Children of teh Atom

Ninjadmin · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 8:52 pm Post subject: Utopias????

ok, when you see sci fi from the 60s and 70s, and they are always based around 2010 or 2020, and they either imagine the dystopian view where freedom has been abolished by the party and we have run out of everything, or the utopian view where we have become so technologically advanced that stuff like poverty no longer exists

basically the dystopian view has come true in a lot of ways, but was this neccesary?? was it possible in the 60s to have created a society by now where we were exploring space and inventing amazing robots??

not-I · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject:

i guess the simple answer is that technology is a double-edged sword.

on the one hand, it HAS (though mainly in the west, and to varying degrees): reduced poverty, given people longer lives, enhanced communication and hence community (e.g. a site like this one), etc.

on the other hand, it has facilitated total surveillance, mass killing (through more 'effective' weapontry), likely fucked up the climate, etc.

60s 'heads' were divided on this point. people like t. leary, b. fuller and even abbie hoffmann unabashedly embraced tech to advance a better society, while others such as proto-greens like the guy who later became the unabomber thought it was a threat to civilization itself.

i think the 'mass' of the 60s movements consisted of middle-class white students (proto-trustafarians -- certainly no majority) who betrayed their ideals as soon as they got lucrative job offers - blame it on the narcissism of the baby-boomer generation.

yet, some of these ideals did in fact persist, and ended up changing society for the better (albeit only partially). think social and global consciousness, feminism, sexual revolution, business ethics, psychedelics, engagement with 'eastern' ideas, global communication, etc. stuff that we more or less take for granted today (at least as ideals).

[cues King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man]

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:34 am Post subject:

you want bleak, dystopian visions of the future, with a soupcon of faith in the objectivity of science?

check alexander korda & hg wells's things to come - it's out of copyright now, you can d/l from the internet archive

Soreenkid · Guest

london never looked better in 28 days later, no fucking humans,.

Ninjadmin · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:47 am Post subject:

i don't think anyone understood the question

not-I · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 3:32 am Post subject: Re: Utopias????

ok, well here it is again:

flick · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:10 pm Post subject:

Ninjadmin · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 1:35 pm Post subject:

japanese robots are pretty amazing, american ones are just guns on wheels

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:24 pm Post subject:

Ninjadmin · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject:

nice to meeting you

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject:

the pleasuring is all me

flick · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject:

shocking that is.

DrCarnage · fantastic Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 2941

A Utopia would never work in reality. People all have individual wants and needs. Some want very little out of life, and some are greedy bastards.

A Dystopia is an easier (from a government point of view) option. You can employ your own methods of control and human emotions can be exploited: fear, hatred, greed, love.

there is also a very fine line between a utopia and a dystopia.