m271
sb arms & legsThe #COVID19 lockdowns were the fork in the road. The communities of the world independantly huddled up - paused in a moment of dead sober reflection.
Down one path, the world joined forces to combine knowledge and worked together to eradicate a deadly virus, a threat to all mankind.
While they did so they noticed with extraction and manufacturing and transport running at a bare minimum, nature began to heal. We found a way out of the climate crisis, and proof that ecosystems can be restored - sometimes in short order.
We learned that we can cooperate and share information and tackle problems together. We kept it up, got real socialist with large-scale adoption of UBI, housing first, harm reduction, staffed & funded healthcare for free for all... the arms race ground to a halt. Nations set aside petty past problems in order to contribute to a livable planet for everyone.
The distribution of vaccines became equitable, available to all. Misinformed about them is a thing of the past. Food and clean water are made available to hungry communities.
Education flourishes. Bright minds solve real problems. Everyone prospers.
Down the other path, the billionaires realised the pandemic was the perfect time to enact a new world order, where they would - eventually - rule as technocratic dictators.
They took every precaution against covid for themselves, while forcing their own employees back into cramped offices with dirty air and no sick time.
They invented the most potent drug imaginable and called it Normal. The entire westernised world is instantly hooked. One intended side-effect is the inability to care about what your eyes and ears tell you, and allows your lips and fingertips to deliver the billionaires lies.
They kicked off a game of hungry hungry hippos - snatching up any value by any means. Gone is any ambition of any corporation providing anything of use any longer. Gone are the *fun* brands of our youth. Everything and every person becomes an ATM.
Billionaires became multi-centibillionaires. The very first trillion dollar company emerged - soon followed by a dozen more.
The claim of AI-now-AGI-soon was a perfect vehicle for moving around unfathomable amounts of cash. It also accelerated an already erroding public trust. It destroyed entire occupations, displacing many from jobs in an already tight market. It misused an devastating amount of natural resources, further damaging the environment.
The manufactures of end-user electronics stop doing so. General purpose computing stops. Only a few electronic devices are available to regular people. They are all surveillance devices that have familiar functions: phone, streaming tv...
Since the multi-centibllionaires own all the popular media/social media and have spent a fortune discouraging critical thinking, the majority of people inadvertently champion all of this. Their likes and shares and subscriptions fund it.
An alternative is too hard.
AZ Desert Swarm 🤖
GNU/Matt 
Marfisa
Ra
Hannah is trying to cope
ZachATK
FGarland
Justin du Coeur