this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
172 points (98.3% liked)
Greentext
7991 readers
525 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
A lot of Westerners look at dictatorships and authoritarian states and cannot comprehend why the citizens would accept such a fate. The answer is: food, safety, housing, and cultural and religious homogeneity. People don't really care that much what the people in charge are doing as long as their life is good.
There's also the idea that since the system "works" it shouldn't be changed. IIRC Le Guin did some stories on a place called Omelas that explored a similar idea: there's this utopian city, but they chuck a child down a hole to suffer there, which for some arcane reasons is deemed as necessary. Once people learn of this, they either accept it as indeed necessary or (rarely) leave.
A utopia only works if everyone thinks of the same thing as being a utopian society, which people generally just don't.
Yes this is why democracy is messy. Everyone has a different preference for the pros and cons of policies.