this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.

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[–] [email protected] 177 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Orphan crushing machine material

[–] [email protected] 73 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

To be clear, there's no indication in this article that the family couldn't afford this. It sounds like they've got great family support. It also sounds like this was an activity this 7 year old took up completely independently, not because someone was like "oh no, we can't afford a tombstone." The article reads like this 7 year old is using this activity as a really positive way to cope with the loss of her mother, and then their supportive community picked up on it and ran with it.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago

You are correct and I just went off the title. I sometimes forget that these are usually articles I can click on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"Karli had not had insurance, and on top of the grief felt from her loss, her family was tasked with thinking of ways to pay for her funeral costs. 

“We started doing stuff to come up with money to cover it all, and Emouree started this little lemonade stand,” Bordner said."

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

None of that is in this article

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

So link your source dude...dense af

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

I'm sure you can figure it out.

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

So I can only assume you made this up

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

That may be the only thing you can do. People with more agency probably wouldn't feel limited to what is directly spoon fed to them on a social media site.

The amount of time you spent posting vapid responses is much more than it would have taken for you to simply confirm the information on your own. But, you do you.

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

Lmao you took the time to research this puff piece to prove to me this is somehow dystopian and refuse to even share your source. No, I'm not going to "do my own research" on this story. You could easily have linked your source in the amount of time you've spent posting vapid responses.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

"Research." 🙄

[–] nkat2112 42 points 8 months ago

Orphan crushing machine

Excellently stated - you're so right. For any others who might wonder, as I did previously:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orphan-crushing-machine

[–] [email protected] 92 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I'm tired of feel-good stories about the community pitching in to help someone overcome the bleakness of capitalism during a time of need. This shouldn't be necessary.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's a tool of the rich who control the media.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Is their goal to make me hate them even more? Cuz they're doing a fine a job.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

It's their goal to make you just comment on internet forums and then go to work the next day. Repeat

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Not you. They have so much money that they do not have to concern themselves on a personal level. As long as things keep working out for them on the macro level, they will keep doing fine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Glad you already posted my thoughts exactly. What a terrible timeline we live in.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Individually, in a way that in no way stops other tragedies. Yeah.

Posadism's looking real good about now.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Surprised the cops haven't been by to arrest the little girl and bust up her lemonade stand

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago

Well she is white. They only do that to the black ones. Still pissed at the Karen who did that and for the cops for actually answering the fucking call.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

So much of the community was there – police officers, a motorcycle group, judges, EMS workers, nurses – to show their support. Numerous businesses – the list is long, and it keeps growing – brought checks or pledged money to help. Others have donated clothes for Emouree and brought food.

@Fredselfish is right about race being the reason.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

DYK funeral homes are being taken over by two companies, who then jack up prices. It's a duopoly. Even death is now a fucking scam.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I was a funeral director for 9 years but recently left the industry. I didn't feel like I was helping anymore. All of the 5 funeral homes in my town are now owned by 2 corporations. Courts have ruled a corporation cannot buy out all the funeral homes in one town, so these corporations work together to divide up towns.

The main concern of corporations are things like low accounts receivables, high insurance sales, high sales of packages, and corporate stock price. Our offices had TVs that displayed these stats on a loop and ranked corpoate owned funeral homes as well as their individual staff based on these numbers. Staff with subpar numbers would be given "coachings" and "retraining". I got a lot of those. I was coached not to "fall for sad stories" and how to judge what a person can afford by looking at the car they drove, what they were wearing, and slyly asking what they do for work.

Some of the coaching were beyond shady and straight up illegal. Local regulations required that we show our least expensive option to all clients. My bosses would instruct me to hide those options unless it was obvious the client couldn't afford anything else. Local regulations prevented me from making untrue statements. I was told to present our premium package that 15% of people purchased as "our most popular package". It was not. The cheap package was our most popular package, but also, most clients did not purchase a package as it was less expensive to just buy the things they wanted individually.

When I brought up that clients were unhappy, bosses would regularly tell me "So what? Are they going to go to X Funeral Home? Cause we own that one too." The entire focus was making the KPI numbers go up. I get that this is how corporations operate, but we were selling funerals not cars. It just didn't feel right.

My advice is to determine how important funeral services are to you. The modern day funeral is an idea crafted by funeral homes to make money. If you really like the idea, be prepared to pay for it, but don't feel like you have to. There's nothing wrong with organizing a small service on your own with you and close family. There's nothing wrong with not having a tombstone. Determine how important it is to you and don't let others pressure you into spending money on something you don't value.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I’ve asked my loved ones to throw me onto some rich guy’s yacht and give me a Viking funeral. But seriously it sounds like you worked for a bunch of vultures. Thanks for providing people with some information to help them avoid being preyed on at an extremely vulnerable time.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I used to think going out peacefully was the way to go, but nowadays I'm more in the camp of going out with a "bang".

[–] InfiniteStruggle 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The way we treat our dead, and the people coping with the grief of losing their loved ones is like number 2 on the sentience scale.

So practices like this, predation on recently bereaved family members is pretty much pulling the entire human civilisation backwards. It's barbaric, entirely unnecessary and completely incompatible with social living.

In a civilised society, such things would be abhorrent and the people involved would be ostracised, exiled from culture; engaging with them would have been taboo.

Good on you for leaving such a system behind. When we all subscribe to such value systems we will be far better off.

Why have you not yet named these corporations? Why have you not named your boss? You continue to serve these same interests with your silence. Shame on you for it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

I don't need to name the corporations because it's the entire industry that sucks. All funeral homes are private for profit corporations. None are better than another. To name one would be to excuse the rest. The funeral home you need to be wary of is the one you're using.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I liked the Speaker for the Dead from the Ender's Game series. Instead of some guy reading off fluff about how kind they were, how they would be missed etc, they had a position called Speaker for the Dead who would speak there.

Before the funeral event, the Speaker would be like a journalist, studying to learn and understand the person who had just passed. Then the eulogy would be more of a story of the person's life, what goals they pursued through life, etc. Explain why and who the person was. Felt kind of like the difference between just seeing the grumpy man in Up, and seeing the intro to the movie to see who he was through life and why he was grumpy now.

I wish our funerals were more like that. Let me see and understand the entire life that just ended. Let them have their story one more time.

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_ZOD_RUNES 19 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Who needs a funeral home or tombstone. I've told my family to burn me and not have a traditional funeral. I want them to spend the least money possible. Put me in a necklace, plant a tree, spread my ashes somewhere, whatever. Things that don't need to be done in a funeral home. It will be hard enough for them to go through losing their father/husband, last thing I want is to cause financial hardship.

(I'm by no means taking away from this story, it's terrible.)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (4 children)

FYI, cremation can still be expensive. If you are serious about spending the least amount of money possible, consider telling your family you'd like to be donated to science. But, do be aware, there can be some controversial things under the umbrella of "donated for science", and they'd have no control over what.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Can I donate my body to Disney animatronics?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Doesnt matter to me. Science can do whatever it wants with my meat when I'm through. Dissect it, preserve it, shoot it out of a cannon, stuff it and use it as a sex doll, it doesn't matter. It's not me at that point, it's just meat and bone. Although I'm probably an outlier, I never got the whole reverence for the dead thing. They're dead, literally nothing after that fact matters.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I just told my local cannibal he can have what's left after the organ donations. Waste not, want not.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

deleted by creator

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

This is my take however I would be ok with my body being used for organ donation and medical research. Apart from that I don't plan on hording any reelestate in my death.

[–] rc_buggy 2 points 8 months ago

I told my wife I'd be OK with anything up to and including the body farm but it's her call. She seems to be OK with donation to science but body farm is a step too far. I'm cool with that.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

On my best day this story will make me feel very sad. On a bad day I just really wish billionaires and those who aspire to be ones die (or get eaten)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My father passed in '21 we just got his headstone put in. $3700 and that was because we buried him in a private cemetery that belongs to my church and they don't have any INSANE requirements. We had to wait 8 months for the granite stone to come in from MFing Italy.

My boss's father passed and they buried him in a more... Conglomerate let's call it, cemetery and they had to buy the headstone specifically from their own people. Cost them 10k about!

It's such a freaking racquet!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

My grandmother recently died and she prearranged everything, from where the service would be, to the coffin, to the plot and headstone.

I dread at what the cost would be if we had ti pay out of pocket for all of this. She had an open casket, will be buried with her husband, and so on.

It is a racket, with my dad we had him cremated and aservice and I think it was about 3k if memory serves.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

I'm wondering when we're going to ask the big question, of whether or not burying people in a plot of land and putting up headstones is such a good thing.

Not only does it lay claim to massive amounts of land, but plenty of burial grounds have already been defiled - mostly because they were native American burial grounds...

But you know, Christian burials and the industry that exploits it.

Burry me at sea please. Let my body nourish the fishes.