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As companies destroy the world in pursuit of profits that will never come, I welcome our Butlerian Jihad
(lemmy.world)
For those unfamiliar the Dune series, the Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against “thinking machines”. Ultimately computers, and intelligent or thinking machines, even down to calculators are destroyed and banned. Humans who are trained in complex mental maths become known as Mentats, a sort of human computer. Just, uhh, leave all that shit on IX, with their Axalotl Tanks out of it.
It’s kind of crazy how prescient the original novels were about AI, and how much that was undone by Brian Herbert - the Butlerian Jihad was such a consequential event that even ten thousand years later, the theocratic feudal oligarchy that runs the universe still refuses the break the taboo that it set across countless religions and capital interests, and the best reasoning Brian Herbert could come up with for why this was such a huge taboo was “a giant robot enslaved humanity ten thousand years ago.”
A Penny Arcade with…strong opinions
I’d say pretty spot on opinions
Right? I just couldn’t with his novels, they come no where close to Frank’s writing expertise.
They felt stilted, directionless, and shallow. I really wanted them to be decent, but gave up after two.
ftfy