A Boring Dystopia

16545 readers

583 users here now

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

Rules (Subject to Change)

--Be a Decent Human Being

--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title

--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article

--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.

--Posts must have something to do with the topic

--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.

--No NSFW content

--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

givesomefucks@lemmy.world

682

Thousands could be coerced into "unpaid labor" in Louisiana under new bill | HB 211 would make sleeping outdoors in public illegal and force unhoused people to "choose" between prisons and workhouses (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by stabby_cicada@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

131 comments fedilink hide all child comments

“HB 211 is a debt trap. It creates a population of people who are, by definition, unable to pay. And then converts that inability into a labor obligation,” Michael Ryan, a finance expert and founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek. “The ‘streets to success’ framing is deliberate misdirection. No legitimate treatment program requires the patient to work off their bill under threat of incarceration."

I'm morbidly fascinated by how carefully this article avoids using the obvious term. But slavery. It's slavery. It is a bill that would literally, legally, enslave a population (of predominantly Black men, fucking surprise) for the "crime" of being poor.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No this is still just capitalism. This was standard practice until the 1930s in the US and UK.

[–] backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 13 points 1 day ago

Among the many things that is failed to be taught in US schools is how much of the early colonial populations were the impoverished/mentally ill/unhoused of England that basically got exiled for pretty crimes in order to be shipped out and populate the colonies, or were offered passage in the hope of a better life but at a cost they could never payoff because the structure favored perpetual indentured servitude. It never goes away, they just figure out new ways to rig the system whenever one form of it becomes too difficult to maintain. The masses get the illusion of progress or change, but it’s the same game updated to match the sensibilities of the era.