Neil Gaiman. He poisoned so much…
USA.
Parents (my own)
Humanity.
Jk Rowling. She was (I think) the only billionaire to ever debillonaire themselves without dying (i.e., she donated so much wealth to charity that she was no longer a billionaire).
But then she decided to dedicate herself to making trans people’s lives miserable…
Can she just die already? I normally don’t wish death on anyone. Just people that do extremely evil things.
A certain elongated muskrat comes to mind. I love space so the thought of a reusable rocket to make space affordable was awesome. I also believe that electric cars are the future, and tesla did make pretty good charging standard and help to “prove” the concept. But now I just hope he somehow winds up dirt poor, and irrelevant. Just oh, my, god
Many moons ago I thought Israel was just defending itself. For two decades now I’ve come to believe they are the problem, and are now committing wanton genocide
I would have to say organized religion. I grew up in a pretty strict christian home, but as I grew older I began to see how much of what I had been told was just patently false and designed to manipulate and control. I have done a lot (decades worth) of studying and reading and I’m confident that the conclusions I have arrived at are correct. Of course, your mileage may vary.
Airbnb. I used to think they were a perfect business. Saw a gap in the market, created a decent product, invested in their users (back in the day they would even send a photographer to take good photos of your property).
Unfortunately the consequences turned out to be awful.AirBNB would work better if the owner was required to live in the property 160 days out of the year. Where it went wrong was in letting corporations buy up housing and use it to skirt hotel taxes and regulation.
AirBnB is almost directly responsible for the surge of housing prices in my local town, and they should die in a fire.
🌈.°`E N S H I T I F I C A T I O N’°. 🌈
Police
Cops (1989) ruined america, taught us to trust these ass holes and they royally fucked us over.
Not making light of everything before 1989, but even after all that shit, the show painted them in a decent enough light to where people spill their guts and trust them, just because they have a uniform and they took full advantage of us.
Police propaganda goes way back before Cops (1989). Dragnet started in 1951 and inspired dozens of police procedurals that made cops look like street smart scientists who studied at the intersection of crime and humanity. In reality they are just a disappointment. ACAB
I wasn’t alive during that, but I remember the cop propaganda from the 90s well.
Institutions. Courts. Media. Religion. Law Enforcement. Politicians.
The institutions are captured. The courts, media, and politicians are corrupt. Bought and paid for. Law Enforcement are just class traitors. The enforcement arm of Capital. Protecting the interests of the ruling class and taking a bludgeon to the people. Religion is a tool of control. Used to control the ignorant and guide their ire.
Idk I’m starting to think dystopia began when we figured out agriculture
When aristocracy discovered mercantilism and mutilated it into capitalism.
Most life eats other life to live. It’s been a bad time from the very beginning.
Ironically this take is entirely self-validating, since this is the primary mechanism for that degradation.
The US. Believed in the “American Dream”, but the more I learned about the country, the more I grew to dislike it. It’s all a facade.
And I used to have a lot of respect for old people, but that also changed. They are just as flawed as the rest of us.
Old people who are assholes were probably always assholes. They were once young assholes and got older. Conversely, old people who are good, were probably good people when they were younger, they just got old.
Most people don’t stray far from their roots. Few are those who make a meaningful change. Some choose goodness as a goal, some get their asses kicked by life and turn bitter.
I guess the lesson is don’t be an asshole. if you are one, work toward being less of one until you aren’t one anymore. Try not to let life get you down. If all else fails, drugs.
I disagree with this as it’s a prejudgement with little to no knowledge about anybody’s roots, circumstances, history, etc. It categorically puts people into boxes and is the flawed reasoning of racists, anti-semites, homophobes, and so on.
For example, Islamic terrorists aren’t born terrorists. Some of them are born into the wrong family and fed hatred all their lives. Some had to live through hardships you and I can’t even begin to imagine surviving. Others are bullied, ostracised, and made feel worthless only to find belonging and recognition in the only group that would listen to them and make them feel seen.
Ask yourself, if you grew up and had to go through the same things as some people, would you still be the you that typed what you typed?
Yes, some people have always been assholes and never changed, they do exist. I’m not denying that.
They are just as flawed as the rest of us.
Or even more so! They also know a few social tricks to get what they want. Oh, I’ve seen it. Lol
Apple, and a number of the other big tech companies as well. Shit used to be easy to use, repair, customize to your liking, etc.
Now they don’t want you to be able to fix a damn thing, plus all too many services and features and stuff have gone to the subscription model.
Fuck all with that, give us our stuff back and let us just use what we paid for.
Right To Repair!
I’m gonna say Tim Cook.
The way he signaled his authority was by sending out an email to the entire company announcing that he was expanding the company’s match program for employees who wanted part of their paycheck to go to NGOs. I thought that was a classy way of saying, “I’m in charge.” I had a lot of respect for that.
But his leadership with the App Store and regulators has been abysmal. He led Apple to make all the wrong moves, ensuring a (now active) fight with regulators instead of just making some small concessions voluntarily. It was completely unnecessary, but he just couldn’t help feeling entitled for Apple to do whatever it wants to make money. I still believe there are people in leadership positions who would choose to do the right thing, but the buck stops with Cook.
Apple might be worthy of my respect again when he’s gone.
Apple have always done what they wanted. In the Jobs era the biggest Apple Store in the world was on Regents Street in London, and Apple paid the local council vast fines each month because Jobs decided that the required illuminated fire exit signs would have ruined the carefully designed interior.
You have to go back like 30 years to get to a pro-repair Apple
More or less yeah. Though back around 2013 or so, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by how they designed their Mac AIO desktops, they actually were somewhat repair tech friendly.
The front glass was magnetically attached, so it only took a suction cup or two to start disassembly, and basic screwdrivers to remove the screen and get access to the motherboard, hard drive, RAM, DVD drive, etc.
And yes you could replace or upgrade parts as necessary, none of this newer soldered on storage shit they do these days.
I’ve lost a lot of respect for companies that solder on important parts that should rightfully be fairly easy to replace or upgrade.
Plus, now the big companies have taken to forcing encryption on the storage devices, effectively locking the drive to the system. Well isn’t that just cute for the backup operator that’s trying to recover your late grandmother’s family photos…
The original iMac G5 was designed to be repairable by the customer. You could even call Apple support and do free part exchanges under warranty.
Yeah it’s pretty bleak, although there have been some moves towards right to repair in recent years.
Respecting companies is always a bit fraught though. Even the ones you like are only doing it to profit off of your niche. It’s thanks to us that they even have a profitable niche to serve
The Internet. Social media in particular.
I used to be a “information wants to be free” pure techno-optimist who thought the availability of data at all times would immediately cause a massive boost in awareness, education and intelligence worldwide.
I was super wrong. It was all a mistake and it should be burnt to the ground. Yes, including this place.
I was having good time until Smartphones got invented. Letting the masses (morons) get access to instant communication effortlessly and cheap fucked us.
I mean, in a lot of ways the social media takeover is the antithesis to freedom of information. It’s all siloed off echo chambers where it used to be free flowing, publicly available, indexable and searchable.
I still believe in the freedom of information goal more than ever, but fighting for it in the post information era is increasingly difficult (and important)
It’s the Web 2.0 model of corralling people into walled garden platforms, where they’re driven insane. One day people will look back at this time and wonder what we were thinking.
Americans.
