What fictional Dystopia do you think our future will resemble?

[Level 7 Dragon]

Salute, Escapist

People love to pessimistic. If you spend any time in the political corners of the Internet, you will sooner or later hear someone quote/misquote George Orwell's novels each time the government raises taxes, increases survelance or declares a term hateful. You can argue if those comparisons are valid or not, but you can't argue that people love to compare current social problems to classic dystopian, hyperealist, romantic and punk fiction.

So, the question is, if society goes to shit, what kind of Dystopian works will it resemble?

It doesn't have to be just dystopian fiction, as hyperealism and cyberpunk, so Franz Kafka and William Gibson will work too.

Personally, I think we are heading to a mix of Brave New World and Farenheit 451. Both are set in technologically advanced worlds, where most citizens enjoy a high standart of living. However, society slowly decended in to an isle of Lotus Eaters, where the majority of citizens became absorbed by chemicals and cheap entertainment in order to avoid to face harsh realities. Such a practice led to mass social pressure on those that are non-conforming to live life in such a way, leading to chastizement and even outright censorship of contreversial works.

What will tomorrow's likely future be like? "Atlas Shrugged" or "Fatherland"? "Warhammer 40k" or Zamyatin's "We"?

Here are a few videos to help your gears start spinning :

Spoiler

 

[Saelune]

Well, with Putin trying to make Russia a Bond antagonist again, and Trump...*sigh* being potentially the next President, Im going with Fallout.

Or being enslaved my mega-corporations as companies like Google fight to own everything.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm seeing a lot of 1984 around. Not just the obvious point about surveillance, we're being watched in ways Orwell couldn't dream of, but in regards to facts. Trump could fly into the air in front of all his supporters, despite what classic physics have to say.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

I don't believe that we face any dystopia in the close future, especially by government, what people always forget is that governments absolutely suck in doing things the bigger they become and most (if not all) political dystopias stories need the government to be practically omniscient.

For long term, I'm adamant in believing that either humanity goes to space and colonize the stars or we will slowly decline, I don't think we will run out of resources (as ability to engineer food, water and materials is practically now), but rather we will reach the peak of human engineering ability and with not much to go from there we'll just continue living until some catastrophe wipe us out completely (which might be hard as small amount of humans surviving can easily repopulate the world).

The thing is about dystopias is that quite a few of them arn't a result of madmen comming to power, but rather gradual sociatal changes. In 451 it is specified that the government didn't want to create the firemen, but the public kept wanting to remove any work that their personal group or identity found offensive that there was no other choice.

 

[Saelune]

I don't believe that we face any dystopia in the close future, especially by government, what people always forget is that governments absolutely suck in doing things the bigger they become and most (if not all) political dystopias stories need the government to be practically omniscient.

For long term, I'm adamant in believing that either humanity goes to space and colonize the stars or we will slowly decline, I don't think we will run out of resources (as ability to engineer food, water and materials is practically now), but rather we will reach the peak of human engineering ability and with not much to go from there we'll just continue living until some catastrophe wipe us out completely (which might be hard as small amount of humans surviving can easily repopulate the world).

Im actually more optimistic about the future than I may come off. I genuinely hope to become a theoretically immortal Cyborg. I mean, maybe it wont, but I really want to see humans colonize space, and meet aliens. Plus technology advances exponentially, so who knows what we will have in 5, 10, 50 years from now. I mean, there are people around in Wild-West times who lived long enough to see the dawn of the internet!

Hell, there is plans for a human head transplant in the super near future (like next year). Maybe it wont work, but if it does, even for a few moments, wow thats a major step closer to my cyborg dream.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Huh...well personally I think we'd all enjoy a little 40k grim darkness. Fighting giant daemons and world eating insects would be a good ol' laugh.

Oh! The Matrix, will all of Humanity in a VR program would be neat.

 

[hermes]

I thought we were pretty much living in a Blade Runner/Deus Ex dystopia, with corporations having more power that traditional government and the gulf getting wider... We are missing the advanced robotics and weird androids, but that is mostly a matter of time once the singularity gets here.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

Spoiler: snip

I don't believe that we face any dystopia in the close future, especially by government, what people always forget is that governments absolutely suck in doing things the bigger they become and most (if not all) political dystopias stories need the government to be practically omniscient.

For long term, I'm adamant in believing that either humanity goes to space and colonize the stars or we will slowly decline, I don't think we will run out of resources (as ability to engineer food, water and materials is practically now), but rather we will reach the peak of human engineering ability and with not much to go from there we'll just continue living until some catastrophe wipe us out completely (which might be hard as small amount of humans surviving can easily repopulate the world).

The thing is about dystopias is that quite a few of them arn't a result of madmen comming to power, but rather gradual sociatal changes. In 451 it is specified that the government didn't want to create the firemen, but the public kept wanting to remove any work that their personal group or identity found offensive that there was no other choice.

Yeah but they still require a sort of ruling authoritarian body being extremely good in it's job which is unlikely, heck unless this body shuts off the internet for everyone in it's country any sort of information control will be null (which is why I have the opinion of "if you live in a democracy and have internet access to every site your country can't be extremely authoritarian"). Thinking about it, I do think that there is a danger of us losing progress by not saving information in a secure and accessible location without need for electricity which can result in information being lost in a couple of centuries and us reverting on technological progress, a la' 40K.

I don't believe that we face any dystopia in the close future, especially by government, what people always forget is that governments absolutely suck in doing things the bigger they become and most (if not all) political dystopias stories need the government to be practically omniscient.

For long term, I'm adamant in believing that either humanity goes to space and colonize the stars or we will slowly decline, I don't think we will run out of resources (as ability to engineer food, water and materials is practically now), but rather we will reach the peak of human engineering ability and with not much to go from there we'll just continue living until some catastrophe wipe us out completely (which might be hard as small amount of humans surviving can easily repopulate the world).

Im actually more optimistic about the future than I may come off. I genuinely hope to become a theoretically immortal Cyborg. I mean, maybe it wont, but I really want to see humans colonize space, and meet aliens. Plus technology advances exponentially, so who knows what we will have in 5, 10, 50 years from now. I mean, there are people around in Wild-West times who lived long enough to see the dawn of the internet!

Hell, there is plans for a human head transplant in the super near future (like next year). Maybe it wont work, but if it does, even for a few moments, wow that's a major step closer to my cyborg dream.

I prefer biological advancements, I want dog ears... The problem is more if long range "fast" space travel become applicable, otherwise we are stuck on this dreary rock, though we can colonize some other planets or just hollow asteroids, orc style.

However, such an authoritarian body can come to power through democratic and popular support, instead through a violent takeover. To quote Slavoj Zizek, behing every fascism is a failed revolution.

 

[CaitSeith]

Why go to the future? We already live in a cyberpunk future, with 80's sci-fy technology present in our daily lives, with corporations bombarding us with distractions from the real world problems, and people shaming (and even cyber-attacking) those who disagree with corporations or who try to analyze things too closely for their comfort.

Real World: stranger than fiction.

 

[Saelune]

I don't believe that we face any dystopia in the close future, especially by government, what people always forget is that governments absolutely suck in doing things the bigger they become and most (if not all) political dystopias stories need the government to be practically omniscient.

For long term, I'm adamant in believing that either humanity goes to space and colonize the stars or we will slowly decline, I don't think we will run out of resources (as ability to engineer food, water and materials is practically now), but rather we will reach the peak of human engineering ability and with not much to go from there we'll just continue living until some catastrophe wipe us out completely (which might be hard as small amount of humans surviving can easily repopulate the world).

Im actually more optimistic about the future than I may come off. I genuinely hope to become a theoretically immortal Cyborg. I mean, maybe it wont, but I really want to see humans colonize space, and meet aliens. Plus technology advances exponentially, so who knows what we will have in 5, 10, 50 years from now. I mean, there are people around in Wild-West times who lived long enough to see the dawn of the internet!

Hell, there is plans for a human head transplant in the super near future (like next year). Maybe it wont work, but if it does, even for a few moments, wow that's a major step closer to my cyborg dream.

I prefer biological advancements, I want dog ears... The problem is more if long range "fast" space travel become applicable, otherwise we are stuck on this dreary rock, though we can colonize some other planets or just hollow asteroids, orc style.

Animal parts like ears or tails may be fun (I am a furry afterall) but I want the longevity offered by mechanization, and more so because I just want to see all the cool stuff in our future. I mean, if some Divine Power wishes to confer onto me true immortality, I will take that too.

 

[Queen Michael]

The Road. Let's be honest. It'll be The Road, and no mistake.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well, with Putin trying to make Russia a Bond antagonist again, and Trump...*sigh* being potentially the next President, Im going with Fallout.

Or being enslaved my mega-corporations as companies like Google fight to own everything.

At least Google has a semblence of Humanity, especially when they do those Special events on thier homepage like celebrating a historical figures birthday, that Star Trek TOS special, etc.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Road. Let's be honest. It'll be The Road, and no mistake.

If it's a natural catastrophy on a global scale, then yes probably. No badasses, no civilisation from the ashes, just slow, merciless, and painful decay.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

However, such an authoritarian body can come to power through democratic and popular support, instead through a violent takeover. To quote Slavoj Zizek, behing every fascism is a failed revolution.

I don't really think so, especially as the age of ideologies is dead, communism and fascism don't really exist anymore (though they exist in thinking in both political camps), with modern economics making direct wars worthless. An authoritarian entity may rise in nations, but the second they shut down the internet people will shut them down immediately.

Perhaps, the death of the Big Brother doesn't mean the death to opression. We may still go like Neuromancer where most of the world decended into a crazy oligarchic plutocracy.