DYSTOPIA
( a society in which social or technological trends have culminated in a greatly diminished quality of life or
degradation of values).
Dear guest from outer space,
Hopefully this letter finds you in good form. We are obliged to you for replying favorably to our
invitation, but feel we must inform you of the astonishing situation on our planet earth, your landing
ground.
We are confident you will marvel at the sight of our continents, volcanoes, oceans, multicolored
landscapes dotted with shiny plastic, sprinkled with nuclear power plants spouting clouds, our single crop
farming, our horizons blocked by bourgeoning cities scraping the sky. It will not be immediately evident,
but we can affirm that climate change today has opened a passage through formerly ice bound areas,
allowing occupation of defrosted land, and thus permitting production. This is vital. As is consumption.
Certain examples in Dystopia will more fully illustrate these comments. Above all, please note that, in a
magnanimous gesture, anesthetized humanity is subscribing to a consume- and- be- happy insurance policy
and preparing its suicide.
We must warn you. You have come from afar, on a long voyage. Sidereal time could legitimately cause
delay. Instead of our civilization, you may discover bones and ruins. We apologize in advance for the
inconvenience and hope the stench will have disappeared.
Your system undoubtedly functions differently from ours. In order to clarify matters, avoid astonishment
and prolonged historical research on the causes of the disappearance of civilization on Earth, allow us to
describe the recipe currently in vogue: collective suicide by mutual unconscious consent. This method
could potentially be of use to you should a situation similar to ours occur: uncontrollable demography,
hence engendering surplus population. Those in charge of the suicide coordinate the disappearance of
those who have perished and theirs in turn should they so desire. The procedure requires time and daily
mental exercise to master the acceptable form of submission. Once the process is underway, the rest is
mere routine.
May we insist upon the role of debt? Banking and finance – the instruments of destruction - cannot
develop without debt. How, otherwise, turn a pig or grain farmer, a vegetable producer, into a robot
dependent upon funds he does not possess? Indeed, you may not be aware of the fact that true economic
exchange generated by labor has disappeared long ago, and been replaced by a global economy based on
finance. Political or social projects have disappeared. The vocabulary no longer exists. It occasionally
crops up in out-of-print books, cross word puzzles or television gags. Dystopia uses a visual approach to
illustrate the situations resulting from the mechanisms at work on our planet. The examples are infinite.
The entire procedure is pre-arranged.
The process has worked for decades and improves daily, speeding up the effects. The following is a résumé
for you, inhabitant of the edges of cyberspace, area of flash mediation:
1. Technocratic control of production and consumption. Employment and labor are invoked in
exaggerated manner so as to arouse guilt in individuals reticent to follow the rules.
2. Launching of an information campaign about obligatory-consumption sprinkled with causes for
fear. Focus is upon the target for consumption, eliminating less profitable objects as either nonconsumable or dangerous.
3. Placing overdosed products and over-dimensioned machines on the market, reputed efficient and
secure, and presented as the sole solution. Thereafter, proof is produced indicating these products
as polluting, or even destructive, in order to propose a cure. Exploit the technique to a maximum.
The entire operation bears the epithet of “sustainable development” and requires the creation of a
Ministry.
4. Confiscation of the common good, patenting and launching on the market in limited quantities all
living matter for purposes of speculation. (On our planet, this is a long, tedious procedure, since
human beings appeared at a time when biological diversity was at a peak, difficult to deplete. Only
30% of species have disappeared since the beginning of the anthoropocene. A small amount.
Perhaps your environment is a richer terrain for speculation.)
5. Bypassing lawmakers in order to pass legislation forbidding free use of the common good. No
misgivings about punishment for lack of cooperation; an occasional liberal lawmaker could crop
up and foil the collective suicide by mutual unconscious consent plot.
6. Invention of a suitable vocabulary for use in all centers of education, from primary school to
university. We will spare you the detailed list, but it goes without saying that reference to a generic
domain as “sustainable development” is part of it. Here are some examples: the vigorous campaign
against (PNPP) * “natural products of little concern” attempting to block free exchange of nettle,
horsetail or comfrey slurry is a subject of particular concern to us. We seek a more suitable
expression than common good to define what leads to a detestable autonomy of thought and action.
If you have an idea, let us know.
7. Wide coverage in the media to establish institutionalized neurosis. We have set up a MIP **
(Module of initiative in publicity) giving priority to the most inventive research fellows, graphic
designers for their seductive propaganda proposals. Candidates do not lack. The most imaginative,
skillful at diversifying the message, are selected.
Once the system is set up, debt follows automatically. Founding a company or farm of any sort, too
expensive to finance independently, presumes a loan, with a contractual engagement to reimburse at a high
interest rate. Only the compensations offered by the system eliminate the taxes. A manager, a farmer cannot
obtain support without obeying instructions as to what to produce. He is now officially a performing robot,
manipulated for life. If the contractual agreement is ignored, he cannot reimburse. In case of failure, the
solution is suicide. Elementary.
We refer in this case to individual, personally determined suicide .But the “super suicide”, the ultimate
menace to our civilization – to humanity – does not emerge from the holocaust created by the victims
themselves. The “super suicide” is organized by a small group of agents of destruction on the planet, less
than 10% of the population, according to experts. They act freely in the name of obscure economic
arguments in spite of the awakening consciousness of some citizens to the ecological viewpoint, repeated
incessantly by exhausted ecologists.
Thus, kind visitor from space, you may judge for yourself the effectiveness of the strategy.
A few points must be clarified. For example, the serious problems of sharing water. You are perhaps
unaware of its importance. Maybe water, where you come from, is not of vital necessity. You may not have
water at all and not be dependent. .You will realize upon landing our need for it and obligation to share
which may in the end result in the disappearance of both the organizers and the victims of the collective
suicide by mutual unconscious consent. This is both appalling and inacceptable.
We are all in the same boat: the same rain falls on the heads of rich and poor. This, perhaps, is our weak
point: attempts to control climate and manipulate the clouds have all failed. Are we equal before water?
Water is around and within us. It conditions our existence and appears in multiple forms: liquid, snow, ice
humidity in the atmosphere. The biosphere is a thin film permeated with water surrounding the planet.
Without it, no life can exist. The water we drink has been previously absorbed by plants, animals and
humans, evaporated, and discharged into the ground or the atmosphere. We are in the same washtub. All
finishes in water: the collective results of our daily activities terminate and collect in the ocean or the air.
What better trap than poisoned water? A magnificent, ultimate weapon. How to avoid this deadly deluge?
A drop of water is the technical result of an accumulation of micro-droplets which fall due to their weight
under the influence of gravity. Each droplet is formed by the condensation of humidity upon an “impurity”.
It is not only H2O, but a “programmed” liquid. Life, conditioned by water, is directly tied to this
information. Fertilizer, food or poisonous water can fall. All depends upon what is in the atmosphere. From
this point of view, we can boast progress: we can easily empoison the air, hence water. But the problem is
not necessarily solved. We cannot separate water between rich and poor.
Examples appear in this letter explaining the system in charge of the collective departure: a practical
method for reaching the last lap of life on earth. The process is already used by doctors practicing legal
euthanasia by administering lethal doses of poison.
But is humanity truly at the end of its existence?
The question comes up regularly. Hardly a symposium takes place on the “environment” (strange
expression for describing the area in which we are immersed) during which the subject does not come up.
We would appreciate your viewpoint as an outside observer capable of deciding whether we should
continue to prepare for our disappearance.
Obviously, there is a state of emergency. We would not have bothered you, guest from outer space, had
your opinion not appeared vital. We await you impatiently. Given the present state of affairs, you seem our
only hope for the future. Collective suicide by mutual unconscious consent has only been partially
satisfactory.
The collapse of Dystopia?
Is it possible?
Attain Utopia?
Is it possible?
In advance, we are grateful for your help: you come from so far, and we have waited so long.
*Produits Naturels Peu Préoccupants
** Modules d’Initiatives Publicitaires