“focus your energy on what you want to see more of” has some distressing implications for the whole genre of dystopian fiction. it suggests that dystopian fiction doesn’t successfully act as a warning, and if anything makes dystopias look cooler, more familiar, more thinkable
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e.g. squid game is ostensibly supposed to be some kind of warning about the dangers of capitalism or inequality or w/e, and also, the basic premise was so cool youtubers immediately began running their own squid games - minus the death obviously
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i wonder if it’s just impossible to keep writing about a distant abstract threat over the course of decades before it stops viscerally registering as a threat at all. warnings should perhaps be saved for imminent threats, that’s how we’re used to threats being
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there might be an interesting market for genuine attempts at utopian fiction; it’s been awhile since i’ve seen SF depict a future that i’d be happy to live in and maybe we could really use some of that these days
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i'm sayin
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Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
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The Ones Who Misread Omelas
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by volume most people who think in "dystopian" terms knowingly or otherwise are imagistically-minded film-viewers who are Very Likely to e.g. Root for the Bad Guys b/c They Look Cool etc.
mildly elevated Punisher Skull ethos/aesthetic
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Tbf "more thinkable" is a good thing.
If something hadn't happened in our lifetime, we regard it as unthinkable. Like the pandemic.
That's a weakness.
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I came to this conclusion too. It seeds ideas, constrains thinking. People think the problems are implementation details rather than fundamentals, and the very same hubris that’s the actual point of the story curses their efforts, too.
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I'm done consuming dystopian science fiction. I get many recommendations, & everyone around seems to have consumed many of the same stories.
I don't see evidence that it keeps people from doing dystopian things, so I don't think I need to join in, even if people enjoy it.Show this thread
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Tech also, by and large, has proven itself to have a dreadful lack of imagination. As far as I can tell, the lack of variance in media and subject matter consumption is a big part of it.
w/ techies it’s basically “are you a Star Wars guy, a Matrix guy, or a LoTR guy?”
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