Exapno, it looks like you are REALLY depending on the BIG picture here.
We are talking about specific societies. The U.S. isn’t the ‘overall world’. It is one nation. Nations do fall.
That’s not what you said before, though:
The world could be better now than it ever was in the past without it being true that things always change for the better. Studying history should have taught you that there are periods where things get a lot worse than they were before. For a European of the early 1300s, the future was the Black Death. That wasn’t a positive change for the people who experienced it.
As for dystopian fiction, in both The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale the dystopian societies don’t last. The Panem government is overthrown in the last Hunger Games book. In Handmaid’s Tale the Republic of Gilead is still going strong at the end of the main narrative, but the framing device indicates that it has since fallen.
The reality is, NONE of the visions of the future presented in ANY major dystopian movie or novel will ever come true.
But hey, I’m not going to try to convince anyone that I’m right. I think it’s HILARIOUS that people like Der Trihs are wetting themselves in fear of a takeover by the Religious Right! Hell, as a religious conservative, I WISH my side had a tiny fraction of the power our enemies regularly assert we do!
But even if we can’t enact our agenda, we can get some small enjoyment from watching pathetic wusses like Margaret Atwood squirm!
Ground down economically, mostly. Wages are stagnant and have been for decades. The rich’s share of American wealth is increasing and will likely continue to. The American dream of owning a house and a car and sending your kids to college to live better lives than you is dying on the vine because people can’t afford that any more. Hours go up for the employed, vacations shrink, and for the unemployed, there’s a perpetual scarciity of jobs. If it continues, thing will be as bad as I describe.
Severe dislocations, you know … like the 2008 crash. Especially since, with no money coming in from increased production of goods and services, the tendency will be to let the financial markets continue to play the CDO lotto and whatever other gambling games they make up down the road.
Expert systems will do more and more. No need to invoke artificial intelligence. A lot of the people sitting in cubicles are not doing anything that software can’t do a few generation down the road.
No, you don’t need EVERY member of an oligarchic class to behave like an oligarch in order for the class to function as an oligarchy. Historically, charitable giving has done very little to relieve the social problems they address, as their real function is to relieve the guilt of those members of the wealthy classes who have a conscience.
I hope you are right and I am wrong. My main hope in preventing the outcomes I see is the growth of a strong progressive movement in America and maybe the development of an ethos of a strong safety net to prevent the worst excesses of the trends I see from harming too many people too greatly. I hope it will happen when the upper middle class starts being affected by these trends. But based on what I have seen in the past few years, I’m not terribly hopeful.
I’m pretty sure I touched on The Hunger Games earlier in this thread, but it’s another great example.
21st century America -> Nuclear War -> “Invisible Hovercrafts With Force Fields and Laser Guns!!!” -> Civil War -> “Even More Invisible Hovercrafts With Force Fields and Laser Guns!!!” And “Everybody But A Select Few Live on Farms”
Talk about your delusions of grandeur. You honestly made me laugh out loud thinking about you believing this as you typed it. Oh man, good stuff.
To a point: we’re revolted by the label and by the notion of government-ordered eugenics programs, but how many people will abort if told the fetus has Downs or have decided not to have children because they have inheritable diseases? That’s eugenics, but made by individual choice rather than by the government.
I must admit I know very little about Margaret Atwood as an individual. Is she noted for being pathetic and cowardly in real life, or do you mean she’s a pathetic wuss because she wrote a novel?
Considering the fact that she has a fit every time someone refers to one of her books as science fiction, I’d say we have to at least consider it.
Not wanting your work classified as science fiction = cowardly? How is that? Honest question.
I kind of figured since science fiction is pretty synonymous with nerds maybe she wouldn’t want her work classified in that way. Authors can be odd birds but I have a hard time linking that with cowardly.
It’s not cowardly, but it is a pretty serious slap in the face to someone who likes science fiction and also likes Margaret Atwood’s novels. Not to mention the fact that she’s wrong. Some of her works are clearly science fiction (such as The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake). She can complain about it, but it only makes her sound like a whiner.
If it’s not cowardly then why did you bring it up? My question wasn’t whether Margaret Atwood is known for being condescending, a snob, or saying things some people didn’t like, my question was whether she was known for being pathetic and cowardly. This was in response to a poster who specifically referred to her as a “pathetic wuss”, and given the context I don’t think her views on science fiction were the issue.
FWIW I am familiar with some of Atwood’s remarks about science fiction, and while I think she’s wrong about what the term “science fiction” means I do not feel slapped in the face by this. I’ve also never seen any quotes from her that I’d characterize as “throwing a fit” or “whining” about it. A quick Google indicates that she’s happy to admit that she uses the terms “science fiction” and “speculative fiction” differently than others do (see this 2005 piece in The Guardian).
It’s a “pretty serious slap in the face” to science fiction fans that she doesn’t consider her books science fiction? How very precious. You honestly can’t be serious.
If that is true those folks are dainty lil flowers.
Over 100 posts and no mention of Ira Levin’s This Perfect Day? Yes, I could see that one happening.
Christ, it was a joke made at the expense of an author with a ridiculous quirk. I’m sorry, OK. Are either of related to Margaret Atwood by any chance?
So we’re going from the pearl clutching “serious slap in the face” to asking us if we’re related to Margaret Atwood because clarification was asked for? Nice deflection, but you were the one over the top not the other way around. Regardless, this little hijack is getting us nowhere.
What pearl clutching? I swear, this place is absolutely terrible when it comes to snarky humor sometime. I make a joke about Atwood’s stupid quirk of refusing to call her stuff sci-fi (when it so obviously is) and then I get jumped on. What the hell?
And this completes the circle, so that we’re officially saying the same thing over and over.
Here’s my contribution. The U.S. *could *fall, but only by some currently unknown process. But no nation with a long-term stable democratic government has ever fallen. Ever. The next time would be the first time. So what are you extrapolating off of?
The world is at a place in history where we have never been before, for a long list of reasons. I don’t think you can go by what has gone before to predict what can happen in the future.