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Original poster

Dystopia

37 replies

Ohbabybab · 17/12/2020 06:51

Anyone else starting to feel like we are never getting out of this? And that this is in fact ‘the new normal?’
After years of watching dystopia based films I couldn’t imagine how that would happen in real life. But it totally feels like that now.
Early this year I watched ‘years and years’ and here we are with our own tiers.
Before anyone says anything I know it’s for a purpose but I can’t quite get my head around how much we’ve changed as a society in such a short space of time.They are turning theatres in to courts... The fabric of what we know has shifted. Is there a possibility it won’t return?!
I was feeling positive about the new year with the vaccine etc but I think it’s going to be just more of the same!

OP posts:
Whatelsecouldibecalled · 17/12/2020 06:52

I’ve felt this for a long time

whymewhyme · 17/12/2020 06:54

I totally agree and i don't think it will ever go back to normal which i find very scary.

tootyfruitypickle · 17/12/2020 07:02

Why would it stay like this when there are multiple vaccines available? Of course it won't.

jomaIone · 17/12/2020 07:05

This is not going to be forever, come on! Vaccine is here, the NHS will not be overwhelmed, it's FINE

MummaBear4321 · 17/12/2020 07:10

Coronavirus will never go away. It's going to be part of life now and will kill people every year, but the vaccine will help, similar to how the flu vaccine reduces flu deaths every year by vaccinating against last years predominant strains.

There may be some remnants of this time, like reluctance to go to work sick, or masks in GPs and hospitals or very crowded places, but I think life will resume and most of us will accept the threat of the virus. Humans are surprisingly good at getting on with things over time.

RichardMarxisinnocent · 17/12/2020 07:23

@whymewhyme

I totally agree and i don't think it will ever go back to normal which i find very scary.
Why do you think it won't ever go back to normal? How would the economy survive if we stayed like this forever?
RedRiverShore · 17/12/2020 07:30

I'm just glad I'm quite old and have had the best years of my life, it will be like this from now on every time something new comes along, all risk is being taken out out of living ones life. Too much nowadays is being done through a screen and it will only get worse.

PoulePouletteEternellement · 17/12/2020 07:33

I was reflecting yesterday on how it now seems normal for pandemic management to be the major news story, continuously, day after day after day. Every thought and action at micro and macro levels, personal and global, is subsumed into this one thing.

If anyone had told us, last December, how this year would turn out ...

AllAussieAdventures · 17/12/2020 07:37

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten..." Robert Jordan.

"Normal" is ever changing.

Frouby · 17/12/2020 07:49

I've just read 1984. Wish I hadn't BUT dystopian fiction has always been a thing and always will be, just as utopian and apocalypse fiction is. It's the human condition to want to know how the world begins and how the world ends, and having dystopian fiction prevents us getting too hung up on utopian fiction.

Dystopian fiction feeds into our fears and insecurities about society and the way we formed our rules and norms. Once some of those norms disappear or are suspended we look at the other norms and worry they will go too.

We won't stay like this because the economy is struggling too much. A struggling economy helps no one, not even that elusive bunch of rich old me who apparently rule the world secretly.

MarshaBradyo · 17/12/2020 07:51

It would be very bad indeed without a vaccine

Tg we have one that works.

PicsInRed · 17/12/2020 08:02

This has always been simmering under the surface - a large minority could see it but were called insane, e.g. after 9/11 and the ongoing and ineffective security theatre. Now the "insane" call out this more urgent danger to our liberty and are again called insane (etc) in an attempt to silence them to thoughtless compliance. I'd be frightened if it wasn't predictable.

There is a minority of people with high anxiety and a need to control who have fixated on this and lost sight of the original end game - "save the NHS" and to prevent morgues in Hyde Park - never zero deaths or hospitalizations. That's what we need to contain - the mission creep.

11k people die of flu in an average year, even with a vaccine. Yet we don't lockdown. Once the vaccine is rolled out the the vulnerable, we need to open up or the economic damage will be unsustainable.

tinselearedcow · 17/12/2020 08:30

11k people die of flu in an average year, even with a vaccine. Yet we don't lockdown
Yes, and the NHS struggles every winter because of flu'. 63K + people have died of Covid in less than a year. Can you not see there is a slight difference between Covid and ‘flu or imagine what might have happened if the world hadn't locked down?

As long as the vaccines are effective, things will get better. We will never be rid of Covid but hopefully we will be able to control it.

MarshaBradyo · 17/12/2020 08:31

@tinselearedcow

11k people die of flu in an average year, even with a vaccine. Yet we don't lockdown Yes, and the NHS struggles every winter because of flu'. 63K + people have died of Covid in less than a year. Can you not see there is a slight difference between Covid and ‘flu or imagine what might have happened if the world hadn't locked down?

As long as the vaccines are effective, things will get better. We will never be rid of Covid but hopefully we will be able to control it.

Yes after the vaccine figures will be much lower and we’ll go back to normal

But we needed the vaccine

countrygirl99 · 17/12/2020 08:34

We also need to hold the government to account for the state of the NHS in every winter. And had answer for that not masks or distancing bu better resources.

Cornettoninja · 17/12/2020 08:42

lost sight of the original end game - "save the NHS" and to prevent morgues in Hyde Park - never zero deaths or hospitalizations

You do realise that has been an ongoing task? We’ve never stopped needing to be proactive about preventing large numbers hospitalisations and deaths. We had a reprieve over the summer due to the weather and managing to contain numbers during the spring lockdown but there’s never been a declaration that it’s all over and done with. In fact it’s been clearly spelt out time and time again winter would be difficult.

There are currently 80 inpatients in my hospital requiring treatment for covid. 80 people all in hospital for exactly the same thing. That just doesn’t happen with any other illness; and that’s with restrictions.

We absolutely will need to live with covid long term, but not with our current widespread vulnerability to it. We simply cannot cope with that and there isn’t a country on the planet that can.

Pandemics happen, there’s plenty of historical evidence, the one thing that rings true for all of them is that despite the havoc they wreck they all end and life goes on.

Expecting it all to be done and dusted in a few months is beyond naive. Nature doesn’t work to our preferred timescales. This is really, really hard but it’s not dystopian; it’s a global disaster.

ApolloandDaphne · 17/12/2020 08:46

I have been saying for ages that it feels like I am living in a dystopian novel. I find it hard to accept that much of our liberty has been taken from us and the government now controls who I can see and where I can see them.

ATieLikeRichardGere · 17/12/2020 08:51

It would be more dystopian if the government were competent at controlling us but thankfully they are totally inept.

AHippoNamedBooBooButt · 17/12/2020 09:05

I had a moment last night where I get exactly like you OP. But then I reminded myself that this is not the first pandemic on epidemic - we survived the bubonic plague, small pox, Spanish flu etc and life did return to normality after each of these. Just like in other countries - SARS, MERS, Ebola etc, they didn’t hit the UK but the countries they did hit did return to normal afterwards. Life will go back to normal, maybe not next year, but before we know if, COVID will be a thing of the past

Waxonwaxoff0 · 17/12/2020 09:08

We will go back to normal. We have a Tory government, you don't think getting the economy back on track is a priority for them?

MarshaBradyo · 17/12/2020 09:11

If course we’ll go back to normal

With 95 or 99% whatever it was deaths gone - and associated mortality and hospitalisation rate - there is no need to continue

If you think there is switch up your SM reading

PicsInRed · 17/12/2020 10:54

@tinselearedcow

11k people die of flu in an average year, even with a vaccine. Yet we don't lockdown Yes, and the NHS struggles every winter because of flu'. 63K + people have died of Covid in less than a year. Can you not see there is a slight difference between Covid and ‘flu or imagine what might have happened if the world hadn't locked down?

As long as the vaccines are effective, things will get better. We will never be rid of Covid but hopefully we will be able to control it.

I'm not saying covid is flu. Of course not.

I'm saying that when we have a vaccine rolled out to the vulnerable we need to open up.

bluetongue · 17/12/2020 11:44

I’m in Australia and as great as it is that Covid has largely been kept at bay (apart from Melbourne) I do worry that we will be one a victim of our own success.

We were told that we would just need to wait until a vaccine. Now there are a number of vaccines coming, but because we don’t know if they actually stop infection with the virus the goalposts have been moved. We can’t go back to ‘normal’ or travel overseas until most of the country has been vaccinated.

BlueBlancmange · 17/12/2020 11:45

@tinselearedcow

11k people die of flu in an average year, even with a vaccine. Yet we don't lockdown Yes, and the NHS struggles every winter because of flu'. 63K + people have died of Covid in less than a year. Can you not see there is a slight difference between Covid and ‘flu or imagine what might have happened if the world hadn't locked down?

As long as the vaccines are effective, things will get better. We will never be rid of Covid but hopefully we will be able to control it.

Yes. I'm not sure why some one who talks about being able to see things more clearly than most, can't see this obvious fact. Unless they are one of the people who think it is not a fact and that Covid is all some kind of hoax, but they haven't stated that.
BlueBlancmange · 17/12/2020 11:47

@ApolloandDaphne

I have been saying for ages that it feels like I am living in a dystopian novel. I find it hard to accept that much of our liberty has been taken from us and the government now controls who I can see and where I can see them.
It is ultimately the virus that dictates what is and isn't safe.