Poll: Dystopian futures.

[Souplex]

Everyone everywhere is convinced the world is going to hell. Dystopian future books and movies were popping up allover the place a few decades ago, and people had pretty good ideas for how the world would go to hell. So what do you think is going to happen?

 

[anNIALLator]

Idiocracy is probably the most likely, although not my favourite. Equilibrium's future is pretty cool, and how can we forget the Matrix?

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

 

[Souplex]

The reason The Matrix is not up there is that humans consume more energy then they generate. It is scientifically impossible.

Whats a brave new world about?

*Edited to fix capitalizations and thes in titles.*

 

[COR 2000]

Star Wars. Only real life wouldn't probably have Jedi/Sith.

 

[bassie302]

Idiocracy will be the most likely one, together with world war three...

personal favorite still remaining the improbable chain of events putting me in charge of the world, and shooting it into the sun whilst laughing maniacally from my space station/moon base.

 

[Limasol]

Apocalypse is an appealing term. Books with swastikas or nuclear explosions on the cover sell more. The fact that it fascinates us doesn't mean we are destined for it. Some one needs to be watching over to ensure such things dont happen

 

[NeedAUserName]

Judge Dredd (I think its this one) as long as I'm a Judge, cos they kinda kick ass.
But if not, Machine Uprising, I can shoot things and not feel bad

 

[Dogeman5]

The reason matrix is not up there is that humans consume more energy then they generate. It is scientifically impossible.

Whats a brave new world about?

It's been a while but the culture Glorifies Capitalism and the desentiszation of culture and that people reinvent god

 

[Souplex]

Don't we have that now delta?

 

[internutt]

The reason matrix is not up there is that humans consume more energy then they generate. It is scientifically impossible.

Whats a brave new world about?

I studied the novel for Advanced Higher English, this is what I remember. The society in Brave New World was founded under the idea of the Ford T Model. You can have any colour you want, as long as it is black. In Brave New World the level you are born into society is your lot in life and happiness is living that way. Children are born via genetic engineering, the lower classes are made uglier, dumber and a lot stronger, they may only do manual labor. There is no love since everyone is 'shared' so to speak.

Brave New World is a great read and an interesting society, quite likely I think.

 

[John Galt]

Don't we have that now delta?

Yeah but we don't have super-heroin and an awesome caste-system. I don't consider that to be a dystopia as much as I consider it to be paradise.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

i think idiocracy is a certainty, but i think with the new breakthroughs in science, eventually things like AIDS and cancer will be a thing of the past....and because of this, inflation will rape the earth. since inflation is good for no one, chances are we could see some government sanctioned 'epidemics' on our hands, like the crack epidemic ( not saying it was definitely the government, but they had to do something with all that crack they confiscated) to whittle down the numbers. tbh i dunno, ill get back to you on this one lol

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Brave New World is very complicated, but basically it's a dystopian future wherein humans are not born, but made in batches. They are manipulated genetically and behaviorally to an extreme degree to perform the tasks that the economy demands of them. Elements like intelligence, individualism, and compassion are bred-out because they are unnecessary. At the same time, they are made to take absolute pleasure in their work and other artificial outlets, resulting in something quite terrible: a perfectly happy and content slave.

Also, The Matrix should never be included in serious discussion because there is nothing in it that wasn't ripped off verbatim from somewhere else. Instead of talking about an idea from The Matrix, talk about the book the idea really came from.

EDIT: Apologies for nit-picking, but it's "Brave New World", as opposed to "A Brave New World." I know it sounds silly, but the title is from a quote that does not include the word "A."

 

[fulano]

What about other option?

How about a future world where women were the ruling class and chauvinism was paramount, where men were whipped and underpaid because of being sorely miserable at developing "proper" empathy in comparison to women, where men were overtly sexualized in the open media, looked at as walking sperm tubes and mocked for their obvious logic impairing sex drive. And adding insult to injury, men are deemed as overtly aggressive brutes and so are swiftly oppressed and passed over for political positions citing unrealistic views or volatile temper, creating an enduring one sided discourse where men are under represented.

Or then again, we can just flip it the other way around.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

You missed "Harrison Bergeron" (by Vonnegut) where the government deliberately imposes handicaps to ensure that everyone is indeed "created equal". Fast runners have to wear sandbags, keen-sighted people wear prescription eyewear, and smart people have a little buzzer that sounds in their ear to distract them from thinking too well... if you exceed the mandated average, you get gimped to bring you back down to it.

It's society deliberately taken to the lowest common denominator with rigidly-enforced conformity.

-- Steve

 

[Wicky_42]

Oh yeah Steve, I read that one... though it was an Asimov though, lol. They had IQ tests to eliminate anyone with too high an IQ - though I felt that there was some sort of corrupt ruling caste pulling the strings. Kinda Idiocracy crossed with 1984.

Recently read 'The Penultimate Truth' by Philip K. Dick, where the majority of the world's population was kept in underground bunker factories to fuel world war three - only the war ended years prior and the opposing armies decided they would work together to simulate a continuation of the war with huge mock-ups of cities and continuous propaganda, whilst the generals and underlings lived like landed gentry using the goods produced by the people underground.

Quite a dark vision, but how much of the news in foreign countries do we take for granted today? How much of what we receive is censored or skewed to suit the media's or government's best interests? Look at censorship in China for an easy mark, or just visit another country and watch their news. In Italy several of the national TV stations are personally owned by the Prime Minister - obviously they are going to be broadcasting highly 'subjective' material. There are similar examples to a greater or lesser extent all around the world (try reading the Guardian then the Daily Mail in England - always a laugh). It wouldn't be hard to set us on the route to such a dark future...

 

[zachbob2]

where the hell is the I am Legend (Book) future

 

[cthulhu257]

Idiocracy is the most likely. Either the government will screw up and start World War III, or we'll be taken over by religious zealots. Whatever the case, there is still a good chance another country/ alliance will intervene.

 

[Fenring]

Why no Mad Max?