A Utopia of Affnordable Comforts (From The Discordianist Manifesto)

Post date: 14-Sep-2018 20:54:55

A Utopia of Affnordable Comforts

Recently, I dreamed of Utopia.

Sugar-infused rain fell from the sky thrice daily. Ad-streaming digital screens covered every building’s interior and exterior walls. Roads were widened to accommodate the newest line of ever-enlargening Fnord Eco-Terraformer XLT Platinum MAX Unlimited Urban Assault Vehicles (seats 14 comfortably!). Children everywhere sat alone, perfectly silent and still, learning exclusively of hugs, friendship, and feelings from saccharine cartoon characters via mandatory Brain-Chip Entertainment modules. Water fountains dispensed nacho cheese. Vending machines sold guns and ammo. All clothes were bulletproof. Every purchase, no matter how major or minor, was made affnordable through an infinite number of easy monthly payments.

At age 16, every citizen was granted a motorized scooter to facilitate movement and sent to Disneyland for three weeks to finish their primary education. The Dyson Sphere that encompassed the Earth was fully air-conditioned by siphoning coldness from Mars. Brain-Chip Entertainment implants made Mind-Messaging ubiquitous, so no one had spoken any word aloud in decades. 99% of all direct communication took the form of Spamvertisements, and the remaining 1% consisted of memes and emojis. Premiere nutritionists across the globe named chicken nuggets the only necessary food group. Corporate citizens voted God as World President every election. Genitals were outlawed alongside all forms of physical exertion. AI algorithms produced all art. Every week was Shark Week.

In short, the people were happy.

All of these societal improvements came not through science and scholarship, but through financial competition. As each new creature comfort and safety feature became normalized, vast wealth expenditure enabled a steady stream of comfort and safety innovations. Our corporate citizens met our organic citizen’s wants and needs instantly. If any new want was identified, it was immediately invented, mass-produced, and delivered as the appropriate monetary amount was deducted from that citizen’s account (contingent upon availability of funds). If some new want or need contradicted a previously solved want or need, automated robots fought a brief civil war to determine which solution became The Correct Answer^TM.

Upon waking from this utopian vision (there is no prophet but profit), I stepped outside in time to see my neighbor across the street wheeling down his driveway in his electric scooter to retrieve the day’s spam mail. As he absentmindedly leafed through the pile of credit card offers, coupon books, and debt consolidation loan pre-approvals, I smiled knowing that society was progressing toward that beautiful dreamworld I had seen.

Exactly as it should be.