14 ms·

Four Kinds of Dystopia

272 points by penfold 10y ago

danharaj 10y ago
Omelas deserves an honorable mention: a dystopia where a small minority are abused and forced to suffer in an otherwise pleasant society. It's already here.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Hardly dystopic. And, of course, if you find that state of affairs too immoral to be borne, you can always walk away.
- germinalphrase 10y ago
  At least they were forced at a young age to personally experience and acknowledge the underlying suffering that allows them to live in a plentiful society.
- jack9 10y ago
  I would say there's not 1 small minority, when there is multiple small minorities even within small communities that are (or feel they are) "suffering". Some groups are just imagining persecution as a proxy. A desire to control one aspect of their environment in contrast to their lack of control in other areas (e.g. biological constraints or economic position, etc).
- KirinDave 10y ago
  Western society is built around making other societies and the minorities within somewhat miserable. And the only way to escape this label is to make everyone better off, starting with the most unfairly treated.
- atrendyguy 10y ago
  In the west minorities and outsiders are treated as morally superior to natives. It's a pathologically "benign" civilization. How long do you think an Arab would last in Han dominated China if he constantly criticized the Chinese for "Han supremacy" and called for an end to their way of life? How long would a Han Chinese survive in Qatar behaving the same way? Ironically, the openness of western society has led to its constant attack by disgruntled minorities. Who realized long ago that complaining loudly wins them resources and privileges.
  - chillwaves 10y ago
    The values of inclusiveness and free speech bring inherent stability and progress to society. This is a feature, not a bug.
    - atrendyguy 10y ago
      > bring inherent stability and progress to society. I would classify this sort of thinking as "whig historiography." It's a popular meme, but there's no evidence that it's a good model of reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history Embracing "diversity is strength" feels good in an abstract sense, but it seems to fly in the face of evidence. The chaos and conflict brewing now are a direct result of this motto being played out over the last fifty years or so. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12802663 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1280266...
quantumhobbit 10y ago
I was going to complain about the absence of Bradbury's dystopia in Fahrenheit 451, but I guess it could be a combo of Huxleyan and Orwellian. Citizens were pretty free in a Huxley way to consume empty media but would get an Orwellian crack down if they stepped to far out of line and read literature.
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  At some point Bradbury said that Fahrenheit 451 was all about trying to not offend special interest groups. During the fifties he said that it is about the politics of the era. Go figure what a writer really had in mind.
germinalphrase 10y ago
I read PKD's "The Man in the High Castle" years ago, but that clearly doesn't fit within article's description. Can anyone recommend a novel/story that most clearly represents this version of dystopia?
- penfold 10y ago
  The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. A mind-blowing masterpiece of virtual dystopia, unbelievably prescient.
  - sjbase 10y ago
    Fantastic novel that'll continue aging well I think, esp. if we get more serious about putting civilians on Mars.
- akud 10y ago
  I would argue "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" does. The novel doesn't spend too much time focusing on the society, but, iirc, people spend much of their time with emotion-modulating machines. Also, "A Scanner Darkly" kind of hints that creating that kind of society is the goal of some nefarious forces.
- evo_9 10y ago
  Valis series is really what they are referring too. The books are about how a mad God is the creator of our universe and the real God has tried to force itself into our reality throughout history (Jesus, Buddha, etc), usually within the context of an oppressive government. This is probably clearest in the second Valis book - The Devine Invasion, though certainly these themes are present in Valis (book 1) and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (book 3). I would also note that these books are not a traditional 'series' in that beyond Valis being mentioned there is no direct connection between the stories.
  - mhink 10y ago
    Those are pretty solidly Gnostic themes, if I'm not mistaken?
cryoshon 10y ago
the concept of totalitarian democracy best reflects the present state of the US and a few other countries within the west. the US has elements of huxley, elements of orwell, elements of kafka, and increasingly, elements of the phildickian dystopias. there bottom line isn't quite captured by any of the above, though. the modern dystopia is defined by individual paralysis as a result of being overwhelmed the engineered political spectacle. it isn't that people are too happy to want change, nor are they too scared of death, nor are they immersed in paperwork, nor are they lost in cyberspace. they're too addled to envision a better world as anything other than a fantasy. people have been conditioned to think of the world as a stable equilibrium that is managed by their betters. in the mass imagination, the default is that the world runs itself as a result of the actions of power players who are unreachable by any of their individual or group actions-- the powers that be are on another planet, and raging against the machine on the planet that the masses live on doesn't accomplish anything. the gap between the individual and the top is simply too large to bridge in a single lifetime, and most people wouldn't have the first idea about where to start even if they were interested in reaching the "control room". that's what the impression is, anyway. the result of this passivity gives way to a culture of disconnection. politics are compartmentalized as "stuff that someone else does", and then compartmentalized even further into "stuff that happens that we as individuals shouldn't quarrel over because we can't effect it". these nested compartmentalizations within the public mind result in little action despite complaints and low standards of living. it's simply too much cognitive work to tear down the walls that are constantly socially enforced. south korea recently dumped their government via swarming the streets with millions of people until their demands were met. a similar strategy is unlikely to be executed in the US, however. the public is divided between those who still believe that they are politically empowered (the ascending right wing) and those who believe that the power elite are acting against everyone's best interest and there is no political force that can stop them (no political orientation has the monopoly on this group's membership).
- KirinDave 10y ago
  > there bottom line isn't quite captured by any of the above, though. the modern dystopia is defined by individual paralysis as a result of being overwhelmed the engineered political spectacle. it isn't that people are too happy to want change, nor are they too scared of death, nor are they immersed in paperwork, nor are they lost in cyberspace. they're too addled to envision a better world as anything other than a fantasy. I don't think this is the case at all in most of the west. In the US in particular, the Left's primary limiting factor is "how do we make a transition to better socioeconomic systems without further endangering the people that the current system hurts." This is a challenge that may not have an answer. And as for the Right, well, their principle limitation as we have seen is setting up an environment where they can obtain enough unilateral power to enact policies that benefit the minority they're interested in. And of course, we see elements of less strictly aligned ideology rippling around the US (it is a complicated place). > south korea recently dumped their government via swarming the streets with millions of people until their demands were met. a similar strategy is unlikely to be executed in the US, The last 8 years suggest that large scale protest action is becoming more common, not less. The mistake that big governments have given is allowing unlimited, virtual assembly of the masses as they see fit via the internet. The net result of this is that there's no practical break on internal cultural drift, and it's extremely easy to organize (or passively synchronize) efforts for maximum presence. The interesting feature of all these dystopias is a carefully mandated isolation and compartmentalization of the populace. That's precisely what we do not have. Tech, while contributing to a lot of economic problems around the world, has at least broken every social expectation and put us in a place that doesn't really fit these dystopian predictions. Which means we probably need a new one, but I don't think yours is it.
dpweb 10y ago
From the political point of view, would note the influence of war, which has decided the global winners and losers, more than just the idea the optimal systems always win. Particularly striking the idea among some smart military leaders that the post WW2 order is clearly breaking down, and its disintegration is unstoppable. That resulting instability is the most terrifying thing if you're a pacifist.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Particularly striking the idea among some smart military leaders that the post WW2 order is clearly breaking down, and its disintegration is unstoppable. Do you have any cites? It's my impression that the biggest threat to peace currently is the Middle East and Russia, but neither are new. Russia is acting out because it has a GDP the size of California and is isolated and the Middle East is...the Middle East. There's a lot of flexing but that's always happened and the US is a hegemon that really can't be challenged save a land war in Asia (hopefully we aren't that stupid). The Soviets were invading Afghanistan in the 1980s. It's foolish to say war can't happen, but things look ok from a geopolitical standpoint and historically. What countries really want to engage in war and disrupt the global economy?
  - atrendyguy 10y ago
    > Do you have any cites? Joe Biden says the:"Liberal international order is at risk." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_-iFOwxh20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_-iFOwxh20 Also "French Ambassador to the U.S. Gerard Araud foretold of a new world order. "After Brexit and this election, everything from now on is possible," Araud tweeted. "A world is collapsing before our eyes. Vertigo." "It's the end of an era, that of neoliberalism. What will succeed it, is yet to be known," Araud said in another tweet. Both tweets were later deleted." http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/world-reacts-trump-s-election-win-it-s-end-era-n681031 http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/world-rea... All of these people recognize that the post WWII world order is failing. There was no "end of history." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las... > What countries really want to engage in war and disrupt the global economy? Humans are passionate animals. We will wage war for ideology. We always have. And while some will lose [economically] others will profit. War is big business.
tangue 10y ago
for those who're seeking something else I would recommend Frank Herbert's Dune -which doesn't get much love on HN but fits perfectly in an AI post truth dystopia
- radicalbyte 10y ago
  Well said. Trump reminds me a lot of a certain character.
mtgx 10y ago
> modern, western, capitalist societies tend to be basically Huxleyan (HKP) and pre-modern, eastern, communist countries tend to be basically Orwellian (OKP). Let's not jump to conclusions. It's not too late yet for countries like the U.S. or UK to become Orwellian. Unless you want to argue that modern societies can regress to being pre-modern, and that's when they become Orwellian...
- zzzcpan 10y ago
  Yeah, you can't really classify a state by any of these dystopias. All states have the elements of all of them and can always shift from one to another. Kind of fluid dystopias.
ivraatiems 10y ago
An interesting and thorough categorization, but I take issue with the defeatism inherent in the concept. When the author says "I would like to suggest that all modern societies are both Kafkaesque and Phildickian with either a Huxleyan or Orwellian overarching framework; modern, western, capitalist societies tend to be basically Huxleyan (HKP) and pre-modern, eastern, communist countries tend to be basically Orwellian (OKP)," that is a premature conclusion, and one that should be challenged. Yes, many societies have aspects of various kinds of dystopias. Does that mean all those societies are dystopias, or that all technology which may enable certain kinds of dystopia is inherently bad? Further, are all forms of life which involve being an active participant in one's society or culture so necessarily just a way of explaining away one's participation in a dystopia? When we start categorizing the United States, for instance, as Phildickian-Huxlian-etc., we're doing so without answering the bigger question: Is the modern US a dystopia? Why or why not? If not, is it becoming more like one, and if that is so, what can we do to stop it? I think the author is using the term "dystopia" to describe "flawed modern societies," which is not really what it means. I'd be curious to know what the author thinks an ideal human life ought to look like.
- zzzcpan 10y ago
  Societies living under rule of any state are inherently dystopias.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    Definition of dystopia: an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. How is your assertion true under that definition, even if we strip out the "imagined" part? Can you provide an example of a society which would qualify as not being a dystopia under your version of the term's meaning?
    - zzzcpan 10y ago
      I don't like that definition, it's basically a dystopian definition of dystopia. If you believe that you live in a good place and that others are bad, totalitarian states, you wouldn't consider yours to be dystopian, somewhat ignoring that people living in other states might think the exact same thing about your state. Think of where these dystopias come from, what is the purpose of creating a dystopian rule. In these terms it's easy to make parallels with any modern state.
fvdessen 10y ago
Sometimes I think that we are seeing so many conflicting dreams of utopian societies, and so many conflicting dystopian descriptions of our existing societies that it makes us think our world is much worse than it really is, without any path on how to actually improve it, and that's why everybody's gloomy without a reason to be.
- psyc 10y ago
  It's all very subjective. Both dependent on attitudes, as you suggest, but also dependent on who the subject is: wretch, king, deposed king, and so on.
- ahartman00 10y ago
  I think the media has a lot to do with it. [1] "For mass media, insurance companies, Big Pharma, advocacy groups, lawyers, politicians and so many more, your fear is worth billions. And fortunately for them, your fear is also very easy to manipulate. We're wired to respond to it above everything else. " 1. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-were-living-in-the-age-of-fear-w443554 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-were-livin...
api 10y ago
Our society is something between Huxleyan and Kafkaesque. Ironic since most civil libertarians are mentally stuck on fearing Orwellian models.
Animats 10y ago
The dystopia we're getting is the one where most of the population can't generate enough wealth to justify their continued existence. Those are the people who voted for Trump. This is close to the Huxley model, but the 1960s writers who foresaw this future assumed it would come with a heavy dose of welfare. In many countries, it didn't. Think of this as the favela model. The poor are not exploited, merely irrelevant. Johnny Mnemonic (1995) rant on this.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1okpAj7Fhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1okpAj7Fhw
edblarney 10y ago
"Communism is to blame for their foodbanks and breadlines, but capitalism has nothing to do with ours (or vice versa)" Just read 10 or more pages of detail from Stalin's 'Communist' Russia, or visit Eastern Europe today where you see that it is still 'defrosting' from that era ... and you can safely dismiss this kind of moral relativism rubbish. The debate is long over: Capitalism with some degree of social intervention has won, hands down, over and over again. So many failed 'communist' states have embraced a degree of free markets, and have in almost every case improved the standard of living of most of their citizens. Most Western nations have some negative attributes of all of these 'Dystopias' surely, but none of us live in 'Dystopias'. :)
SFJulie 10y ago
The true dystopia is edotopia (edo = here in greek) - huxley: forcing on people to pretend to be happy and calling trolls everyone emitting a critic CHECKED - orwelian: the cloud & IT jargon is so 1984 I will not start on it: CHECKED - PkD: media manipulation and institutional lies: CHECKED - Kafka: well, because of scanners the stamps on my files get erased, and they ask my originals they loose, I will say personal CHECKED (and no Pratchett optimism to save the day) - Gulliver's travel: very underrated scifi dystopian precursor, but CHECKED too. - Vernor Vinge/Heinlein: conservative schlerozed regim where birth gives wealth and power: CHECKED SciFi as a critic of the modern world was born in the XIXth to overcome censorship (Montesquieu, diderot, voltaire, swift). The fact that once again fiction is more critic than intellectuals is a bad sign. The fact that it is obvious unemployment rate are ~25% in OECD (canada and USA included) when you take into consideration all the people that cannot pay for food, rents, heath without social help even when they have a job is WTF. And the fact people think that poverty, corruption is not their problem is really a new dystopia and it's there upon us. Fear edo-dystopia more than mytho-dystopia.
Apocryphon 10y ago
Cool taxonomy, but are there really only four types? Let's try with some examples. Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut - imagines a future where mechanical automation and IQ-optimized hiring leads to mass unemployment, but extensive welfare systems keeps the mediocre masses well-fed, just demoralized and without dignity. Combination of Huxleyan with Kafkaesque? The Handmaid's Tale - Orwellian with a pronounced patriarchal-religious emphasis Anthem by Ayn Rand - generic Orwellian with a primitivist/preindustrial Luddite version of Phildickian. (Actually, we run into a convergence there. Isn't Orwellian thought control simply the overt forcible version of Phildickian thought control, the latter is more indirect, subtle, and possibly not even enforced by the state but private actors and individuals? Both involve rewriting your mind to reject liberty.) Fahrenheit 451 - similar Phildickian rewriting of reality through both Orwellian (the firemen, the unspecified war in the background) and Huxleyan (parlor walls, overload of useless factoids) means. Atlas Shrugged - world/U.S. in the beginning is not totalitarian, but a generic degenerate socialist bureaucratic state in decline. Whether or not Galt's Gulch is totalitarian, and what type it is, can be left as an exercise to the reader. Neuromancer, Snow Crash, other classic cyberpunk works- not totalitarian, but heavy on the Huxleyan decadent consumerist society coupled with Phildickian distortion of reality themes. Brazil by Terry Gilliam - perfectly Kafkaesque. Would appreciate classification of some other classic dystopian totalitarian works, such as We by Zamyatin or even Animal Farm. Do any of them express totalitarianism in a way that breaks the four-type classification system?
- danielvf 10y ago
  Sure. Animal Farm - written by Orwell - is the prototypical Orwellian dystopia.
- notahacker 10y ago
  The most obviously missed type would appear to be dystopians characterised by extreme disparities between rich and poor, where the dystopic regime is generally so much better off than the underclass it doesn't need to bother with enforcing or influencing worldviews beyond basic security measures (much of cyberpunk, for example). Call it oligarchic dystopia; I'm not sure which author I'd give the credit to. Arguably there should be [post]apocalyptic dystopia in which the system of organization is the least of people's troubles, of which Anthem and whole subgenres of other books about a future humanity regressing to earlier technological and social states should belong. Don't think there's too much danger of We breaking the OP's classification system though: it was more or less the template for 1984 (Orwell did read it, and with hindsight his lukewarm review seems rather uncharitable) and as such is one of the earliest and purest examples of Orwellian dystopia.
deleted 10y ago
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novia 10y ago
Can someone suggest the books to read to experience a kafkaesque dystopia and a phildickian dystopia? I love dystopian novels.
- rainhacker 10y ago
  kafkaesque : The Trial by Franz kafka
  - novia 10y ago
    Thank you! In school we read Kafka, but it was The Metamorphosis. Any clue which Philip Dick books are dystopian?
    - cturner 10y ago
      Almost all of pkd is dystopian, but he really nailed brain-in-a-vat paranoia in a way few others had. That is what the writeup goes for. phildickian reads: ubik, andoids dream of electric sheep, time out of joint (kinda), scanner darkly, maze of death (kinda). Other: dr bloodmoney (post-nuclear), high castle (alternate history), radio free albemuth (kafkaesque becoming orwellian), screamers (robot conquest, with a paranoid twist)
      - novia 10y ago
        Fantastic! Thank you!
- r721 10y ago
  Kafkaesque: Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanisław Lem Phildickian: Idlewild by Nick Sagan
rainhacker 10y ago
I like the authors writing style. He describes himself in these 100 interesting points here: http://expressiveegg.org/2016/06/01/100-things-about-me/ http://expressiveegg.org/2016/06/01/100-things-about-me/
AlexisDT 10y ago
Not sure if these are meant to be accurate, complete summaries of the dystopias presented in each author's works, but if they are, these are woefully lacking. Key distinguishing features of Orwell's dystopia, for example, have been left out, such as utter lack of privacy; induced hatred of [fictional] common enemy; etc. Similarly, for Huxley, they left out state control of reproduction; cultivation of distinct/discrete social classes via genetic engineering and conditioning; elimination of meaningful interpersonal relationships via promotion of promiscuity and the demonizing of any non-surface-level interactions; etc. I'm sure there are more but these are just the first few that come to mind.
known 10y ago
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others);

272 points by penfold 10y ago

Omelas deserves an honorable mention: a dystopia where a small minority are abused and forced to suffer in an otherwise pleasant society. It's already here.

throwanem 10y ago
Hardly dystopic. And, of course, if you find that state of affairs too immoral to be borne, you can always walk away.
germinalphrase 10y ago
At least they were forced at a young age to personally experience and acknowledge the underlying suffering that allows them to live in a plentiful society.
jack9 10y ago
I would say there's not 1 small minority, when there is multiple small minorities even within small communities that are (or feel they are) "suffering". Some groups are just imagining persecution as a proxy. A desire to control one aspect of their environment in contrast to their lack of control in other areas (e.g. biological constraints or economic position, etc).
KirinDave 10y ago
Western society is built around making other societies and the minorities within somewhat miserable. And the only way to escape this label is to make everyone better off, starting with the most unfairly treated.
atrendyguy 10y ago
In the west minorities and outsiders are treated as morally superior to natives. It's a pathologically "benign" civilization. How long do you think an Arab would last in Han dominated China if he constantly criticized the Chinese for "Han supremacy" and called for an end to their way of life? How long would a Han Chinese survive in Qatar behaving the same way? Ironically, the openness of western society has led to its constant attack by disgruntled minorities. Who realized long ago that complaining loudly wins them resources and privileges.
- chillwaves 10y ago
  The values of inclusiveness and free speech bring inherent stability and progress to society. This is a feature, not a bug.
  - atrendyguy 10y ago
    > bring inherent stability and progress to society. I would classify this sort of thinking as "whig historiography." It's a popular meme, but there's no evidence that it's a good model of reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history Embracing "diversity is strength" feels good in an abstract sense, but it seems to fly in the face of evidence. The chaos and conflict brewing now are a direct result of this motto being played out over the last fifty years or so. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12802663 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1280266...

quantumhobbit 10y ago

I was going to complain about the absence of Bradbury's dystopia in Fahrenheit 451, but I guess it could be a combo of Huxleyan and Orwellian. Citizens were pretty free in a Huxley way to consume empty media but would get an Orwellian crack down if they stepped to far out of line and read literature.

MichaelMoser123 10y ago
At some point Bradbury said that Fahrenheit 451 was all about trying to not offend special interest groups. During the fifties he said that it is about the politics of the era. Go figure what a writer really had in mind.

germinalphrase 10y ago

I read PKD's "The Man in the High Castle" years ago, but that clearly doesn't fit within article's description. Can anyone recommend a novel/story that most clearly represents this version of dystopia?

penfold 10y ago
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. A mind-blowing masterpiece of virtual dystopia, unbelievably prescient.
- sjbase 10y ago
  Fantastic novel that'll continue aging well I think, esp. if we get more serious about putting civilians on Mars.
akud 10y ago
I would argue "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" does. The novel doesn't spend too much time focusing on the society, but, iirc, people spend much of their time with emotion-modulating machines. Also, "A Scanner Darkly" kind of hints that creating that kind of society is the goal of some nefarious forces.
evo_9 10y ago
Valis series is really what they are referring too. The books are about how a mad God is the creator of our universe and the real God has tried to force itself into our reality throughout history (Jesus, Buddha, etc), usually within the context of an oppressive government. This is probably clearest in the second Valis book - The Devine Invasion, though certainly these themes are present in Valis (book 1) and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (book 3). I would also note that these books are not a traditional 'series' in that beyond Valis being mentioned there is no direct connection between the stories.
- mhink 10y ago
  Those are pretty solidly Gnostic themes, if I'm not mistaken?

cryoshon 10y ago

the concept of totalitarian democracy best reflects the present state of the US and a few other countries within the west. the US has elements of huxley, elements of orwell, elements of kafka, and increasingly, elements of the phildickian dystopias. there bottom line isn't quite captured by any of the above, though. the modern dystopia is defined by individual paralysis as a result of being overwhelmed the engineered political spectacle. it isn't that people are too happy to want change, nor are they too scared of death, nor are they immersed in paperwork, nor are they lost in cyberspace. they're too addled to envision a better world as anything other than a fantasy. people have been conditioned to think of the world as a stable equilibrium that is managed by their betters. in the mass imagination, the default is that the world runs itself as a result of the actions of power players who are unreachable by any of their individual or group actions-- the powers that be are on another planet, and raging against the machine on the planet that the masses live on doesn't accomplish anything. the gap between the individual and the top is simply too large to bridge in a single lifetime, and most people wouldn't have the first idea about where to start even if they were interested in reaching the "control room". that's what the impression is, anyway. the result of this passivity gives way to a culture of disconnection. politics are compartmentalized as "stuff that someone else does", and then compartmentalized even further into "stuff that happens that we as individuals shouldn't quarrel over because we can't effect it". these nested compartmentalizations within the public mind result in little action despite complaints and low standards of living. it's simply too much cognitive work to tear down the walls that are constantly socially enforced. south korea recently dumped their government via swarming the streets with millions of people until their demands were met. a similar strategy is unlikely to be executed in the US, however. the public is divided between those who still believe that they are politically empowered (the ascending right wing) and those who believe that the power elite are acting against everyone's best interest and there is no political force that can stop them (no political orientation has the monopoly on this group's membership).

KirinDave 10y ago
> there bottom line isn't quite captured by any of the above, though. the modern dystopia is defined by individual paralysis as a result of being overwhelmed the engineered political spectacle. it isn't that people are too happy to want change, nor are they too scared of death, nor are they immersed in paperwork, nor are they lost in cyberspace. they're too addled to envision a better world as anything other than a fantasy. I don't think this is the case at all in most of the west. In the US in particular, the Left's primary limiting factor is "how do we make a transition to better socioeconomic systems without further endangering the people that the current system hurts." This is a challenge that may not have an answer. And as for the Right, well, their principle limitation as we have seen is setting up an environment where they can obtain enough unilateral power to enact policies that benefit the minority they're interested in. And of course, we see elements of less strictly aligned ideology rippling around the US (it is a complicated place). > south korea recently dumped their government via swarming the streets with millions of people until their demands were met. a similar strategy is unlikely to be executed in the US, The last 8 years suggest that large scale protest action is becoming more common, not less. The mistake that big governments have given is allowing unlimited, virtual assembly of the masses as they see fit via the internet. The net result of this is that there's no practical break on internal cultural drift, and it's extremely easy to organize (or passively synchronize) efforts for maximum presence. The interesting feature of all these dystopias is a carefully mandated isolation and compartmentalization of the populace. That's precisely what we do not have. Tech, while contributing to a lot of economic problems around the world, has at least broken every social expectation and put us in a place that doesn't really fit these dystopian predictions. Which means we probably need a new one, but I don't think yours is it.

dpweb 10y ago

From the political point of view, would note the influence of war, which has decided the global winners and losers, more than just the idea the optimal systems always win. Particularly striking the idea among some smart military leaders that the post WW2 order is clearly breaking down, and its disintegration is unstoppable. That resulting instability is the most terrifying thing if you're a pacifist.

aaron-lebo 10y ago
Particularly striking the idea among some smart military leaders that the post WW2 order is clearly breaking down, and its disintegration is unstoppable. Do you have any cites? It's my impression that the biggest threat to peace currently is the Middle East and Russia, but neither are new. Russia is acting out because it has a GDP the size of California and is isolated and the Middle East is...the Middle East. There's a lot of flexing but that's always happened and the US is a hegemon that really can't be challenged save a land war in Asia (hopefully we aren't that stupid). The Soviets were invading Afghanistan in the 1980s. It's foolish to say war can't happen, but things look ok from a geopolitical standpoint and historically. What countries really want to engage in war and disrupt the global economy?
- atrendyguy 10y ago
  > Do you have any cites? Joe Biden says the:"Liberal international order is at risk." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_-iFOwxh20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_-iFOwxh20 Also "French Ambassador to the U.S. Gerard Araud foretold of a new world order. "After Brexit and this election, everything from now on is possible," Araud tweeted. "A world is collapsing before our eyes. Vertigo." "It's the end of an era, that of neoliberalism. What will succeed it, is yet to be known," Araud said in another tweet. Both tweets were later deleted." http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/world-reacts-trump-s-election-win-it-s-end-era-n681031 http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/world-rea... All of these people recognize that the post WWII world order is failing. There was no "end of history." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las... > What countries really want to engage in war and disrupt the global economy? Humans are passionate animals. We will wage war for ideology. We always have. And while some will lose [economically] others will profit. War is big business.

tangue 10y ago

for those who're seeking something else I would recommend Frank Herbert's Dune -which doesn't get much love on HN but fits perfectly in an AI post truth dystopia

radicalbyte 10y ago
Well said. Trump reminds me a lot of a certain character.

mtgx 10y ago

> modern, western, capitalist societies tend to be basically Huxleyan (HKP) and pre-modern, eastern, communist countries tend to be basically Orwellian (OKP). Let's not jump to conclusions. It's not too late yet for countries like the U.S. or UK to become Orwellian. Unless you want to argue that modern societies can regress to being pre-modern, and that's when they become Orwellian...

zzzcpan 10y ago
Yeah, you can't really classify a state by any of these dystopias. All states have the elements of all of them and can always shift from one to another. Kind of fluid dystopias.

ivraatiems 10y ago

An interesting and thorough categorization, but I take issue with the defeatism inherent in the concept. When the author says "I would like to suggest that all modern societies are both Kafkaesque and Phildickian with either a Huxleyan or Orwellian overarching framework; modern, western, capitalist societies tend to be basically Huxleyan (HKP) and pre-modern, eastern, communist countries tend to be basically Orwellian (OKP)," that is a premature conclusion, and one that should be challenged. Yes, many societies have aspects of various kinds of dystopias. Does that mean all those societies are dystopias, or that all technology which may enable certain kinds of dystopia is inherently bad? Further, are all forms of life which involve being an active participant in one's society or culture so necessarily just a way of explaining away one's participation in a dystopia? When we start categorizing the United States, for instance, as Phildickian-Huxlian-etc., we're doing so without answering the bigger question: Is the modern US a dystopia? Why or why not? If not, is it becoming more like one, and if that is so, what can we do to stop it? I think the author is using the term "dystopia" to describe "flawed modern societies," which is not really what it means. I'd be curious to know what the author thinks an ideal human life ought to look like.

zzzcpan 10y ago
Societies living under rule of any state are inherently dystopias.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  Definition of dystopia: an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. How is your assertion true under that definition, even if we strip out the "imagined" part? Can you provide an example of a society which would qualify as not being a dystopia under your version of the term's meaning?
  - zzzcpan 10y ago
    I don't like that definition, it's basically a dystopian definition of dystopia. If you believe that you live in a good place and that others are bad, totalitarian states, you wouldn't consider yours to be dystopian, somewhat ignoring that people living in other states might think the exact same thing about your state. Think of where these dystopias come from, what is the purpose of creating a dystopian rule. In these terms it's easy to make parallels with any modern state.

fvdessen 10y ago

Sometimes I think that we are seeing so many conflicting dreams of utopian societies, and so many conflicting dystopian descriptions of our existing societies that it makes us think our world is much worse than it really is, without any path on how to actually improve it, and that's why everybody's gloomy without a reason to be.

psyc 10y ago
It's all very subjective. Both dependent on attitudes, as you suggest, but also dependent on who the subject is: wretch, king, deposed king, and so on.
ahartman00 10y ago
I think the media has a lot to do with it. [1] "For mass media, insurance companies, Big Pharma, advocacy groups, lawyers, politicians and so many more, your fear is worth billions. And fortunately for them, your fear is also very easy to manipulate. We're wired to respond to it above everything else. " 1. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-were-living-in-the-age-of-fear-w443554 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-were-livin...

api 10y ago

Our society is something between Huxleyan and Kafkaesque. Ironic since most civil libertarians are mentally stuck on fearing Orwellian models.

Animats 10y ago

The dystopia we're getting is the one where most of the population can't generate enough wealth to justify their continued existence. Those are the people who voted for Trump. This is close to the Huxley model, but the 1960s writers who foresaw this future assumed it would come with a heavy dose of welfare. In many countries, it didn't. Think of this as the favela model. The poor are not exploited, merely irrelevant. Johnny Mnemonic (1995) rant on this.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1okpAj7Fhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1okpAj7Fhw

edblarney 10y ago

"Communism is to blame for their foodbanks and breadlines, but capitalism has nothing to do with ours (or vice versa)" Just read 10 or more pages of detail from Stalin's 'Communist' Russia, or visit Eastern Europe today where you see that it is still 'defrosting' from that era ... and you can safely dismiss this kind of moral relativism rubbish. The debate is long over: Capitalism with some degree of social intervention has won, hands down, over and over again. So many failed 'communist' states have embraced a degree of free markets, and have in almost every case improved the standard of living of most of their citizens. Most Western nations have some negative attributes of all of these 'Dystopias' surely, but none of us live in 'Dystopias'. :)

SFJulie 10y ago

The true dystopia is edotopia (edo = here in greek) - huxley: forcing on people to pretend to be happy and calling trolls everyone emitting a critic CHECKED - orwelian: the cloud & IT jargon is so 1984 I will not start on it: CHECKED - PkD: media manipulation and institutional lies: CHECKED - Kafka: well, because of scanners the stamps on my files get erased, and they ask my originals they loose, I will say personal CHECKED (and no Pratchett optimism to save the day) - Gulliver's travel: very underrated scifi dystopian precursor, but CHECKED too. - Vernor Vinge/Heinlein: conservative schlerozed regim where birth gives wealth and power: CHECKED SciFi as a critic of the modern world was born in the XIXth to overcome censorship (Montesquieu, diderot, voltaire, swift). The fact that once again fiction is more critic than intellectuals is a bad sign. The fact that it is obvious unemployment rate are ~25% in OECD (canada and USA included) when you take into consideration all the people that cannot pay for food, rents, heath without social help even when they have a job is WTF. And the fact people think that poverty, corruption is not their problem is really a new dystopia and it's there upon us. Fear edo-dystopia more than mytho-dystopia.

Apocryphon 10y ago

Cool taxonomy, but are there really only four types? Let's try with some examples. Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut - imagines a future where mechanical automation and IQ-optimized hiring leads to mass unemployment, but extensive welfare systems keeps the mediocre masses well-fed, just demoralized and without dignity. Combination of Huxleyan with Kafkaesque? The Handmaid's Tale - Orwellian with a pronounced patriarchal-religious emphasis Anthem by Ayn Rand - generic Orwellian with a primitivist/preindustrial Luddite version of Phildickian. (Actually, we run into a convergence there. Isn't Orwellian thought control simply the overt forcible version of Phildickian thought control, the latter is more indirect, subtle, and possibly not even enforced by the state but private actors and individuals? Both involve rewriting your mind to reject liberty.) Fahrenheit 451 - similar Phildickian rewriting of reality through both Orwellian (the firemen, the unspecified war in the background) and Huxleyan (parlor walls, overload of useless factoids) means. Atlas Shrugged - world/U.S. in the beginning is not totalitarian, but a generic degenerate socialist bureaucratic state in decline. Whether or not Galt's Gulch is totalitarian, and what type it is, can be left as an exercise to the reader. Neuromancer, Snow Crash, other classic cyberpunk works- not totalitarian, but heavy on the Huxleyan decadent consumerist society coupled with Phildickian distortion of reality themes. Brazil by Terry Gilliam - perfectly Kafkaesque. Would appreciate classification of some other classic dystopian totalitarian works, such as We by Zamyatin or even Animal Farm. Do any of them express totalitarianism in a way that breaks the four-type classification system?

danielvf 10y ago
Sure. Animal Farm - written by Orwell - is the prototypical Orwellian dystopia.
notahacker 10y ago
The most obviously missed type would appear to be dystopians characterised by extreme disparities between rich and poor, where the dystopic regime is generally so much better off than the underclass it doesn't need to bother with enforcing or influencing worldviews beyond basic security measures (much of cyberpunk, for example). Call it oligarchic dystopia; I'm not sure which author I'd give the credit to. Arguably there should be [post]apocalyptic dystopia in which the system of organization is the least of people's troubles, of which Anthem and whole subgenres of other books about a future humanity regressing to earlier technological and social states should belong. Don't think there's too much danger of We breaking the OP's classification system though: it was more or less the template for 1984 (Orwell did read it, and with hindsight his lukewarm review seems rather uncharitable) and as such is one of the earliest and purest examples of Orwellian dystopia.

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novia 10y ago

Can someone suggest the books to read to experience a kafkaesque dystopia and a phildickian dystopia? I love dystopian novels.

rainhacker 10y ago
kafkaesque : The Trial by Franz kafka
- novia 10y ago
  Thank you! In school we read Kafka, but it was The Metamorphosis. Any clue which Philip Dick books are dystopian?
  - cturner 10y ago
    Almost all of pkd is dystopian, but he really nailed brain-in-a-vat paranoia in a way few others had. That is what the writeup goes for. phildickian reads: ubik, andoids dream of electric sheep, time out of joint (kinda), scanner darkly, maze of death (kinda). Other: dr bloodmoney (post-nuclear), high castle (alternate history), radio free albemuth (kafkaesque becoming orwellian), screamers (robot conquest, with a paranoid twist)
    - novia 10y ago
      Fantastic! Thank you!
r721 10y ago
Kafkaesque: Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanisław Lem Phildickian: Idlewild by Nick Sagan

rainhacker 10y ago

I like the authors writing style. He describes himself in these 100 interesting points here: http://expressiveegg.org/2016/06/01/100-things-about-me/ http://expressiveegg.org/2016/06/01/100-things-about-me/

AlexisDT 10y ago

Not sure if these are meant to be accurate, complete summaries of the dystopias presented in each author's works, but if they are, these are woefully lacking. Key distinguishing features of Orwell's dystopia, for example, have been left out, such as utter lack of privacy; induced hatred of [fictional] common enemy; etc. Similarly, for Huxley, they left out state control of reproduction; cultivation of distinct/discrete social classes via genetic engineering and conditioning; elimination of meaningful interpersonal relationships via promotion of promiscuity and the demonizing of any non-surface-level interactions; etc. I'm sure there are more but these are just the first few that come to mind.

known 10y ago

Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others);