Day Zero (Sea of Rust, #0)

by C. Robert Cargill

They were pining for an era that had died several generations before, both dependent on the social safety net and angry at it for not allowing them to be dirt poor on their own terms. With the advent of automation and AI, the Western world found itself transformed from a disparate sea of the working poor to a flood of the unremarkable, staring at video screens filled with shows telling them that they weren’t responsible for their lot in life—that it was the robots who robbed them of their opportunity, not their own lack of motivation or ability.

Normal is just the idea that whatever messed-up or otherwise insane things going on around you are acceptable to maintain whatever comforts you’ve cobbled together for yourself.