HENDERSON, NV—Solemnly nodding in agreement as they took turns speaking, each person engaged in an intense dinner conversation at a local restaurant Tuesday was reportedly under an entirely different impression as to which of the world’s horrific news stories they were discussing.According to sources, the four friends emphatically concurred that everything was really bleak these days and that something urgently needed to be done, despite the fact that each visualized completely separate problems and potential solutions to those problems. Reports indicated that while the friends did not actually discuss the same topic even once, they vigorously agreed that they’d never seen it this bad. “I’m just so goddamn fed up with all this,” Gina Small, 29, said in a comment on the U.S. economy that one of her friends assumed was about the world’s ongoing humanitarian crises, another friend thought was about the weaponization of America’s military against its own people, and a third believed was about the sickness and death caused by the devaluing of medical science. “I honestly don’t know what we can do about it, but something’s gotta change.”“And not tomorrow, but today,” added Small, her friends murmuring in assent as if their individual concerns were what was weighing heavily upon the entire group. “Soon it’ll be too late, if it isn’t already.”The conversation is said to have progressed with each member of the group privately contemplating a totally different appalling situation while saying they were increasingly ashamed to be an American. Through their completely independent considerations of extrajudicial killings in international waters, the misery and starvation brought about by slashing foreign aid, the peril of isolation after abandoning crucial longstanding alliances, and the danger to global democracy posed by the coddling of fascist strongmen, the four friends separately came to the conclusion that they no longer even recognized this country.“I have no idea what’s going to become of our personal freedoms,” said Kevin Aguilar, 30, whose statement referred to crackdowns on nonviolent protest but was interpreted by the others as addressing either threats to safe and legal abortion, the government-ordered censorship of college curricula, or the abuse of the justice system to target perceived ideological enemies. “And where are we without those? I just don’t know.”Sources reported that Aguilar—the only one of the four friends reflecting on the potential of AI fakery to sow mistrust rather than the tendency of traditional media to champion artificial balance over truth, the alarming mainstreaming of once-fringe conspiracy theories, or the corrosive effect of social media silos on a shared understanding of reality—then wondered aloud if, in fact, it was even possible to know anything at all anymore.For four very different reasons, the group then enthusiastically agreed that this shit was getting scary.Later on, and without in any way referencing how gerrymandered states dilute the influence of individual voters, how powerful monied interests self-servingly manipulate government policy, or how voter suppression tactics compromise free and fair elections, Paul Krueger, 33, reportedly said, “But what the hell are we supposed to do when regular people have no voice in how things are run?” Sources later confirmed that Krueger had actually been thinking of how the antiquated Electoral College all but eliminated a majority of Americans from the presidential voting process, and that he had mistakenly believed his friends were thinking likewise.Reports indicated that the closest the four friends came to aligning in their discussion was at the very end, when Aimee Levin, 28, said there was still a reason for hope despite everything going on, and the other three all privately thought she was fucking nuts. The post Everyone In Conversation Under Different Impression As To Which Horrific News Being Discussed appeared first on The Onion.