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Year Zero (our year 2022, the year the United States is 'reborn') was (and will be?)(is?) a dystopian vision of a future in which your government worked against you.
...or... a game and technology and music...
...or a technological Easter Egg hunt...
...or ... a concept album that i would call brilliant!
September 2006, Trent Reznor (THE guy of NIN unless touring) decided to shake things up a bit. He decided that music and marketing would work brilliantly together if worked in a fun, interesting and puzzling way (not marketing, but an "artistic concept"): what he got was a thriller and marketing he couldn't have expected.
He hired a company called 42 Entertainment to help promote his coming album by giving out clues to a larger puzzle.
The first piece of the puzzle were tour t-shirts (the With Teeth tour) with highlighted letters that spelled out "I am trying to believe".
"This phrase was registered as a website URL, and soon several related websites were also discovered in the IP range, all describing a dystopian vision of the fictional "Year 0"."
---https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)
USB keys were left in bathroom stalls at tour venues. Clues left on web-sites, clues leading to web-sites, phone numbers, email addresses, videos and mp3's.
Phone a number found from one of the clues and you are left with a message telling you "By calling this number, you and your family are implicitly pleading guilty to the consumption of anti-American media and have been flagged as potential militants."
Another clue told fans to not drink the water because the government had drugged it, but other clues led to a phone number that when called, a message said simply "I am drinking the water, so should you".
Leaked songs gave clues: The Great Destroyer, when played in mono, gave clues saying "Red Horse Vector". Was there a website for it? You betcha!
Finally at the release of the Year Zero album, fans discovered that the black CD cover when warmed, exposed a string of binary numbers that when translated into ASCII read "exterminal.net"
###
0110 010 1011 110
00011 101 00011
00101 0111001 00110110
1011 010 010
1101110011000
010 11 011 0
0 0 01 0 1 1 1 00 110
1 1100 1100 1 01 01
11 0 1
0 0
###
The Year Zero story takes place in the United States in the year 2022; or "Year 0" according to the American government, being the year that America was reborn. The United States has suffered several major terrorist attacks, and in response the government has seized absolute control on the country and reverted to a Christian fundamentalist theocracy. The government maintains control of the populace through institutions such as the Bureau of Morality and the First Evangelical Church of Plano, as well as increased surveillance and the secret drugging of tap water with a mild sedative. In response to the increasing oppression of the government, several corporate, government, and subversive websites were transported back in time to the present by a group of scientists working clandestinely against the authoritarian government. The websites-from-the-future were sent to the year 2007 to warn the American people of the impending dystopian future and to prevent it from ever forming in the first place
It's an interesting 'total package' concept, and there's 2 more years to go: but has this dystopian vision already arrived?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:57PM (6 children)
The ICE concentration camps are open for business. We're at the stage where there is a stock market crash (talking heads at MarketWatch were saying probably in 2020 last I checked) and BRICS (along with the EU in this timeline) moves away from the US dollar. The magnitude of that crisis left only one option for the masters of the universe.
Martial law was quickly declared, followed by World War 3. The preparations for this are already in an advanced state, especially as concerns internet censorship. Darknets as they currently exist, piggybacking on the clearnet, were unable to function.
In my original timeline, the US existed during its final few years as a neoliberal fascist state, however in this timeline a Christian fascist state seems likely. Perhaps fortunately, it does not last long. It all reached a conclusion in 2025, the year of hell. Summer never came. Over 3 billion people died, some on N-day and during the immediate aftermath, many more later on due to starvation and lack of potable water.
unless
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:19PM
My homework ate my goldfish.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:40PM (4 children)
Unless what? I'm not a time traveler, but I am most definitely one who feels and reads the flux of history. What is the "unless?"
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:58PM (2 children)
Unless we re-affirm the Constitution and hold criminals accountable.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:23PM (1 child)
Good luck with that. The Founders seem to have thought the thing would need refreshing if not complete overhauling every 50-100 years or so, and the world today is a very different place than it was when a bunch of (mostly) slaveholders laid down the law of the land. Washington cautioned us in the strongest terms against political parties, and his warnings have borne fruit.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:58AM
Yes, you can do that too, away from the theocrats, while they keep to their corner of the universe. This isn't about any particular "values" or "morality".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:40PM
The flux of history?
You'd be better off reading the Chronicles of Amber.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:55PM (36 children)
> The United States has suffered several major terrorist attacks, and in response the government has seized absolute control on the country and reverted to a Christian fundamentalist theocracy
but, but... you had said it was dystopian, it's utopian.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:26PM (34 children)
You actually think a Christian-fundamentalist theocracy would be Utopian. You really do, don't you. I'm not surprised, just disappointed...though not, I wager, as disappointed as you would be if that ever happened :)
Thanks for showing us, decisively, in one post, why nothing you ever say about politics or religion ought ever to be taken seriously by anyone, though! From now on, pretty much everything you say is going to get mentally filtered into SpOnGeBoB dOiNg HiS bEsT cHiCkEn ImPrEsSiOn MeMe CaPs LiKe So.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:45PM (5 children)
Most of the trolls are apparently too dumb to really understand trolling. Around here it is used to state their shitty beliefs with enough of a sarcastic veneer that they can slip away from their personal responsibility.
I'm just glad the report finally came out and verified what we already knew. Anyone supporting Trump at THIS point is irredeemably fucked in the head. If the Mueller report isn't enough to convince someone that Trump is a shady criminal then nothing will.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Wednesday April 24 2019, @02:27AM (3 children)
I too believe it is a troll's responsibility to agree with everything I say.
Carrying the flame!
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:59AM
Now, does someone believe you are trolling, or have been modded troll ironically?
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:04PM
Can't even english #SAD
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:19PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I [youtube.com]
Feelz over realz, brought to you by Newt "The Swollen Pimple" Gingrich. Trying to be edgy when reality paints a very clear picture puts you right smack in the middle of Dumb Town USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:44PM
There is a greater number of people who remain unconvinced that Hillary is crookeder than a dog's hind leg.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:07AM (15 children)
And for this reason, I believe humanity needs to be scattered across the winds, never to form a unified polity. People are just too damned diverse, so that he can get his theocratic state, you can have your godless society, elsewhere, out of each other's sights.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:26AM (14 children)
I'm not an atheist, you know. I've just managed to figure out that Yahweh is either a myth or a demon, and his partisans are therefore devil-worshipers. That they make up a large proportion of humanity keeps me up at night.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @08:00AM (13 children)
Oops replied to the wrong chain.
This isn't about any particular values or morals you hold, nor the who do you worship, but very existence of such differences.
The tyranny of the hegemonic monoculture is always there as long as you believe that there should be a universal standard (which standard, your standard? The theocrat's standard? Doesn't really matter who) should apply to everyone. You may justify it as dignity, respect, justice and/or even natural order, but at it is always required that everyone subsumed under the same belief. Some people are just willing to go further than others in enforcing this hegemony. Of those, some of them you agree with,and others like this theocrat who seems to have completely alien values to you.
If you never thought your values can be hegemonic, ask yourself, why do you care that people believe in crazy things? Is it the realization that "the other" is different? And that some of them are also as hegemonic? How far would you go to enforce the hegemony of your values?
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:47PM (6 children)
The standard is the very First Amendment to the Constitution. And yes, it should apply to everyone in the US.
It's not their beliefs we care about. It's the ACTIONS they are taking to destroy or end-run the Constitution we care about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:54PM
Beyond the Constitution there are a host of other issues as well such as control over other people's bodies and demonization of immigrants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:21AM
That's perfectly within my point about scattering humanity. The US can have its laws, applied to all within the US. The Brits can have theirs, in UK, the Chinese can have theirs, in China. Different people in different corners, away from each other, and not forcing their orthodoxy on everyone else.
I am in full support of this, it is after all the constitution of the land, and so long it applies only to areas where it claims hegemony over. Yes, I know the article is about the US.
The universal standard that I spoke of might not even originate from the US. For a universal standard to apply to all of humanity, it must also claim jurisdiction over all of humanity, and for that to work, the standard must also necessarily be hegemonic, suppressing dissenting parallel systems that might threaten its domination. Suppression does not have to be overt, perhaps it really is just "better" than anything the locals could have thought of, maybe it requires a massive social engineering program. It can also be overt, maybe it sends devoted believers after its enemies, maybe it uses monetary policies to crush its enemies. If it is not capable of that, some other more hegemonic system will simply displace it.
Again, I emphasize that this isn't about any particular values, or even "good" or "bad", merely the criteria of such a universal standards to even reach universal status in the first place and staying in place.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:47PM (3 children)
You refer to all the Democrat's attempts to end run the constitution on gun control?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:35PM (2 children)
Yeah, that time Obama came and took all your guns was terrible.
Oh wait.....that never happened.
Meanwhile:
"I like taking guns away early, Take the guns first, go through due process second." - Donald J Trump, Feb 28, 2018
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:20PM (1 child)
Have you noticed that every single D hopeful if trying to out-shout his competitors on gun control? 2020 should be an interesting election year.
Oh yeah - you might like this: https://news.yahoo.com/trump-mueller-probe-obama-official-gregory-craig-154916990.html [yahoo.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:28PM
Yes, I do like seeing Manafort's flunkies go to jail.
The fact that he happened to work for Obama for one whole year a decade ago is so VERY RELEVANT!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:33PM (5 children)
This is the *real* moral relativism we ought to be afraid of...
You know what? Fucking right I believe my "standards" ought to be hegemonic, because the only "standards" I have are to keep engaged with reality and not to cause unnecessary suffering. I am a left-libertarian in exile, someone who believes the role of government is to, as it is written, "provide for the general welfare of the people" and no more, and do it as simply as possible. A Herculean, ever-shifting task like that may still require a tremendous amount of machinery and regulation; "as simply as possible" may be very complex indeed.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:04AM (4 children)
You now understand the necessity of a hegemony if standards are to be universal. The next step is to realize such a hegemony must also be capable of protecting itself from parallel systems attempting to displace it, or else it wouldn't be much of a hegemony.
Your system that is designed to "provide for the general welfare of the people", what provisions does it make to protect itself from being changed by the very people it was designed to serve? How does it manage dissenters? How does it deal with political crises (ideally this stage should never be reached)? What about external threats?
If it cannot do that, then something more stable would replace or change it, into one that you might not agree with.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:51AM (3 children)
Define "stable." And don't patronize me; part of my constant cynicism comes from knowing that everything is a battle with entropy, that about 1 in 90 people are sociopaths, and that "against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
The best way to defeat your enemies is to make them friends. Failing that, the next best way is to remove their will to fight.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:56AM (1 child)
A system is stable if it is able to do what it was designed to do without interference. A more stable system is a system that can do exactly what it was designed to do longer than a less stable system.
A system is no longer considered stable if it cannot do what it was designed for, it is only a matter of time before it is replaced, whether acknowledged or not, eg turning from "provide for the general welfare of the people" to "provide for the general welfare of the *right kinds of* people", or maybe even "provide for the general welfare of the people while supplies last". Whether through corruption, subversion or physical constraints, it changed, its founders might not even recognize it anymore or see it as a bad parody. Battling with entropy is good way to put it.
How far are you willing to go to make friends? How far are you going to go to keep them friends? How far are you willing to go to "remove their will to fight"? Are you willing to go as far as your enemies?
It is for this reason I believe humanity should be scattered forever, preferably out of Earth and across the universe. You get to make your utopia, the theorcrat can make his. It is not stable, as it is only a matter of time before it becomes too crowded again, but at least it'll take longer by kicking the can down the long long road.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:53PM
Yes...I too believe that we have to go into space if we're to survive, if only because this poor planet has been ravaged so badly. But it may be too late. And if anything, if we can't even maintain our natal world, how are we going to terraform a hostile planet? We're decades or centuries away from that.
Nothing guarantees we'll make it. We may very well blow ourselves back to a pre-Industrial-Age civilization, and be stuck there until extinction, not having any more cheap energy left in the form of fossil fuels to have another one. We may actually be looking at the answer to Fermi's Paradox as we speak, and find out that it's Death, riding on a pale horse, the name of which is "Stupidity."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:52PM
You give yourself too much credit. The gods will defeat you soon enough.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 24 2019, @03:37PM (11 children)
I was half trolling. There are worse alternatives to a medieval kingdom translated to modern times.
In general, you should be able to tell when one is making a serious reasoning by the content of the reasoning, especially if you cannot formulate proper objections.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:39PM (10 children)
You are such a complete wild-eyed frothing staring-at-my-left-ear obsessive monomaniac that it is not possible to tell when you are trolling and when you are serious. You are a walking exemplar of Poe's Law. For my own safety and sanity I *have* to assume everything you say is as serious as an incoming asteroid, for much the same reason a smart caveman would rather mistake a rock for a tiger than a tiger for a rock.
Do you have any idea what "a medieval kingdom translated to modern times" would look like, you utter, utter fool?! Do you truly want the Spanish Inquisition with modern-day surveillance technology? You assume you yourself would never find yourself on the end of a pair of red-hot pincers, broken on the rack, because some computer decided you were a heretic. Stupid, shortsighted fucking idiot!
If there truly were a good and merciful God that specifically intervened in its creations' lives in real time, it would have crisped you with a thunderbolt long ago for this sort of malevolently ignorant idiocy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @12:44AM
I dunno, i might support that idea. Suffer myself to see those assholes get what's coming? Hmm, i might be morphing into a conservative. . .
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 25 2019, @07:40AM (4 children)
As much as I am interested in the way other people can build an image of myself, akin to watching colored pebbles in a kaleidoscope, I must point out that, for example, the Spanish inquisition is not a risk in the context of the thread, because we were talking about Christian INTEGRALISM and the inquisition doesn't follow neither the OT nor the NT.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:29PM (1 child)
Yet "christians" did it anyway. Go home BOT you need to reboot.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 26 2019, @08:20PM
so you are not commie because of stalin, or something like it, I guess?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:59PM (1 child)
Ahh, yes, the No True Scotsman argument. I'm not sure a book which includes a directive to "compel them to come in" (Luke 14:23) is all that incompatible with the Inquisition, heresy hunting, and other wonderful forms of religious persecution. Hah, "doesn't follow neither the OT nor the NT" indeed. Do you just not read your own Scripture?
So, are you saying you want a return to "primitive" or Apostolic Christianity? Nice idea, but bear in mind that means you basically have to be a Messianic Jew, as per for example Matthew 5:17-20, where Jesus explicitly states the Mosaic Law is very much still in effect, all 613 mitzvot, and that anyone telling people they don't have to follow it will be "called least in Heaven."
What exactly is this utopian vision of yours, anyway? And please bear in mind "utopia" means "no place."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 26 2019, @08:22PM
1. The no true scotsman doesn't hold when I point out that the guy with black skin big lips and a bone through his nose holding a spear and the head of a gazelle on top of it is not a scotsman at all.
2. The very idea that an invitation to a wedding can be a metaphor for forced conversion superseding Christ's own conduct and much more explicit passages (Thou knowest the commandments, in mark 10, comes to mind) is laughable.
3. The jew is defined by his refusal of jesus as the Christ.
4. I don't want a return or whatever, I said "There are worse alternatives to a medieval kingdom translated to modern times".
Do you want to double down on a half troll with a troll or something?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:51PM (2 children)
He's not staring at your left ear, idiot. He's staring at the goon creeping up behind your dumb ass, while you're distracted by a bot's inane arguments.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:54PM (1 child)
I too am a goon(ette?) so he's in good company :D It pays to keep your :10bux: handy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 26 2019, @08:23PM
the kaleidoscope turned nasty soon
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @11:15PM
Azuma, if that is your name, and even if it's not, I would like to buy your rock...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:42PM
One man's utopia, is many other men's dystopia. That is the root of our political polarization in America today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:47PM (2 children)
The dystopia has been here a while, 2001 really ramped it up though. We are still at the crossroads where the US can choose to uphold the Constitution or toss it out and throw the world into chaos.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 24 2019, @03:33PM (1 child)
. . . You mean the constitution that's been trampled on since the Patriot Act, and probably before that. The fact that the Patriot Act ever got off the ground, should tell you something about where we're headed. When was the last time, you saw someone willingly give up power? Let alone a government, willingly giving up power. Here's hoping that someone/something can rein it in, before we end up in a dystopian future, today. I would have given Obama a whole lot more credit, if he had repealed the Patriot Act or even tried. Instead, he just re-upped it. Instead of adhering to the constitution, and re-enforcing the value of the constitution, Obama maintained the status quo or perhaps even made matters worse. Trump sure doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot better, but I don't know that he's doing any worse. Yes, he's a loud mouth, he isn't politically correct and would likely be that relative who you tolerate, because they're family. People wanted "change" when they voted for Obama, but they didn't get what they had hoped. Sure, they got Wheeler and for a brilliant moment or two there was the possibility that the Internet would be just a dumb pipe. Instead, we again, got more "change" with Trump.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:46PM
and probably before that
Yeah, like way before. Here's a really old "Patriot Act" [wikipedia.org], at least they had the good sense to repeal it. "Modern" people aren't so demanding. Kinda belies the point made above about the founders and political parties, also. The most basic fundamentals that allow them to arise and flourish are not being addressed, or even acknowledged.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:27AM
I thought this would turn into a discussion about the use of tech, not the dystopian now.
Soyled again!, Nyuk nyuk.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---