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>Your village is a hypercorp that sells all your social interactions for profit This, to me, is a "Truman Show" level dystopia.

by yborg 9y ago

R_haterade 9y ago
The common theme in dystopic stories is the protagonist's unraveling unawareness of just how bad things are. Enjoy!
- nostrademons 9y ago
  The irony is that many classic dystopian stories are actually written about today, the time and place where they were written, and not about some hypothetical future. 1984 was based on Orwell's experiences as a propaganda writer for Britain in WW2. Animal Farm was about the Soviet Union. Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by McCarthyism. Saruman's orcs and trollocs in Lord of the Rings were supposed to represent industry, the factories and smelters that were destroying the English countryside in the 30s. The Hunger Games was about the Iraq war and how we numb ourselves on reality TV. If you believe Jared Diamond (and I think he at least has a point), the point where we entered dystopia was when we invented agriculture 10,000 years ago. That was when humans began to accumulate surpluses that they could use to lord over other humans, and men began to serve men (and women to serve men too). Humans have a remarkable ability to adapt, though. Most of us don't think of agriculture as an evil soul-crushing machine, even though it was the beginning of large-scale repression, because it's so ingrained in our experience of how we live.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    ...because otherwise most of us would be dead. Or would never have lived, which is the same thing, kind of.
    - thinkfurther 9y ago
      If anything had been slightly different whole other sets of sperm would have fertilized the egg, so that's not such an impressive argument. Especially since all of us will be dead at some point, regardless. And funny how that "compassion" doesn't extend to the people crushed every day, the people shrieking in anguish as we speak. The question isn't just how many people are "alive", but what life are they living. What would make someone seek power over others? Why has this defect been normalized? Let's say even more abuse allows even more people to get squeezed on the planet. Big whoop? To me that's like overloading a truck to the point where it doesn't move one inch anymore, and not even seeing how counterproductive that is. I'll just say it: one healthy person is worth more than an infinite number of clones of an alienated person. We can discuss "health" and how subjective that may be, but sheer number of people is worth nothing in my books, that's for sure. > It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love. -- "Network"
      - projektir 9y ago
        I'm in rather strong agreement with your post. There seems to be some brand of, I don't know, utilitarianism? That decided that any life, no matter how wretched, is equal to any other life in the evaluation of how bad things are, when this just can't be correct. > What would make someone seek power over others? Why has this defect been normalized? This one, though, I would say comes from biology. Power imbalance is the name of the game of everything in nature. You can find it in monkeys, you can find it in simpler life forms. At some point, we need to accept where all this garbage originally came from (which is also why it's so resilient and strong) and oppose it, assuming it won't eat us first.
  - Trundle 9y ago
    Not just Jared Diamond. There's a whole school of thought (albeit very small and disrespected) built around the concept. From wiki: >Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, alienation, and population growth.
closeparen 9y ago
Funny, staying in the dead-end town you were born in with your grandparents' knitting circle supervising your dating life is an even greater dystopia to me.

>Your village is a hypercorp that sells all your social interactions for profit This, to me, is a "Truman Show" level dystopia.

by yborg 9y ago

>Your village is a hypercorp that sells all your social interactions for profit This, to me, is a "Truman Show" level dystopia.

R_haterade 9y ago

The common theme in dystopic stories is the protagonist's unraveling unawareness of just how bad things are. Enjoy!

nostrademons 9y ago
The irony is that many classic dystopian stories are actually written about today, the time and place where they were written, and not about some hypothetical future. 1984 was based on Orwell's experiences as a propaganda writer for Britain in WW2. Animal Farm was about the Soviet Union. Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by McCarthyism. Saruman's orcs and trollocs in Lord of the Rings were supposed to represent industry, the factories and smelters that were destroying the English countryside in the 30s. The Hunger Games was about the Iraq war and how we numb ourselves on reality TV. If you believe Jared Diamond (and I think he at least has a point), the point where we entered dystopia was when we invented agriculture 10,000 years ago. That was when humans began to accumulate surpluses that they could use to lord over other humans, and men began to serve men (and women to serve men too). Humans have a remarkable ability to adapt, though. Most of us don't think of agriculture as an evil soul-crushing machine, even though it was the beginning of large-scale repression, because it's so ingrained in our experience of how we live.
- mcguire 9y ago
  ...because otherwise most of us would be dead. Or would never have lived, which is the same thing, kind of.
  - thinkfurther 9y ago
    If anything had been slightly different whole other sets of sperm would have fertilized the egg, so that's not such an impressive argument. Especially since all of us will be dead at some point, regardless. And funny how that "compassion" doesn't extend to the people crushed every day, the people shrieking in anguish as we speak. The question isn't just how many people are "alive", but what life are they living. What would make someone seek power over others? Why has this defect been normalized? Let's say even more abuse allows even more people to get squeezed on the planet. Big whoop? To me that's like overloading a truck to the point where it doesn't move one inch anymore, and not even seeing how counterproductive that is. I'll just say it: one healthy person is worth more than an infinite number of clones of an alienated person. We can discuss "health" and how subjective that may be, but sheer number of people is worth nothing in my books, that's for sure. > It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love. -- "Network"
    - projektir 9y ago
      I'm in rather strong agreement with your post. There seems to be some brand of, I don't know, utilitarianism? That decided that any life, no matter how wretched, is equal to any other life in the evaluation of how bad things are, when this just can't be correct. > What would make someone seek power over others? Why has this defect been normalized? This one, though, I would say comes from biology. Power imbalance is the name of the game of everything in nature. You can find it in monkeys, you can find it in simpler life forms. At some point, we need to accept where all this garbage originally came from (which is also why it's so resilient and strong) and oppose it, assuming it won't eat us first.
- Trundle 9y ago
  Not just Jared Diamond. There's a whole school of thought (albeit very small and disrespected) built around the concept. From wiki: >Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, alienation, and population growth.

closeparen 9y ago

Funny, staying in the dead-end town you were born in with your grandparents' knitting circle supervising your dating life is an even greater dystopia to me.