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Our rulers take so very much, and give us so very little.
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Sure, plutocrats are killing our biosphere, but hey, at least they're creating technology
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that lets you avoid the cognitive discomfort of writing your own words and thinking your
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Sure the empire is butchering human beings at horrifying scale around the world, but on
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the bright side it's creating refugees who will move to your country and bring you treats
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that you can order from an app on your phone.
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Sure imperialist extraction is robbing the resources and exploiting the workers of the global
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south at extortionate fees, but on the other hand you get to wear a new outfit every day
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because the clothes you ordered online are dirt cheap thanks to transcontinental slave
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Sure our rulers are rapidly caging us in a digital surveillance network of ever increasing
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intrusiveness and control, but golly gosh they keep giving us all these nifty free social
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media platforms that we simply cannot stop ourselves from scrolling through for some reason.
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Sure capitalism is driving us toward collapse on multiple fronts while everyone gets
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sicker, poorer, dumber, crazier and more miserable, but hey look McDonald's is bringing back
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Sure it's only a matter of time until we find ourselves policed by armed robots and facial
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recognition murder drones and praying the government AI doesn't shut off our digital money because
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our eyes lingered a bit too long on an anti-Israel meme, but at least we get to have fun placing
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polymarket bets on the next country the United States is going to bomb.
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They take so very very much and we trade it away for so very very little.
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They steal our wealth, strangle our ecosystem and incinerate our future and in return they
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give us bread and circuses that are just affordable enough to stop us from chopping off heads.
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They exhaust us, abuse us, indoctrinate us, distract us, desensitize us, confuse us, overload
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us, misinform us and gas light us, and in exchange we get a hundred overpriced streaming
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services to choose from and a thousand types of toothpaste.
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They're making our world worse and worse and they're making us worse as individuals too.
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They're poisoning our minds and darkening our hearts, killing our conscience and amputating
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Is sucks to live in the shadow of the empire.
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There's nothing natural or healthy about this dystopia.
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And they're getting it practically for free, a little propaganda, a sprinkling of mindless
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entertainment and a few treats, and we give them a whole planet to rape.
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They're getting all the most vital parts of our world and all the most sacred parts
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of ourselves for a song.
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We can't keep letting them do this to us.
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We've got to wake up.
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Sometimes saying this feels as futile as imploring a loved one to leave their cult or break up
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with their abusive partner for the ten thousandth time.
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But that is what needs to happen.
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And people do leave cults.
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People do exit abusive relationships.
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It only happens when they're ready and it's got to come from them.
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Here's hoping we find some way to leave our abusive relationship with the empire before
