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You don't learn reliable lessons from fiction. The author of "Don't create the Torment Nexus" may have intended it as a cautionary tale whose lesson is not to c

You don't learn reliable lessons from fiction. The author of "Don't create the Torment Nexus" may have intended it as a cautionary tale whose lesson is not to create the Torment Nexus, but that doesn't obligate the reader to come to that conclusion.Why shouldn't we say with a couple minor tweaks and a sexier name this "torment nexus" would be pretty cool? Conversely, most "utopias" sound like they would be pretty horrible to actually live in.

brigadier132 2y ago
You only need to turn the dial a bit to get the pleasure nexus and we'd all be happy.
smegsicle 2y ago
> most "utopias" sound like they would be pretty horrible to actually live in. are there counterexamples? i thought the only difference between utopia and dystopia would be whether the speaker is promoting it or not
- n4r9 2y ago
  There are plenty of examples of "critical" utopias which do not try to be absolutely perfect, and acknowledge where they fall down. Anarres in the Dispossessed by Le Guin, and the Culture novels by Iain M Banks might be two examples. They're still vastly preferable (imo) to current life on earth.
- gweinberg 2y ago
  Huxley's _Island_ didn't seem too bad. I think the general problem is, if you want to completely eliminate crime, poverty, and conflict in general, you have to have a society that is extremely regimented, and you have to be willing to kill off anyone who seems "defective".
tivert 2y ago
> The author of "Don't create the Torment Nexus" may have intended it as a cautionary tale whose lesson is not to create the Torment Nexus, but that doesn't obligate the reader to come to that conclusion. One of the points of the Torment Nexus joke is that the Tech Company is totally oblivious to the fact that "Don't create the Torment Nexus" was describing something bad. > Why shouldn't we say with a couple minor tweaks and a sexier name this "torment nexus" would be pretty cool? I actually think your defense there actually gets to the core error: things can be simultaneously cool and awful. For instance: nuclear war. On the one hand, you have high tech rockets buzzing around insanely fast while precisely dropping incredibly powerful fireworks; which is admittedly pretty "cool," on the other hand, you have mass death and suffering. The Tech Company people are shallowly responding to just the "cool" part, and missing all the rest.

brigadier132 2y ago

You only need to turn the dial a bit to get the pleasure nexus and we'd all be happy.

smegsicle 2y ago

> most "utopias" sound like they would be pretty horrible to actually live in. are there counterexamples? i thought the only difference between utopia and dystopia would be whether the speaker is promoting it or not

n4r9 2y ago
There are plenty of examples of "critical" utopias which do not try to be absolutely perfect, and acknowledge where they fall down. Anarres in the Dispossessed by Le Guin, and the Culture novels by Iain M Banks might be two examples. They're still vastly preferable (imo) to current life on earth.
gweinberg 2y ago
Huxley's _Island_ didn't seem too bad. I think the general problem is, if you want to completely eliminate crime, poverty, and conflict in general, you have to have a society that is extremely regimented, and you have to be willing to kill off anyone who seems "defective".

tivert 2y ago

> The author of "Don't create the Torment Nexus" may have intended it as a cautionary tale whose lesson is not to create the Torment Nexus, but that doesn't obligate the reader to come to that conclusion. One of the points of the Torment Nexus joke is that the Tech Company is totally oblivious to the fact that "Don't create the Torment Nexus" was describing something bad. > Why shouldn't we say with a couple minor tweaks and a sexier name this "torment nexus" would be pretty cool? I actually think your defense there actually gets to the core error: things can be simultaneously cool and awful. For instance: nuclear war. On the one hand, you have high tech rockets buzzing around insanely fast while precisely dropping incredibly powerful fireworks; which is admittedly pretty "cool," on the other hand, you have mass death and suffering. The Tech Company people are shallowly responding to just the "cool" part, and missing all the rest.