this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024

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A Boring Dystopia

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US8246454B2 (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I thought this was a meme. Just looked it up on the US patent database...it's real.

Stuff like this makes me equal parts furious and immensely sad. When I was younger and first watched Wall-E, I thought the obese chair humans were funny and wacky.

Now watching it as an adult, it fills me with genuine horror. All human experiences reduced to virtualized, sterile, mini-games designed to make you as addicted as possible so you consume their products and services as much as possible.

They want us as helpless and dependant on their platforms as they can get us to be. Locked in, forced to dance like monkeys so we can get back to mindlessly consuming more sludge.

Capitalism really is a cancer.

[+] [email protected] -16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The humans in WALL-E don't do any labour. When the captain tries to do something, a robot tells him to stop. That economic system is not capitalism. It's a socialist utopia.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's not a utopia at all, it's a dystopia. The ship they are on was built buy the mega-corp Buy N' Large, which according to Pixar in the lore, gained a total monopoly over not just all other companies on earth, but much of the world governments.

It's a classic Cyberpunk trope of mega-corps that effectively are the government because they wield so much power and influence.

Plus, socialism is a society where the workers own the means of production, which isn't the case in the movie, so it can't be socialist.

[+] [email protected] -14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, it's not capitalism, because the people don't work.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The captain works, not much but he does technically have a job, as pointless as it is. Also, at least some of the robots are portrayed as sentient, which would make them workers too, like EVA, who's job it is to search the galaxy for organic life.

Assuming nobody actually owns the property, it could be some kind of post-scarcity AI dystopia where machines control everything. But still, all the signs tell the people to buy, purchase, and consume, which is essential to Capitalism.

Regardless if it is actually a Capitalist society, it is coded like one, and modern trends of capitalistic consumerism are headed rapidly in the same direction.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The jewel of the BNL fleet - the Axiom. Spend your five-year cruise in style, waited on 24 hours a day, by our fully automated crew. While your captain and autopilot chart a course for non-stop entertainment, fine dining, and with our all access hover chairs, even grandma can join the fun.

The humans are not workers. They're on a luxury cruise. This society has the aesthetics of capitalism, but the substance isn't there. The substance was probably there for the first 5 years, the original passengers were probably bourgeois leaving the workers on earth. But the society transitioned out of capitalism with nobody noticing. They still have capitalist ads, but they don't mean anything. It's a cargo cult trying to mimic capitalism and failing.

Capitalism is not heading towards a society where nobody has to work, everyone's basic needs are met, and longevity is doubled. The Axiom is a noblebright future far better than what we are destined for.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Fair point, I like the analogy to cargo cults. Still, one person's hell is another's heaven.

I hope we end up with a far better future, but I find that hope fading slowly as time goes on.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How do they envisage this would work? It would merely make you hate the thing in the ad more.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Isn't it the path advertising is taking already? Shovel the product down your throat... I mean have you watched a YouTube video lately and did you enjoy the zillion interruptions?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If VR or AR goggles ever do become widespread, they will almost certainly be like the corporate hell UI from Ready Player One with 90% of your vision taken up by seizure inducing brainrot tier ads, or the scene from Altered Carbon where the only point of the contact lense is to add insane holographic signs and displays to every 5 feet of a street.

I still cannot believe that the Earth of Wall-E is currently looking like our most likely trajectory, and what, nearly half of Americans now are obese?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

my favorite thng about this image is how the mandatory hamburger acknowledgement is interrupting a scene where a man is getting shot in the face, emphasizing that the target audience is Americans

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago

Please drink verification can.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

At least Sony never brought it to market!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Have they gone out of business?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

yet.jpeg

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Ted K wasn't wrong