Also I find it worrying to see people here willing to engage in the online harassment of a stranger on the word of another stranger. I really hope that's not the majoritary feeling around here
That was a bit jarring. I was onboard with the verbal abuse plan, but the stalkery doxxing was definitely a bit much.
Also, I am aware that the whole world is basically various levels of dystopian. That comment was mostly a joke, although I do tend to hold the US to something of a higher standard.
Agreed. I didn't think this was that sort of community. Let's not even contemplate that idea again.
And the US is slightly less dystopian than is average in some ways, but also we're number one as far as prison population so... But we got Netflix, so that's cool.
Less than 15% of African countries have what you might consider a functional democracy. In every other case, it's either a straight-up dictatorship, essentially a failed state, or elections/politics in general are so heavily rigged that they may as well not be there.
There's not even enough infrastructure to
have a prison population in most of the worst places. Or internet access. Or electricity. Or running water.
In summary: people think the US is a dystopia because they no longer actually know what a terrible situation is. Which is great! Not knowing what a terrible situation is, that is. But... if you think the US is
slightly less dystopian than average, you have a really badly skewed impression of the average. The US has plenty of flaws, and I personally wouldn't want to live there, but... yeah.