TagDystopia
Megan Review, Part 3
If you’re looking for a mind-numbing popcorn flick to pass the time, Megan is worth watching.In the previous review, Megan began her killing spree, but Gemma quickly figured out there was a problem with the robot and took her back to her lab. Cady was distraught about the loss of her favorite toy, but Gemma still brought the girl to the lab and made Cady talk with a social worker. Afterward, she and Cady had a heartfelt discussion about the loss of the child’s parents. Gemma takes Cady home. Meanwhile, the assistants bring Megan down to the lab, but the robot escapes. Megan makes a B-line for Gemma’s house, but along the way, she encounters Gemma’s employer, David. She quickly kills the boss and his assistant before stealing a car. David was a rather unlikable Read More ›
The Small Steps That Lead to Dystopia
Revisiting a 1993 article warning about the future of assisted suicideEditor’s Note: The following piece was originally published in Newsweek in June 1993. Today is my 76th birthday,” the letter began. “Unassisted and by my own free will, I have chosen to take my final passage.” Suicide. My friend Frances died in a cold, impersonal hotel room after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, with a plastic bag tied over her head suffocating the life out of her body. Frances was not a happy woman. She had family troubles. She suffered from chronic lymphatic leukemia and was facing the difficult prospect of a hip replacement. She also had a chronic nerve condition that caused her to feel a burning sensation on her skin. But Frances was lucid, aware and involved. Read More ›
Revisiting Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
How can we read and remember the past with the influx of digital noise and distraction?Which one was right, Brave New World or 1984? Are we living in a hedonistic mirage or a totalitarian face-stamping global regime? The conversation over prophetic twentieth-century texts often homes in on these two admirable books, but another classic dystopian novel pokes its head from behind the curtain, asking to be regarded: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It’s the riotous, mega-talented sci-fi writer’s most famous work (though I’d argue not quite his best) and follows the life of a fireman, Guy Montag, whose main job is not to squelch housefires but to burn books, and the houses that hold them. This fireman is a member of a brigade tasked with the destruction of literature. With the destruction of meaning. In the Read More ›
It’s 2075! Our Motto: “Ignorance is Bliss” — Sci-fi Saturday
This animated short asks us to consider a future world in which information is reduced to a sort of haze“Kernel” at DUST by Olly Skillman-Wilson (August 25, 2021, 5:12 min, animated) The world has become a place where information is tightly filtered and controlled, expelled into the air like a thick smog. Leonard Paisley is an ageing neurobotanist, his life work to preserve the knowledge of the past in his biome. When some equipment malfunctions his commitment is tested. Review: It’s 2075 AD and freedom of the press is not even remembered. Against a background of futuristic skyscrapers, a billboard advises us, “Not Knowing Is a Virtue.” Another that “Ignorance Is Bliss.” And “‘Tis Folly To Be Wise” Well, at least they are not telling us to Love Big Brother Or Else. Except for the fact that the landscape Read More ›
Sci-fi Saturday: A Future Where Dreams Have Been Privatized
Unfortunately, the dream Carlos wants is to see his missing family again and that's illegal …“I Dream” at DUST by Juan Pablo Arriagada (February 20, 2021, 14.25 min, Spanish with English subtitles) “In the future, dreams have been privatized. Carlos will risk anything to have one last dream to see his missing family.” Severe language and violence warning. It’s an interesting concept: “It was just a matter of time before dreams became privatized and became a basic service. Only rich people can afford to dream. The people who can’t pay for it must work double shifts. Or buy this drug that makes them stay awake. And, by the way, it’s made by the same people that privatized sleep.” Carlos, an ex-cop whose family went missing, can afford one last dream in which he wants to Read More ›
1984 is 70 years old yet still feels current
Did Orwell prove a better techno-prophet than Huxley did in Brave New World?In 1949, Huxley thought he was closer to the mark than his former student Orwell was. Later generations have tussled over the question, with revealing results.
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“Brilliant Vision” from a Century Ago Foretells Today’s Internet
In E. M. Forster's dystopia, people interact only through the MachineIn a wholly materialist environment, science and other disciplines have, by preference, ceased to explore anything but their own ideas.
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Philosopher: Gloom and doom over AI is “silly”
Jay Richards thinks that historian Yuval Noah Harari is wrong to think that AI will necessarily subvert democracyThe idea that machines are capable of replacing us is the topic of many books he has read but, he argues, the thing that really distinguishes us is the capacity for developing creative freedom.
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