Writing/2025/01/25
Reject Hypernormalization: A Gaslit Nation Survey
(1/6) What have you found yourself accepting recently that you never thought could be a part your reality?
(My answer depends somewhat on the scope of "recently" and "never" -- I mean, I've always been an avid SF reader, so very little of today's world seems super-surprising; it's mainly just disappointing. I even remember reading an article in the 1980s which talked about various social cycles, and showed that a lot of negative ones would be overlapping shortly after 2000 -- so I was not wholly unprepared for the dark turn things have taken.) I didn't start to wake up politically until Dubya won re-election in 2004 -- *that* was something I thought could never happen.
It's only within the past few election-cycles that I've been forced to accept how many people (USians, at least) are eager cooperators with their own bamboozlement and servitude -- even those that are smart and well-educated.
I hadn't realized until ~2020 just how deeply racism is woven into USian society, and is so much of the reason we can't have nice things.
2024 forced me to realize that democracy-as-implemented is finally broken. I'd been saying for years that it was falling apart, it's a wonder it still works at all -- but I think we've crossed a threshold now. The airplane has hit the first tree-top and sucked it into the engine.
[Character limit: 1218/2000]
(2/6) What would normal look like in a world you want to live in?
People could work on whatever projects they thought were worthwhile. Nobody would be economically coerced to work on meaningless tasks that benefit a very few at great cost to everyone else. Everyone would be taken care of -- poverty would simply not happen, because it wouldn't matter how "productive" you are. Towns of any size would have trolleys, light rail, and frequent/fast passenger rail -- so anyone could get to another town without driving. All interstate highways would have parallel (but safely separated) bike-ped paths, and most would have rail lines in the center or otherwise covering essentially the same route. (Freeways would slowly become obsolete, and most would be removed or replaced with just ped paths and rail.) All education would be free. Public policy decisions would be made collectively, using various network tools to organize information and ideas and to collate consensus opinion. Character limit: 915/2000
(3/6) What event(s) have been on your mind this week?
Not much, actually; I see something terrible is happening, or may be happening soon, and it motivates me to get back to my own work (my best way to work against it) instead of obsessively thinking about it and how I can't really do anything to stop it. I guess I could mention the Palestine genocide, the Ukraine invasion, the war on trans people, the war on science...
[Character limit: 369/2000]
(4/6) This week, did you witness any violations of human or civil rights (either in person or virtually)? Please, let us know what happened.
I saw homeless people standing at highway off-ramps, holding up messages written on torn-off sheets of cardboard, hoping any of the hundreds of people driving by in their privately-owned multi-thousand-dollar vehicles would be willing to spare a few bucks. Most people didn't. Housing should be a right, and basic life-quality should be a right. (They legally aren't, so those two things technically don't count as answers to your question, but in my mind they are. A decent society wouldn't just let this happen to anyone.)
Online, I saw countless people who needed money to buy groceries, or pay the rent, or escape from states that were taking away their rights and their access to healthcare.
[Character limit: 697/2000]
(5/6) What brought you light or hope this week?
I'll have to think really hard. Maybe there was nothing... okay, I keep seeing videos about improvements in sustainable technology -- that's always encouraging. I find it encouraging that we're actually working on permanent Lunar habitation now (hopefully that won't get abruptly cancelled) -- I think I watched a bit of a live-feed from the ISS this week, so that makes this qualify, I think?
[Character limit: 393/2000]
(6/6) Please use this space to share anything else you would like to share. I'm just wondering how bad things are going to get before they start getting better -- but for real, not just a temporary and minor reprieve (like the 2020 election)... and that includes both politics and global warming. It's like bracing for a wave when you don't know if it will be, like, 10 feet high or a tsunami or something more like what would happen if a mile-wide asteroid hit the ocean.
[Character limit: 396/2000]