# REVISITING: Which dystopia do you find the most plausible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102 "2018-07-17T18:26:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/21 "2018-07-18T02:42:50Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Most plausible to me is still the Theocratic America in Heinlein’s **Revolt In 2100**. **Rikwriter** thought that was hilarious 3 years ago. How do you feel today, **Rik**? Three times as hilarious. America is more and more secular every day, especially the younger generation. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/22 "2018-07-18T02:44:48Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Something like _Rollerball_, where the masses are distracted with bread and circuses while the rich run things. Now THIS is much more possible. I can see a less-elaborate and less-dramatic version of this happening IRL…if it hasn’t happened already. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/23 "2018-07-18T04:33:04Z")
_Blade Runner_ seems more and more plausible to me, even if L.A. doesn’t look much like the movie’s version of it on schedule next year. Enslaved humaniform robots, heavy-handed cops, environmental devastation, hypercommercialized sex, a permanent and poor immigrant subclass, and no political leadership worth following - yup, I’m afraid we’re well on the way. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/24 "2018-07-18T05:33:17Z")
_Running Man_, for me. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/25 "2018-07-18T06:06:38Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Three times as hilarious. America is more and more secular every day, especially the younger generation. Personally, I fear that the secularism of young people is passive and not underpinned by any real conviction, and therefore would not stand up to strong persuasion. I have experienced this in real life in a few cases. I hope this remark, being not political, passes mod muster for this thread. For the OP, I think that beer and circuses is the more likely route than guns and steel. So _Brave New World_ for my money. I can also see _Elysium_ as a possible direction, where the “have” class gets smaller and richer, and everyone else pays for it. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/26 "2018-07-18T06:28:58Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > …where the “have” class gets smaller and richer, and everyone else pays for it. That’s not just future, that’s past and present. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/27 "2018-07-18T07:18:42Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Is the world of _Black Mirror_ dystopia? Or is it simply a plausible projection of reality 10 or 15 years into the future? Whichever it is, we are quite seriously almost there. Forget about the political elements and the outlandish post apocalyptic hellscapes and evil Orwellian governments - the world shown in _Black Mirror_ is our world’s future. Definitely this. By setting it near and far into the future and considering the implications of both science fiction ideas and tangible science fact it covers a lot of ground. It isn’t a coherent world that forms a single dystopian image but I think it nails many of the ways that “technology” plus “society” equals “problem”. I don’t doubt that some of Charlie Brooker’s ideas will permeate our world and we’ll not really realise it until it has already happened. Particularly persuasive to me was “The entire history of you” (dealing with people keeping a constant record of movements and activities) and “Nosedive” (the perils of maintaining a high social media profile) And I don’t think it is a coincidence that “Black Mirror” could be taken as a reference to the screens in “1984” ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/28 "2018-07-18T10:48:15Z")
I’ll still go with the answer I gave back then: **The Sheep Look Up** by John Brunner. Multiple environmental disasters (crop failures, etc.) start hitting the world and people start freaking out. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/29 "2018-07-18T11:01:02Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Personally, I fear that the secularism of young people is passive and not underpinned by any real conviction, and therefore would not stand up to strong persuasion. Secularism doesn’t need to be backed by conviction. In fact, it’s the lack of conviction, the understanding that there are things we can’t know and that those things aren’t actually that important to our lives. Since there is exactly zero chance that the US will be taken over by fundamentalists in the near future, it would have to be the next generation driving it, and they won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/30 "2018-07-18T13:40:28Z")
Handmaid’s Tale. I mean, we _literally_ have women walking down the streets in red capes and bonnets. Maybe they were being ironic. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/31 "2018-07-18T14:21:30Z")
Decadent hedonism, like _Brave New World_,\* Fahrenheit 451\*, or _Logan’s Run_. (In each case, the trope for which the story is most famous, is not the most important part of the story.) from the forward to _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ by Neil Postman: > [@](#): > > We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. > > But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s _Brave New World_. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. > > What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in _Brave New World Revisited_, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In_1984_, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In _Brave New World_, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/32 "2018-07-18T15:08:12Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Is it actually a dystopia then? That is what makes it so interesting because you could indeed argue that. I am in the camp that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/33 "2018-07-18T16:21:36Z")
Dr. McCoy: “Well, that’s the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Captain James T. Kirk: “No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren’t meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can’t stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.” “This Side of Paradise,” _Star Trek_ ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/34 "2018-07-18T17:41:37Z")
Seconding Octavia Butler. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/35 "2018-07-18T18:04:24Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > I always found Brave New World’s concept of people willingly subjugating themselves more compelling than malevolent 1984 style dictatorships. Some things would need to be updated as it’s 86 years old, of course. This, with a healthy dose of _Brazil_, both the movie and the social/criminal structure of the country. The way Machine Elf describes _Elysium_—I have not seen it—rings true for me as well. Techno-feudalism is the way of the future: a small stupendously wealthy empowered elite, a slightly larger techocrat class to run things, and a gigantic stupefied, segregated proletarian class that votes for all of the above. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/36 "2018-07-18T18:30:03Z")
I want to give the nod to Sinclair Lewis’s _It Can’t Happen Here_, especially given the upsurge in fascism today. ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/37 "2018-07-18T18:59:47Z")
_ **Oryx and Crake** _, another Margaret Atwood novel. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/38 "2018-07-18T22:19:08Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Secularism doesn’t need to be backed by conviction. In fact, it’s the lack of conviction, the understanding that there are things we can’t know and that those things aren’t actually that important to our lives. Since there is exactly zero chance that the US will be taken over by fundamentalists in the near future, it would have to be the next generation driving it, and they won’t. I disagree. A dedicated religionist can be relentless and, in the end, persuasive, if you have nothing to answer back except “well, I don’t know.” I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not sanguine. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/39 "2018-07-18T22:33:24Z")
A major part of _Brave New Word_ that is very unlikely to come about is the determined engineering of worker classes like the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, largely because we have automation to a degree Huxley could not have imagined, so why bother? The most likely dystopic form in the short term, I expect, is the corporation version as seen in the original _Robocop_ and its sequels. They’ve always been pulling the political strings, they’ll soon be doing so openly and brazenly, to the point where elected officials are just figureheads chosen by popularity contests. ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102/40 "2018-07-19T00:25:50Z")
Dudes, I am using this thread to put together my vacation reading list. Is there anything mentioned so far that will ruin my vacation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisiting-which-dystopia-do-you-find-the-most-plausible/818102.md?page=3)