There once was a time when satire was just that, satire. When dystopian fiction was understood to be that, dystopian, portraying a potential future. When books

There once was a time when satire was just that, satire. When dystopian fiction was understood to be that, dystopian, portraying a potential future. When books like 'Brave New World', 'Fahrenheit 451' and '1984' were written. Where cyberpunk was a literary genre where corporations were more powerful than nation states. Now, things are different. Facebook is building the set for a real life Truman show [1], Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns..) has found stiff competition in the rise of censorship on the 'net, 1984 is treated as a user manual by those who prefer to see the world in terms of 'good' and 'bad', Brave New World is just another story - nothing to see there, move along. Where institutions like the EU are trying to dissolve national borders and national identities without offering a believable identity in return, leaving the population grasping for a handhold and ready for recruitment by any strong identity group which catches their favour. There is supposed to be a Chinese proverb saying 'may you live in interesting times' , to be directed at those one considers to be their opponents. While the proverb seems to be made up, times are interesting in many ways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show