"No, Dystopian Sci-Fi Isn’t Bad for Society. We Need..." Topic

… It More Than Ever.

"Yes, the future freaks us out.

That much of Michael Solana's recent op-ed in this space is undoubtedly true. With widespread surveillance, the militarization of police, the stockpiling and application of data detailing minute aspects of our lives, our lives are increasingly dominated by technology—the workings of which the average citizen doesn't fully understand, much less has control over. Wealth gaps, global warming, and seemingly boundless intolerance give us good reason to wonder how much time humans have left before we completely annihilate ourselves—and that's a terrifying, heartbreaking sentence to type, no matter how many times other people have typed it.

But Solana's accusation that an influx of dystopian science fiction as guilty of somehow exacerbating this fear is troubling. Dystopian fiction mimics what it actually feels like to be in the world, so if it ends up scaring people, well, that's because the world is scary…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Mega city One seems so much closer now than in the 90's when I was reading 2000AD.

Today I watched a video by GPG Grey on youtube. 'Humans need not apply'.

Its about the 'automation revolution' and how it will put alot of people out of work.

I really should hunt out a copy of 2000AD 'America' it was a good read 20 years ago and I wonder how it holds up today.

Very good points. One of the things some people overlook when they talk about dystopian sci-fi is that it really isn't about a post-apocalyptic setting; it's really about how some Big Brother entity subtly controls, restricts, or warps the thoughts and actions of the populace it is over. If you think of Logan's Run or THX-1138, those people were generally happy, not living in terror (except for a few individuals who could see through the illusion). It was really only the audience, looking in from the outside, who could perceive the problems and the true, more subtle nature of the injustices being perpetuated. This also harkens back to the fundamental nature of science-fiction; it's not about the science so much as it's about the people being affected by the science and how they react/adapt (David Weber's fiction being a notable exception, since it's all about the science).

In my mind, stories like Blade Runner, District 9, They Live, and John Christopher's Tripods trilogy are not really dystopian sci-fi, even though they are obviously futuristic stories with advanced technologies. Good dystopian sci-fi makes you look at the world around you and wonder if what's happening on the screen might be happening around the next corner, or right behind you, or… may have happened already and you never noticed.

I think good dystopian sci-fi is as relevant as ever, not because we have an insidious Soviet enemy to fear, but because of our own reactions to 9/11 and the increase in sophisticated global terrorism. I'm a gun-toting, right-wing, God-Mother-and-apple-pie, Libertarian hawk through and through, but even I can recognize the inherent changes in our society since Homeland Security became a real department and the NSA and CIA began doing whatever they feel like, Congressional oversight be damned. It's scary, just like so many excellent dystopian stories can be scary without ever resorting to slasher-style gore or overt violence. In many ways it's scarier, because the odds of a Giger-esque alien jumping out at you are precisely zero, but the odds of subtle and insidious mind-control being exerted by a well-meaning government or corporation (it's already happened, in fact -- in 1898, with the "yellow journalism" that helped foment the fervor that led to the Spanish-American War) are disturbingly high.

Glad you like the article my friend.
By the way, good thread!.

Amicalement
Armand