memes

We are NOT in a fully-automated sex-positive polygamous future with leadership that acknowledges society’s problems and places its best and brightest towards a solution

In fairness, neither were they. A bunch of the "automated" aspects of society were simply systems nobody knew how to operate that were left on autopilot. The administrators rose through the ranks by being Yes-Men and insisting broken systems were operating as intended. Spraying your crops with gatorade is only an "automation" in the most literal sense. It isn't how a "fully-automated" society is intended to operate.

Further, the whole jail system plus subsequent courtroom drama illustrated the dogmatic resistance to change and zero-tolerance for risks inherent in any change, resulting in a highly sclerotic society. It was only able to change when faced with a sudden catastrophic food crisis.

one where free speech is so alive you can even name your restaurant “Buttfuckers” and no one’s even slightly offended, one where even the least educated people in our society can get good quality high-paying jobs in everything from the arts to medical, one where sex work is no longer demonized and is considered so valid a profession that you can get your ass rimmed at Starbucks while waiting for your coffee.

Hyper-commoditization and exploitation of labor isn't liberation, its slavery. What you're describing is a cultural shift, not a relaxation of bigotry (which - again, referencing the courtroom scene - was in full abundance) or absence of elitism (characters regularly derided one another's intelligence while deferring to the violence of authority figures) or a flattening of incomes (the intro scenes of the future were full of poverty, kept in check by a murderous police force).

And I don’t understand why people think we have it anywhere near that good.

The show was a cartoonish reflection of modern day. It wasn't intended to suggest we have it better or worse, but to parody how things were in the present.

Even the depiction of the present illustrated huge social failures - institutional corruption, political inertia, misappropriation of resources, the false choice between careerism and hedonism - that metastasized over the intervening era into comically exaggerated state.

But people fixate on the first five minutes. And they really fixate on the idea of eugenics implicit in those first five minutes. This is precisely because the same set of smug, elitist, know-nothing oligarchs reflected in the movie are consuming it and taking away the most backwards and regressive messages.