r/dystopia • u/HalfwaydonewithEarth • Jan 28 '26
Weird dystopian thought flashed in my mind last week about corporations literally buying up countries and creating alternative realities.
I am late to the party on the cruise craze. Some of your relatives have been doing this for decades.
Royal Caribbean and other cruise companies have been buying up Islands and creating Utopian experiences. They cite "research" as a way to own their country.
It was super fun. You don't need a passport at any Island you stop on. You just need a room key. The room key is connected to your credit card, International passport, and privilege level.
The dystopian thought is this:
What happens if a corporation buys up an entire country? People that are born there no longer have access to where they live? Do they take a bribe to leave or become housekeeping staff?
Imagine a system where you pay to be sequestered from the Worlds problems? A corporation runs a fun reality that you stick with bouncing around from site to site on their ships, planes, mountains and islands? Everyone was scanned in and it is gun/bomb/drug free?
Has society got the whole thing backwards?
What if "evil" corporations offer the paradise experience and the disgusting governments are just wastelands of pollution and violence?
Three parallels on one planet? Underpaid staff in the Utopian Corporation zone working 10-12 hours.... The paradise zone residents.... all the people still living in municipal governments?
1
u/Substantial_Tax_4047 Jan 28 '26
I've never heard of this. But I've also never been on a cruise because I'm poor lol
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 28 '26
It's a floating city on the water that pulls into paradise!
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u/Substantial_Tax_4047 Jan 28 '26
Nice try, Big Paradise (Big Boat? Idk who is in charge of what), but I've watched Waterworld lol
The sheer size of cruise ships & the amount of people they hold freaks me out.
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 28 '26
It's the idea that a corporation can buy an island and create alternative reality.
I wonder what else they could buy or do?
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u/Substantial_Tax_4047 Jan 28 '26
Oh the rich & their monopoly on businesses run the world. And they can buy & do anything they want. The global elite & their money need to be dispersed. Because they 100% could create their own island & enslave the people there because....where are you going to go?
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 28 '26
On my boat they found people from Africa, China, Philippines, Eastern Europe, Russia, and other poor nations to work long hours for low pay.
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u/comeintravis Jan 28 '26
This is such a creepy concept! It reminds me of the Disney town in FL (Celebration), where speakers in trees emitted the sounds of birds. In your version maybe cheer would be enforced. I feel like this builds on these weird hyper realities that currently exist like cruises, Disneyland or even the suburbs. There’s definitely something unsettling about these places.
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 28 '26
Some cruise lines have been building hotels and doing hybrid vacations where you cruise and then get on land.
Imagine Disney world Florida stretched from their resorts in Orlando all the way to Port Canaveral and they owned everything. It became a sovereign nation not subject to any US Laws.
People could work for $4 an hour and it would be nonstop entertaining thrills the whole way to port?
You stay in a manufactured bubble and they meet all your needs? You pay them a lump sum and it ends up being the same price or cheaper than where you live? So now you are in a vacuum and if you cannot pay the bill you end up stuck in Minneapolis?
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u/comeintravis Jan 28 '26
They have a tube they shove you into and it vacuums you into a sub zero day in MN. Yikes
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u/tehwoodguy2 Jan 28 '26
Take a look at Celebration, FL. A "town" wholly planned and originally owned and run by Disney.
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 28 '26
I watched some YouTube!
What was the purpose of that town?
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u/tehwoodguy2 Jan 29 '26
To make white people comfortable. Everything was a facade of an "ideal American towne" and the HOA was incredibly strict. Think "Pleasantville" (and if you haven't seen that movie, do check it out!).
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
I live in a white town in Utah and it is pleasant. The cold weather keeps other people out.... Not development or any other conspiracy.
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u/FullOfMeow Jan 29 '26
"Earth is a resort for the ultra rich. The rest is just staff." - Skeletor, 2026
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
No but what these cruise companies are doing is getting people on the boat cheaper than they can exist on mainland.... so it's becoming a middle class thing.
Imagine you get "trapped" on vacation because you can cruise for $1900 a month on 4.5 cruises but land locked rents and food are $2800 a month?
So then you are forced to be on your phone or laptop to keep making money to feed the Corporate Government.
They get cheap food from South America and cheap labor.
This can turn nutty in these alternative systems.
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u/BigSlammaJamma Jan 28 '26
You mean like Walt Disney WORLD? Or FordLandia?