Protopia • Hacker News Board

Re: Protopia

#51

Post by jrowen » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC

The result of this bias is that virtually every movie that has ever been made about the future contains a dystopia, with very few exceptions.

It's somewhat sad to me that this phenomenon is borne out in the comments (of this thread and, I would say, generally across HN in my experience). It's so easy to prophecy doom, ignoring the fact that life and humanity has generally prevailed and continued "progress" in the face of adversity, evil, extinction events, and other setbacks.

I'm generally in agreement with this article, although, I'm not sure I'm onboard with the dismissal of utopia. Utopia can be whatever you want it to be, it doesn't have to be defined as impossible nonsense. If we're in a protopia, and we want to see protopia, there's sort of a tautological nothingness, akin to pointing out that there's no such thing as free will. The message then boils down to "well just keep on truckin' as is."

Re: Protopia

#52

Post by ang_cire » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #48

ang_cire wrote: post #7

I like how the author defines dystopia as > reckless uprisings, a long dark age, the collapse of institutions, climate disasters, a black mirror of stunted humanity descending into chaos. rather than the much more common understanding or portrayals like 1984 or Handmaid's Tale, which in fact feature incredibly, overly -strong institutions, and a tyrannical lack of autonomy (so not a whole lot of 'reckless uprisings')…

> I like how the author defines dystopia as [ ... ] rather than [... ] There's no need to choose. Dystopia is more than one thing, and both of the sets of things you mention are just different kinds of dystopia.

Except the author did choose, which is my point. They specifically chose to only represent it one specific way, that omitted the most common or famous incarnations, because those run counter to their narrative.

Re: Protopia

#53

Post by boxed » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 6:49 AM UTC

forestrywat wrote: post #36

boxed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sure suggests that we're all choosing to build this dystopia we're trending towards. Citation needed. Humans have never been richer in medicine, tech, social mobility, pick your measurement.

They've also never had stronger access to mass surveillance, had more militarized and capable police forces, dealt with a global climate catastrophe, or had more people in prison.

[dead]

Re: Protopia

#54

Post by boxed » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 6:52 AM UTC

Avicebron wrote: post #26

boxed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Economic decline > The middle class is shrinking, but the upper and upper-middle is growing. Growing is size maybe, but the middle and lower classes are both getting much richer.

> Growing is size maybe, but the middle and lower classes are both getting much richer. This is an illusion caused by poor measurement. You can argue all you want about how much a pickup truck's safety/bell and whistles have improved, but from the 60s - 80s, a day laborer carpenter could purchase a new truck on a third of their salary. Now a truck that serves the same function is 1.5x their salary.

That's you being mislead by propaganda I'm pretty sure. The middle class could afford SOME things like houses easier yes. But then their cost of food for example way WAY higher. All in all, prices of cars have falled dramatically, while the cost of labor has gone up. Agatha Christies quote is apt: "I never imagined being so rich that I could afford a car, and never imagined being so poor I could not afford a maid". Things change. You have to look at the aggregate, and not cherry pick.

Re: Protopia

#55

Post by boxed » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 6:54 AM UTC

aetherspawn wrote: post #28

boxed wrote: post #2

Isn't this just a case of euphemism treadmill? The Culture and Star Trek are clearly utopian visions of the future and also fits this protoian definition 100%. There is no difference, except that some people think, incorrectly, that you can jump from the current society (imo a utopia itself by any time traveller from 150 years ago) to a new ideal world without passing the intermediate steps. I think of these people a…

Who in the hell would think 50x annual wage house prices is any type of utopia.

Someone who understands that you can't measure progress with a single variable. Look at food prices 50 years ago. They were astronomical compared to today. Expensive mortgages are an investment, you're literally paying back the loan as a type of savings. Food on the other hand? You ain't getting that money back.

Re: Protopia

#56

Post by wartywhoa23 » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 8:41 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #50

etdznots wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I’d much rather be subjected to the invading army then the drone swarm

Disagree. Drones are more precise, tend to attack military targets. Invading army is more indiscriminate

Tell that to civilians in Ukraine and Russia.

Re: Protopia

#57

Post by wartywhoa23 » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 8:49 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #31

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> D[r]one warfare > Isn't this better than boots on the ground? The answer to this question depends on whether you firsthand experienced sleepless nights in a city when drones fly directly over your house while you wait for them do dive or get missile defenced into it, a neighbour's house, or somewhere else, and then hear explosions and wait for the morning news to learn how many people died this night, to such litt…

The answer to this question depends on whether you firsthand experienced sleepless nights in a city while an invading army advances toward your neighborhood, while you wait to learn whether soldiers will enter your street, your house, a neighbor’s house, or somewhere else, and then hear gunfire and explosions and wait for the morning news to learn how many people were killed that night, to such little grief in the ne…

Your comment, clearly written from a safe and soft sofa, tells me that you experienced neither.

Parroting the original comment almost never looks good, but that aside, at least when you know that soldiers are about to enter your street, you know 100% that it's a war and you should be out of the city and flee for your life.

In case of drone warfare, it's a fucking Orwell's warpeace, when everyone around tries to pretend nothing happens and go on with their lives, getting maimed day by day morally and spiritually more than physically, if luck allows.

You don't even know if there's a human operator behind that Skynet machine that flew over your house last night.

Boots on the ground are at least honest, oldschool war, and drone warfare is a goddamn satanic "special military operation" of the new world order.

Re: Protopia

#58

Post by throwthrowuknow » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 9:49 AM UTC

chaos_emergent wrote: post #45

throwthrowuknow wrote: post #3

This is much too simplistic and ignores the compounding effects of bad decisions. It’s basically an argument for the happy path where nothing goes wrong but things have been going wrong for a long time. We are facing many economic, political, cultural and environmental problems that are the direct result of a viewpoint like this, that everything will just keep getting better if we keep doing more of the same thing wi…

It’s hard to compound in a negative direction for too long, no? People see a compounded value for a short period of time and say “that’s not the direction we want to go, let’s course correct”.

It’s quite easy when the effects are small at first and the changes occur over decades. People just get used to the smaller changes or were not alive to experience the earlier state. Only when things become so unstable that any minor change can have extreme consequences do people start to notice.

Re: Protopia

#59

Post by throwthrowuknow » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 9:52 AM UTC

boxed wrote: post #22

throwthrowuknow wrote: post #3

This is much too simplistic and ignores the compounding effects of bad decisions. It’s basically an argument for the happy path where nothing goes wrong but things have been going wrong for a long time. We are facing many economic, political, cultural and environmental problems that are the direct result of a viewpoint like this, that everything will just keep getting better if we keep doing more of the same thing wi…

Every time we try to fix anything fundamental, we end up with revolutions that make everything much worse and sometimes just get stuck in their new dystopia. Meanwhile incrementalist economies+democracies are racing ahead quite well.

I’m not calling for a revolution but we need to identify and address problems before they get out of control in order to fix them incrementally.

Re: Protopia

#60

Post by pbronez » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:58 AM UTC

ang_cire wrote: post #42

paytonjjones wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" There are many forms of dystopia and picking two that prominently feature absolute institutional control also seems like cherry picking. The Hunger Games, World War Z, and Fallout are also dystopias.

The hunger games is also about an authoritarian society with mass surveillance, though? WWZ is about a literal zombie outbreak, and while I can't comment on whether the book is actually using it as a vehicle to critique or extrapolate real-world social systems, the movie sure as hell didn't. Without going into a very long rant about Bethesda missing the point of Fallout as a universe, suffice it to say that it is als…

WWZ the movie takes almost nothing from the book beyond the title. Huge missed opportunity. The book uses a future history format and digs into practicalities. For example, people invent a new hand weapon optimized for killing zombies. They need it because firearms are too expensive, require too much skill to employ effectively in civilian areas. Still, conventional arms prove essential for large scale progress. IIRC much of the book focuses on the struggle to get from the initial chaos to manageable battle lines.

Overall I really enjoyed it. I should re-read it…