Omelas isn’t a dystopia, really, it’s actually a version of the trolley problem. Would you kill one to save many? Would you allow one to be tortured so that many thousands could have utopia?
Except that in the trolley problem, there’s a clear connection between the course of the trolley and the outcome. In Omelas, the torture of the one leads to the utopia of the thousands because… reasons. We’re just told that it’s so, now shut up and accept it.
Not everyone shuts up and accepts it.
I’m going to have to disagree on Dune, since the rule is neither arbitrary or contrived in the universe. And if post is being reviewed by our distant descendants thousands of years from now, after the AI wars, well, yeah, we knew it could happen. --snicker–
Back to Dune though, the ‘arbitrary’ rule or, rather, blind spot, is that in a universe of hyper-intelligent beings, some of whom have literally generations of accumulated knowledge, almost no one (other than the main characters and the Imperial planetologists) were ever willing to do deep research on how the spice was produced. Given, that as @Smapti said, it is a point failure source for the entire human empire as well being physically important to the wellbeing of the majority of the upper classes of society, no one makes serious efforts to research on the mechanics of reproducing this nearly unique substance.
re: the spice in Dune
Trying not to turn this into a Dune thread, but I thought part of the problem was that Arakis and the spice were always monopolized, so it was in the interest of the controlling family to greatly limit access and prevent research into it.
I agree, there are many sci fi type books where one simple rule breaks things, but I’m at a loss for thinking of them.
Of course, it is possible to render lots of problems into one simple rule. Did you know that even if you have the means, you can’t just move anyplace you want? Depending on where you or even your parents were born, there are lots of places you can’t move, even if somebody is willing to give you a job there, so you can’t leave your local dystopia.
(Don’t want to start an immigration thread, either, just making the point that sometimes one simple rule can be really complicated.)
I think that’s often the point of a lot of these sci fi stories.
But I would tend to agree with you on Dune. The “no AI” rule, much like the “laser + shield = nuclear explosion” rule are just a pretense for creating an futuristic society with anachronistic customs, government, and tech.
The main “rule” of the Dune universe is “he who controls the spice controls the universe”. And the spice only comes from one place - Arrakis.
…which is only true because the Guild Navigators are the only beings capable of navigating hyperspace without using AI, and the Revered Mothers and the Mentats of the Great Houses are the best possible substitute for advanced computers.
Without the prohibition against AI, spice is just a really cool herbal supplement.
“Harrison Bergeron” has some pretty absurd elements in it. The titular character is described as being 7 feet tall and festooned with three hundred pounds worth of handicap weight. And at the end of the story, Harrison and his ballerina pal, Glampers, are literally floating near the ceiling as they dance. I don’t think this story is literally about he follies of trying to enforce equality. I think it’s about society coming down hard on people who are different.
I wouldn’t describe the first few books in the Dune series has being dystopic. The fourth book, God Emperor of Dune, is dystopic but that’s after 3,500 years of rulership by a tyrant who has pushed most of humanity back to the middle ages.
We’re using arbitrary in a somewhat interesting way. I kind of figure the authors of these works deliberately picked their rules in order to tell the story they wanted to tell.
A common trope in Sci-Fi near future military fiction is to have some weird thing happen to completely neutralize modern weapons and/or nuclear weapons just to give the heroes an excuse why some third rate power suddenly is able to challenge 1st world nations.
The long running 80s book series “The Seventh Carrier” starts with the simple premise “What if a World War 2 era Japanese aircraft carrier attacked a (then) modern Pearl Harbor?”
Then once the first book completely and thoroughly explored that premise the second books from then on had randomly the Chinese government suddenly launching a missile defense system that shoots lasers at anything with a jet or rocket engine in it, so suddenly all modern aircraft travel and orbiting modern technologies no longer work at all. Which now gives the excuse why some WW2 era aircraft carrier and it’s vintage prop airplanes can now fight literally anyone on Earth on even grounds.
I mean, the books don’t spend much time dwelling on the daily lives of anyone who isn’t Fremen, a Bene Gesserit, or part of the nobility, but it certainly doesn’t seem like a pleasant life for the ordinary person.
That applies to Dune as well, of course - a nuclear first strike is grounds for planetary annihilation, and firing a lasgun at a shielded person causes both the shooter and target to explode, so most battles are between shielded infantry armed with melee weapons.
What?
This was about overpopulation. Not hedonism or youth culture.
Since I wanted to help steer away from the Dune sidetrack I was part of, may I also suggest the movie “Bunraku” (2010) which is a slightly guilty personal favorite. It is set in a post-final-world-war Earth where all societies have chosen to give up firearms, but still have conflict (of course) - so combat is all muscle powered weapons (with a strange emphasis on hand-to-hand).
It’s a weird movie and definitely more style than substance, but I always enjoy it’s crazy samurai flick/man-with-no-name western pastiche. And it is an utterly arbitrary rule that I can’t imagine all countries abiding by no matter how bad the war was, certainly not when the populations still support personal motor vehicles and limited mass transit.
I find it a good example of picking an arbitrary rule specifically so you can make the sort of movie you want - while playing homage to Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa in this case.
The stated reason was “population control”. The moral seemed to be something related to youth culture and hedonism. In the film, the people seem to live these sort of vapid, hedonistic lives with no real concerns or responsibilities, never questioning why or how they live the way they do.
Yeah, there are a couple of films and shows where societies decide to give up firearms in lieu of ninja swords. I always thought that felt a bit contrived. I mean if you are already the evil clan bent on world domination, why wouldn’t you be like “yeah…we’re going to go with guns and explosives too”.
I think the notion was, when you only have 30 years to live, you try to make the best of it which came across as hedonistic.
I think that the original 1967 book Logan’s Run (where the age limit was 21) was a commentary on 1960’s youth culture, where even the Rolling Stones pretended to be teenagers to gain fans. Nowadays the Rolling Stones are in their 70s, and debating whether to look for a new drummer.
Drummers have a bad time:
Except that they don’t even follow the “laser + shield = nuclear explosion” rule. Everyone has lasguns, and everyone has shields, and yet somehow nobody but the Great Families has nukes? At its simplest, anyone willing to martyr themselves can destroy a city. Make it only slightly more complicated, aim a lasgun, put the trigger on a timer, and then get the Hell out of Dodge (timers are specifically called out as being simple enough to bypass the “no thinking machines” rule).
I have no guilt about the pleasure I take from Bunraku. It’s the only DVD I’ve purchased in probably a decade, because it wasn’t readily available on streaming. And, yeah, the “no guns” rule is arbitrary and silly. There’s some vague backstory about a world war that nearly destroys civilization, but it’s not clear why everyone decided guns were the problem. And everyone abides by the “no guns” rule, even the worst criminals and most desperate rebels. But that silly rule gives us a truly glorious fever dream of a movie. The theme music alone is worth the price of admission.
I might almost see that not as an abortion analogy, but a critique of the “pro-life” movement. The idea being that those who seek to ban abortion seem not to have much interest in preserving or advancing life beyond the womb.
But, if no one bothers to understand how spice is made, figure the life cycle of the worms, then it would be really easy to destroy the spice permanently. Kill too many worms, crash a comet into Arrakis 
next thing you know, everyone is stuck on the planet they are currently on.