SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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, @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..