
Granted, not overregulate more like a laissez faire style capitalism, but the idea is, you know, to regulate where needed to break up monopolies where needed and to let the market do what it's got to do.
And unfortunately, because we have been meddling too much in that all these other problems of building up.
So I think you are right. Where is.
Inevitable in some capacity.
The question is, what capacity and how much.
Will the dystopia of Earth cause people to move to Mars and Moon?
Who knows? Oh, is it all linked together? Nice touch back. I try.
Does this A.I. prevent us from entering a dystopian empire or, you know, is it the opposite?
Will A.I. be the savior or the slaver?
Yeah, I yeah, I I don't like the idea of getting whipped by an A.I. robot, but I mean, you know, let's do each their own.
Oh, thank me, A.I. daddy.
Look on your face.
I apologize to the audience for all the job cuts and everything.
The amount of times that he's left me just brain off with mouth open.
It's like I don't want to do with this guy.
I don't want to do with how many times I have to edit something.
Good Lord. But yeah, I feel like I guess finally at the last point, we can kind of summarize our opinions on it.
And how we feel about it.
Slay me, A.I. daddy.
All right. You're not allowed to voice your opinion on this.
Your opinion privileges have been revoked.
But I think you all kind of fully understand where I'm at, where basically every metric we can figure out is moving towards a dystopian future.
We're already kind of in it.
We're working our way through it. The question will be moving forward.
How much will people put up with it?
And unfortunately, I hate to say it. How many Luigi's are there out there?
Because like what worries me is if we get to the point where this gets a lot worse and there's a lot more of them, it could swing both ways.
I could scare enough politicians and enough corporations to where they don't want to do it or it'll be martial law.
And then we and this turned into the mushroom kingdom.
I have so many questions.
What does that have to do? You mentioned Luigi.
So mushroom kingdom.
I hit my mic. God, I don't know.
I'll deal with you later.
So, yeah, I guess we're heading there.
We're already there. Welcome to the dystopia.
That's my opinion. Tinfoil hats on.
Oh, no, we didn't even go tinfoil hat on this one.
I have a lot more opinion stuff to say.
That's the bad part. Oh, yeah.
I have a lot more opinion stuff to say, but we're not going to put it out.
We'll say that for the desert tracks.
But all right. Did you have any final thoughts on on that?
Uh, no, I guess.
Keep your browser history clear and just watch behind your shoulder.
That's very positive uplifting.
I like that. Yeah, I try.
Well, here's to us.
Birds are birds are and are not drones.
I guess at this point we can say with this being where we are in the month,
I hope everybody has a good, safe and happy holiday.
Enjoy the time with your family.
Hug your loved ones. Keep them close.
And we will see you guys in the next one.