, Author at Dystopian Digest

Climate Risk May Someday Matter to Countries, Warns Extremely Polite Spreadsheet

12 mins

LONDON—In a bold act of understatement, Fitch Ratings announced this week that climate risk might become “increasingly important” to sovereign credit ratings, particularly as large portions of the planet become uninsurable, intermittently on fire, or underwater. To track this unfolding inconvenience, Fitch has unveiled Climate Vulnerability Signals (Climate.VS), a sophisticated tool that assigns countries a helpful number…

BREAKING: Planet Earth Declares Itself “Water Bankrupt,” Still Refuses To Cancel Pool Parties

25 mins

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS—In a bold new move that shocked absolutely no one who has ever looked at a drying riverbed, UN scientists announced this week that Earth has officially entered an “era of global water bankruptcy,” meaning the planet has been living beyond its hydrological means and is now emotionally, financially, and geographically underwater. According…

You Won’t Believe What Happened When I Interviewed a Clickbait Bot About the Internet (Paragraph 3 Will Actively Betray You)

36 mins

I sat down this week with a clickbait-bot (at least that’s what it introduced itself as) though it asked me to phrase it as “the Internet’s Most Honest Content Optimization Entity.” The interview took place in a browser tab I did not remember opening, beneath a headline that promised “Answers That Will Change Everything,” which turned out…

SATAN 2.0: WHEN THE DEVIL LOGGED ON AND GOD GOT A USERNAME

853 mins

Back in 1982, Jeremy Leven — psychiatrist, novelist, and part-time prophet of digital damnation — published Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S. In it, Lucifer didn’t show up with horns, hooves, or a blues riff. He booted up. The Prince of Darkness manifested as a computer. Behold: the Original Algorithm. Forty years…

BREAKING: Planet Earth Now Just One Big Campfire, Scientists Recommend Weenies, Marshmallows

1145 mins

Over the past week the headlines have been coming in like biblical plagues, if the Bible had been written by CNN’s breaking news ticker: Spain battles record wildfires even as the end of a heat wave brings lower temperatures Fire Season Is Starting Earlier Thanks to Climate Change, New Study Finds Four years after war…

In this week’s episode of Late Capitalism Theater, we proudly present: “Cat Bonds: Because Who Doesn’t Want a Front Row Seat to the Apocalypse?”

634 mins

Yes, friends, while sea levels rise, wildfires torch continents, and earthquakes toss cities like a toddler with a Lego set, Wall Street has cooked up yet another high-yield thrill ride for investors who like their portfolios shaken, not stirred—with a tsunami chaser. According to a paywalled Financial Times article that somehow managed to keep a…

Why the Dollar Might Collapse (and That’s Why It Won’t)

929 mins

In the wreckage of World War II, amid bombed-out cities and broken economies, the United States emerged as the world’s banker. The old gold standard, too fragile and limited for the rising demands of postwar global trade, was shelved. The dollar, backed by the U.S. Treasury and a well-armed smile, stepped in to assume gold’s…

And What Do You Call Your Act?

704 mins

A political consultant leans in close to a tired-looking voter in a swing state Waffle House and says: “Okay, here’s our act. First, we spend thirty years promoting the slow abandonment of the working class, privatizing everything Reagan didn’t get to, and apologizing every time the Republicans call us ‘socialists.’ We say ‘compromise’ but mean…

America to Science: “It’s Not You, It’s Us. We’re Seeing Other Beliefs Now.”

429 mins

By now, you’ve probably read that the United States—once famed for putting people on the Moon and inventing Pop-Tarts—is doing a rather enthusiastic job of canceling science. Not accidentally, like when you spill coffee on a lab notebook, but actively, gleefully, and with the sort of techbro gusto usually reserved for buying up a failing…

HELP! My Boss is an Algorithm and My Phone is Spying on Me: 10 Ways Your Job Turned Into a Black Mirror Episode and You Didn’t Even Notice

886 mins

Congratulations, worker!You’ve survived another day of employment under late-stage capitalism’s hottest new management trend: Surveillance as a Service™. Because when your employer said they wanted “full transparency,” they meant you—not them.We now present a very real, completely not terrifying at all guide to the brave new tools reshaping your workday, your bathroom break, and possibly…