the descent of dystopia

It started with the conspiracy theorists. From the depths of their rabbit holes, they warned us, repeatedly.

Be prepared, they said.

It’s coming, they said.

Things will never be the same again, they said.

We laughed at their silly notions and went about our day. But if we were honest, we’d admit their warnings made the little hairs on the back of our neck stand to attention.

Convenience had become a mere click away. We were spoiled for choice, the world our oyster. From behind screens, we could hide nicely from the bothersome + unsightly issues: global warming, climate change, war, cruelty, inequality, age. Deliciously dressed in designer clothes made by Bangladeshi sweatshop kids, we wore our mortgages + appliances + gadgets + cars like shiny badges of honour. One eye on the Jones’ next door and the other on whichever algorithm promised to make us more slim, buxom, young, rich, hard, powerful. In the end, our thumbs moved quicker than our brains did.

Those pesky climate scientists had been banging at the door for a while, but in those early days they were few in numbers. Back then, it was easy to simply change the channel or delete them from our feeds. Their warnings started out like a faint whisper but eventually came in desperately loud, like the raucous of black cockatoos just before it pisses down.

It started with plastic. Subtly, insidiously, plastic everywhere began to recede + disappear. Where clingwrap once snugly enveloped our sandwiches + cakes, now food arrived in beeswax wraps, compostable film + cartons. Biodegradables arrived unannounced on the scene. We didn’t make too much of a fuss at first – it was, to some degree, cute + novel. But by the time we really took notice, there was no single-use plastic in sight. You couldn’t even get it on the black market. Factories worldwide shut down and the hemp farms began to take over.

Next it was electronics + appliances. Instead of being cheaply manufactured, prices doubled. No more twenty buck toasters. Manufacturers, unbeknownst to us, had signed a secret agreement guaranteeing their products would be made to last as long as possible. And in the case of broken or faulty items, we were now forced to take them into a repair shop - one of these now in every town on the planet. At this rate, our levels of landfill were in steady decline.

Slyly, they shifted the school curriculum. Algebra replaced with meditation. Geometry with sacred geometry. The old colonial stories of our patriarchal forefathers replaced with indigenous story + language. Under our very noses, they were teaching OUR kids how to grow their own food and to make their own composting systems. They were teaching them about kelp forests, soil regeneration, aquaculture. The audacity. They were indoctrinating our children on the importance of community, localization, sustainability, and health. We had no idea. 

And, we didn’t realise at the time, but behind the scenes, they were pulling the coal, oil + gas industries to pieces. Apparently, the poor fossil fuel giants were now held accountable for every action. They wouldn’t even accept bribes, payouts + compensations (all previously effective currencies). In the end, they were driven out of business, forced to develop sustainable energy technology or contribute to the rebuild of the new world. The energy choices were narrowed down to a mere few: wind, solar, wave, geothermal. No none even saw it coming.

Mass agricultural farming was shutdown altogether. They banned pesticides + chemicals they warned were killing entire ecosystems and depleting the soil beyond repair. They didn’t even consider the huge profits being turning over or the jobs that were lost. The nerve. We protested and rallied but it was only a matter of weeks before they were pulling down every damn Golden Arch in sight.

All food reduced to local, seasonal, organic + ethical. Every last Happy Meal wiped out. What a shitshow.

They introduced new transport technology: electric cars, silent + efficient trains and other mindboggling vehicles that we had never laid eyes on. After a while, there was literally no traffic noise or pollution. All we could hear was the birds and the laughter of children.

Everything that had been previously carefully + strategically put into place to enable + encourage our addictions was completely dismantled: refined sugar, saturated fats, gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, consumerism. The luckless tobacco giants were forced to shut down overnight - all their hard-earned profit sadly rolled over into the now booming health + wellness industry.

They introduced sinister “incentives” and “rebates”. Trucks arrived at every single home delivering household plants, vegetable garden starter kits + seeds. They offered free vitamins + organic food boxes. They told us it “wasn’t mandatory” but there was an undeniably strong authoritarian tone encouraging us to comply. They told us we had a choice, but we knew better.

After a while, people couldn’t even get their hands on non-organic produce. In fact, the word ‘organic’ is all but completely phased-out from language, because there simply are no more sprayed, cloned or gm foods. They’re extinct. Food as we know it, has been stripped back bare, just like it was before humans had so cleverly improved on the work of nature.

Our urban sprawls were transformed into living green habitats. Homelessness was eradicated. Food waste minimised + banned by law. The was world morphing into one big green oxygen-emitting machine before our very eyes.

Big Tech suffered greatly with the removal of the algorithm + advertising. In the end they had to prove their motives were for the greater good of humanity and not for the sake of profit. Those poor bastards. Internet + resources were no longer capitalist + consumerist country. Education, communication + entertainment now apparently had to benefit humanity. It was so weird to relinquish our affixation to screens - they had become a virtual home-away-from home for so long. We had to completely relearn who we were as a people; without the self-loathing, the abyss of distraction, the numbness, division + strong imploration to consume that had been so lovingly inflicted by our darling Big Tech. Personal privacy returned, data collection ceased. We had made kings of Zuckerberg and Besos, and now, they were doomed to lives like the rest of us. Those poor guys.

Naturally, when the structure of the economy collapsed, jobs did too. People were cut-off from working for fossil fuel industries + global conglomerates and were forced into local, sustainable business. The people were bullied incessantly into devoting their time to their passions. As you can imagine, entrepreneurship, creativity, innovativeness + new technologies skyrocketed.

All these humans with nothing to do but live + be + create. It was mind-bending. What would become of our world now?

And these minds were more powerful than we could have ever given them credit for. Offshore miners were now inventing technology to strip oceans of microplastics. Bankers walked out of Wall St to devote themselves to forest regeneration. Prozac reps traded in their financial perks to become mycologists.

Every politically appointed Health Minister was laid off. For a while they fought for their place, but they were now forced to prove their decisions + actions not only benefited present day, but the many generations to follow. In place arose a “Natural Health Collective” consisting of traditional indigenous ways, alternative medicines, native foods + plants as well as ever-emerging non-biased medical science (now banned from being attached to any sponsors or funding). After lifetimes of successfully sidestepping root causes of disease + illness, we were now being given strong preventative health directives from people who were committed on every level to the health of the people. It was alarming.

Stocks of antidepressants, antibiotics + the overuse of pharmaceuticals slowed almost to a halt in circulation.

Where hierarchy + inequality once proudly symbolised the “free market”, it was now as if each human was deemed equal. People needed for nothing. Their energy + attention in turn was redirected to their families, communities, souls, and the earth. Before our very eyes, the people grew stronger, fitter + more joyful. Statistics of disease + violence + trauma plummeted.

We couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

And the “crazy” conspiracists who warned about the introduction of passports + tracking + mandates? Well, perhaps we would have been wise to heed their predictions…

Before we knew it, they mandated natural health altogether. GM food, chemicals, preservatives, additives + sprays – once part of our daily lives, all now banned + illegal. Our booming, crammed, unsanitary factory farms now replaced with hormone free, localised, free range animals. They implemented tracking on our nutrient intake and soldiers were assigned to check in on the physical, mental, and emotional health of every civilian on a regular basis.

Depression, disease, anxiety, suicide, loneliness… gone.

It was a world we no longer knew.

With the death of globalization, we were now forced to live and partake in the world at a local level. And because of this, care + compassion for our fellow humans grew. We could no longer hide behind colonised + capitalised frontiers. Division by religion + culture + class was abolished. Before we knew it, the human race was at great risk of developing a higher consciousness that we had never experienced before. And without consistent conditioning, we were becoming familiarised with our inherent benevolence as a people. It would mean the end of war and separation as we knew it.

Our continuance + development as a species was now guaranteed.

At this point, we thought nothing could possibly shock us… but when the helmets came in, we were alarmed. Where once bigots, racists + misogynists roamed freely within our communities, now they were forced to wear ‘the helmet’ until their discriminatory ways were reformed. Any actions that implied judgement towards or the degradation of another human meant: ‘the helmet’. Where once these poor people were able to freely project their judgements and inflict pain on others at will, they now had to live in ridicule until they could prove redemption. How dehumanizing.

And then, just as the conspiracy theorists warned us would happen, they rolled out the passports.

And you know what? We didn’t even need these ones to travel country-to-country. No, these passports could be checked by officials at any given time, in any given location. Their visits were indiscriminate + completely spontaneous: a complete breach of privacy. And the inquisition, disarming to say the least, consisted of the same five questions:

Are you healthy?

Are you joyful?

Are you supported?

How is your heart?

How can we help you?

And if the answers were anything less than optimal, they’d call in the big guns: therapists, vitamins, companion dogs, hugs, physical trainers, osteopaths, homecooked meals, babysitters, a week away in nature – you name it. They were relentless in making sure every last person had their needs met.

There truly was no escape.

So now, here we are.

Utopia spills out before us – it is all but a sure thing. It seems to me, fellow earthlings, that we are at a point of no return. I imagine we’re in for a rough ride: nowhere to go but into the soil, the forests, the blue of the ocean, our souls + each other’s hearts. We have been overtly forced + coerced into love, vitality + connection. The world as we knew it, is dust.

And the craziest part? The dismantling of the old world was no grand gesture by any account. It was simply a subtle, gradual stripping away of the system we had created. It was almost as if they KNEW that beneath the industrial, capitalist, and globalized structures… humans had everything they could possibly need to prosper.

Now it is too late – we are doomed to thrive.

The conspiracy theorists warned us all that the descent of dystopia was nigh.

We should have listened.

Stay alert folks.

Don’t trust anyone.

🌏🌱

“An era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted.”

- Arthur Miller