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This article couldn't miss the mark more completely if it tried. Distopian sci-fi is just a mirror of our current political climate, and fears that already exi

This article couldn't miss the mark more completely if it tried. Distopian sci-fi is just a mirror of our current political climate, and fears that already exist. Human fears, that don't require fictional technology. You don't need a time machine to see militarised police, imprisonment without trial, apartheid, terrorism, corporations influence over government, ethnic cleansing, privacy stripped bare, perpetual war, 1% of American adults incarcerated, etc. These are human problems, human politics, human fears. Sci-fi is just a sandbox that avoids polarising people. Even if I humour the author and talk about new technology, it's rational to be concerned about how technology will put more power into the hands of people who are already adequately demonstrating their distopian leanings. It's not the technology we're afraid of.

repsilat 12y ago
Funny, I was thinking the exact opposite -- I think the news is so bad and the politics is so polarised and the fiction is so grim because the world is better place than it has ever been, and we don't know how to deal with it. In the developed world we're living longer in bigger houses with more cars. Our food is better, our toys are cooler, crime is at record lows... Life just isn't enough of a struggle for us any more, we don't have any excuse for not being happy, so we go out of our way to find some unhappiness, or to make it for ourselves. Obviously there is plenty of dysfunction to go around, and we should demand better, but the "sky is falling" narrative is popular because it doesn't ring true, not because it does.
- richmarr 12y ago
  We're absolutely living more comfortable lives than we did in the middle ages, or in the 50s, or whenever. That wasn't my point. I don't agree with the "things were better in the old days" sentiment either. Suspect I wasn't clear enough somewhere; feedback appreciated.

repsilat 12y ago

Funny, I was thinking the exact opposite -- I think the news is so bad and the politics is so polarised and the fiction is so grim because the world is better place than it has ever been, and we don't know how to deal with it. In the developed world we're living longer in bigger houses with more cars. Our food is better, our toys are cooler, crime is at record lows... Life just isn't enough of a struggle for us any more, we don't have any excuse for not being happy, so we go out of our way to find some unhappiness, or to make it for ourselves. Obviously there is plenty of dysfunction to go around, and we should demand better, but the "sky is falling" narrative is popular because it doesn't ring true, not because it does.

richmarr 12y ago
We're absolutely living more comfortable lives than we did in the middle ages, or in the 50s, or whenever. That wasn't my point. I don't agree with the "things were better in the old days" sentiment either. Suspect I wasn't clear enough somewhere; feedback appreciated.