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How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

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Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#101

Post by TeMPOraL »

matt4077 wrote: post #63
Animats wrote: post #4

Interesting. "In the totalitarian-dystopian genre, the prototypical narrative content elements — e.g., setting, character, plot, and story morals — are relatively clear and consistent; thus, they are “filled in” according to widely shared genre conventions." Writers can thus write in such worlds without extensive world-building. It's like grinding out police procedurals or zombie novels. Not every writer can build wo…

Star Trek is arguably utopian. At least that’s how it is intended and perceived. I personally abhor the primacy of the military it glorifies, and also the fashion choices.

At least in TNG era (TNG/DS9/VOY), Starfleet was only technically "a military". While everyone still wore uniforms and followed a chain of command, the show made a huge point of Starfleet's goals being primarily diplomacy, exploration and scientific research; occasional force projection was considered a secondary and unfortunate task.

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

bambataa wrote: post #77
beaconstudios wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to the day when I can place my vote in the ballot box for a party that tries to integrate the best ideas from different schools of thought to maximise human well-being rather than advocating their chosen ideology and denying that any benefit could come from the other side of the aisle.

What is 'best' if not ideological?

Whatever actually works to make things better.

The difference is applying science and rational thinking vs. soundbites and reasoning from ideology.

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#103

Post by TeMPOraL »

labster wrote: post #96
thaumasiotes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Destroying cultures and languages in the name of progress doesn't really empower people. Languages don't get destroyed by rearing children in isolation so they're left unable to speak. Languages die when their population shifts over to a language with more to offer. (Generally, the ability to participate in a larger market.) You can go pretty much anywhere rare languages are spoken and hear parents tell you they ho…

Right, so you're a modernist, and that's ok. You have an implicit assumption that the larger culture is better, and that being more economically productive is desirable. Many hunter-gatherer societies offered more leisure time than modern cultures. If that's your point of reference, Western culture is an abject failure.

I think there's a view that both admits the merits of hunter-gatherer societies and still prefers the modern one.

The way I see it, we've made a huge step back in order to be able to move forwards. Hunter-gatherers may have had more leisure time, but they could never have developed airplanes, vaccines, modern medicine, plumbing, Internet or space travel. To achieve those things, we had to specialize and build large-scale economies. Hunting/gathering was a dead end, whereas our culture still has open possibilities for tremendous improvement.

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#104

Post by matt4077 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #101
matt4077 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trek is arguably utopian. At least that’s how it is intended and perceived. I personally abhor the primacy of the military it glorifies, and also the fashion choices.

At least in TNG era (TNG/DS9/VOY), Starfleet was only technically "a military". While everyone still wore uniforms and followed a chain of command, the show made a huge point of Starfleet's goals being primarily diplomacy, exploration and scientific research; occasional force projection was considered a secondary and unfortunate task.

The militarism I was referencing isn't defined so much in violence, but in values, organisational structure (, and fashion).

It's arguably worse for the trappings of the military (rigid hierarchy, loyalty as the core value, etc) to be used in the context of functions that are civilian by nature, such as science and diplomacy. The essence of life as it's portrayed is that of a benevolent military dictatorship.

I know Star Trek has some storylines grappling with some of these issues. But any allusions to civilian life I remember seem rather tacked-on. Politicians were usually frightened & helpless, in need of rescue. They did get to wear nicer clothes, though.

(this is almost exclusively based on TNG–I did not watch enough of the other incarnations to comment on those)

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#105

Post by thaumasiotes »

labster wrote: post #96
thaumasiotes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Destroying cultures and languages in the name of progress doesn't really empower people. Languages don't get destroyed by rearing children in isolation so they're left unable to speak. Languages die when their population shifts over to a language with more to offer. (Generally, the ability to participate in a larger market.) You can go pretty much anywhere rare languages are spoken and hear parents tell you they ho…

Right, so you're a modernist, and that's ok. You have an implicit assumption that the larger culture is better, and that being more economically productive is desirable. Many hunter-gatherer societies offered more leisure time than modern cultures. If that's your point of reference, Western culture is an abject failure.

No, I have no assumption that a larger culture is better than a smaller one. I do assume that being more economically productive is better then being less economically productive, but that is not relevant here.

Languages die when people judge that those languages are worthless, because those people, who might have spoken the languages, would like to be economically productive instead. I'm saying that when a person or group of people choose to abandon their language, in order to achieve their own personal goals, and the language dies as a result, that is an example of people being empowered. It's not an example of people not being empowered.

You seem to have confused "empowered" with "good".

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#106

Post by mirimir »

arethuza wrote: post #54
mirimir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Ian Banks' "Culture" series is pretty utopian. The AI Minds are clearly in charge, but they generally treat their human pets well, and with respect. There are effectively no limitations on what people can be, do or have. Except perhaps meaning, and that's a major theme. But there is a novella, State of the Art , which features contact between the Culture and 1980s Earth. And that is very dystopian. As ar…

Worth noting that the dystopian part of State of the Art is the Culture's view of Earth! One detail from the story that I love is the ship Mind's hobby of collecting individual snowflakes from the worlds it visits with a desire to find two identical snowflakes....

Well, yes, it's the Culture's Minds' view of Earth. But arguably that's also Banks' view. Plus of course his view of the Culture. Also, some Culture citizens quite liked the Earth. However, they came off as rather crazy ;)

There's a Mind in another novel who collects recordings of human minds, and experiments with them. Other Minds strongly disapprove. But then, the Culture overall experiments with other civilizations that it encounters.

Also, it wasn't until I read State of the Art that I realized that the Culture is not part of Earth human future. I gather than he assumes humanoid panspermia and/or convergent evolution.

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#107

Post by JoeAltmaier »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #90
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for prices rising - increased demand in a flexible commodity do not result in prices rising, but falling. Economies of scale, right? So many of the things that folks spend UBI money on, will get cheaper.

But will there be increased demand? For the basics - food, shelter - the demand is pretty much proportional to population. With more money around and same demand, will competition on commodities be enough to keep the prices where they were? My naïve expectation is that they'll in fact rise, and tie up most of the UBI.

So folks will spend their money on other things. I just don't get it - how does "people have money" lead to "I know how they will spend it, and it will be on housing and food"?

In a competitive market (I can go to any grocery store I like) the prices are not set to what people have to pay but on what the other stores are selling for.

The offerings may depend on that - more caviar if folks have more spendable income. But that's called Standard of Living, and if it goes up well that's the whole purpose of UBI

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#108

Post by mirimir »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #95
mirimir wrote: post #14

It's an interesting study for sure. But, as part of the background, it would have been useful to point out that much dystopian fiction is intentionally political. Rod Serling had initially proposed a program of political commentary, but CBS said "no way". So we got The Twilight Zone . George Romero's Night of the Living Dead series was also intentionally political. In other words, much dystopian fiction is actually l…

Interesting take. Are there any works of dystopian fiction that someone here thinks could be considered anti-democracy propaganda?

Democracy isn't too popular with Azimov, I think.

And now that I think of it, Banks also doesn't like it. Humans and AI Minds have equal rights. And they exist in a state of benevolent anarchy. There are organizations, but decision making is not at all democratic. Maybe closer to consensus-based.

Also, humans and other organic beings come off as limited and irresponsible. Needing guidance. So the Minds are really running things.

Indeed, the Culture is rather a civilization of Minds, which keeps humans around for moral and sentimental reasons. It creates stuff for them without effective limit. For example, any Culture citizen can have their own planet, orbital, ship or whatever. Abundance has destroyed the concept of money. And the Minds keep them safe, from themselves and from others.

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#109

Post by craftyguy »

davidw wrote: post #21

Is anyone else sick of dystopian stuff? I want to read something where... sure, there are problems, but where people are out there doing difficult, adventurous and good things. Something maybe even kind of motivational. Or at best, just nice escapist stories without all the doom and gloom. If I want to read about stressful, bad, evil things, I'll pick up a newspaper.

Yep. I've pretty much given up on fiction at this point, and when I want good stories I read non-fiction accounts of historical events, people, discoveries, etc. There's material out there for practically every field of interest, region of the world, culture, religion, whatever. I've yet to get bored.

Re: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

#110

Post by krapp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #89
ctchocula wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting there is definitely the hard part. Even in the show they had to go through nuclear apocalypse and rebuild society in order to get there. Another problem is getting people to think "contributing to society is virtuous". It's possible that this idea may be at odds with human nature (similar to Soviet and Chinese implementation of communism).

> Getting there is definitely the hard part. Even in the show they had to go through nuclear apocalypse and rebuild society in order to get there. Also a well-timed first contact with arrogant aliens, that made humans want to show their best side. > Another problem is getting people to think "contributing to society is virtuous". It's possible that this idea may be at odds with human nature (similar to Soviet and Chi…

>Also a well-timed first contact with arrogant aliens, that made humans want to show their best side.

In the same way the colonies wanted to show their best side when the British showed up to civilize them?

Sorry.. this is a utopia, I forgot. Per ardua ad astra and whatnot. Must not be cynical. Must not be...

the only reason there was a utopia at all was a global holocaust reducing the population, widespread genetic manipulation and subliminal cultural reprogramming by a race of alien telepaths. The entire franchise is Federation propaganda. The universal translators are literal propaganda machines.

NO GET OUT CYNICISM YOU DONT EVEN FIT.

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