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submitted 2 months ago by NatakuNox@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[-] blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk 12 points 2 months ago

Lots of good suggestions so far, Brave New World and Don't Look Up would be right up there for me. But my #1 is this...

The Machine Stops (PDF) Written in 1909 so out of copyright, this book is so ahead of its time it makes remarkable reading today. The amount of things predicted that describe the modern day is incredible. It's also not that long, so well worth a read.

[-] napfkuchen@feddit.org 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Horizon Zero Dawn: Total extinction by the 2060s because some mad, narcissistic Elon Musk guy overestimates himself and fucks it up for the whole world? Doesn't sound too far-fetched to me right now.

[-] JohnyRocket@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

100% no doubt The parable of the sower and subsequent book. I read that book - started reading it - in June this year and read it over about a month. It was very creepy to be reading a sci fy book set in the future that is now my present and while it is not as bad right now as Octavia Butler makes it out to be, we are definitely heading there if drastic action is not taken immediately.

Edit: the books in order: (Only two, sadly she died while writing the third but still both worth reading, there isn't a clif hanger at the end) https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries

[-] grumpasaurusrex@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Absolutely this! Octavia Butler literally wrote a fascist American president with the slogan "Make America Great Again" in 1993.

[-] Yodan@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

Idiocracy/Dont look up/1984/Judge Dredd

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

My bets on Robocop style corporate dictatorship until terminator style annihilation occurs.

Star Trek was never on the cards.

[-] MinFapper@startrek.website 3 points 2 months ago

Actually, star trek might be. In their lore, things got a lot worse before they got better.

[-] Stovetop@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

World War 3 began in 2026 according to TNG, we're close!

In the aftermath, the world became an irradiated apocalyptic hellhole for almost a century, most cities destroyed and governments collapsed. I'd say we're well on our way to that state, question is whether or not we emerge better on the other side. I'd almost be okay with that if there was some assurance that humanity would come out as Star Trek afterwards.

[-] thallamabond@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Bell Riots never happened, that timeline is broken.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots

[-] Free_Opinions@feddit.uk 7 points 2 months ago

Idiocracy.

Birth rates are down everywhere and the majority of the people left making lots of babies are not the ones you wish would be having them. Being virtuous and on the "right side of history" means nothing if those values die with you and are not passed to the next generation.

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[-] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 6 points 2 months ago

100% its cyberpunk. corpo takeover with having to use technology to get by even when it is bad for you.

[-] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago

We don't even get cool neon signs, everything is sad beige now... :(

[-] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 2 months ago

honestly the neon all over like tokyo is one of the more unrelistic aspects to me. same with the private link. all the ads will be straight to the optic nerve and it will be so dreary when looking at it plainly.

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[-] invertedspear@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago

Parable of the Sower

It was written as near future fiction anyway. In fact the dates mentioned in the book start out in our past. Just the catalyst events haven’t quite happened yet. Add a few years to the dates and I could see us heading towards that kind of societal break down.

[-] rothaine@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

This book is haunting. It made me seriously consider buying a gun. If I could convince my wife to read it, we'd probably have an armory by now.

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

As an American I'd absolutely say Idiocracy, but that's just my little corner of humanity.

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 4 points 2 months ago

You better start believing in cyberpunk dystopia, Miss Turner. You're in one!

Not sure which one. But we already pretty much check all the boxes of cyberpunk.

[-] zod000@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Lots of good responses in this thread so far, but I keep thinking of the newest Gibson trilogy with regards to "the jackpot" where the majority of the population dies from a series of "not quite the big one" pandemics and climate issues and society is taken over by the kleptocracy. I love Gibson's books, but I wish he would stop accurately predicting our demise.

[-] 7uWqKj@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago
[-] Shortstack@reddthat.com 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Brave New World

In some ways we’re already living it

[-] iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 months ago

Our drugs aren't that good. And the system isn't optimizing for maximum happiness.

[-] Quazatron@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Scroll down and keep the endorphins flowing.

[-] 7uWqKj@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I suppose he was referring to the general "this is fine" attitude.

[-] MiDaBa@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

I've gotta go with Mad Max here. Between the words oil obsession, rising aggression and dumbing down of society I can't see it going any other way.

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

A combination of Snow Crash and Idiocracy

[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ah I love Snow Crash.

We're already at the point of bizarre self-parody, cringe-irony, ultra-capitalism, but instead of pizza delivering street-samurai and a fascinating metaverse...

...we got grub/dash/food/rabbit/whatever and..."meta." Ugh.

I hate so much that Idiocracy was so on the mark. Knowledge being lost, culture being 100% based on consumption, corporate warmonger leadership. The entertainment is basically there if you look at YouTube's front page it's like:

"OW! MuH bAwLz! (For $48,000,000?!?!?!) - 2 hrs. ago | 3 million views"

"Slappin buttz n' moar munee - UpGrAyD (ft. GoonOhioSkebedeezyFR) - 1 day ago | 7.5 million views"

[-] AmidFuror@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago

WALL-E. We just don't have a way to escape yet, but the rest is happening regardless.

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[-] rothaine@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Can we choose? I'll pick the Matrix. Yes we are slaves to the machines, but at least they give us happy dreams

[-] Platypus@lemmings.world 2 points 2 months ago
[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 1 points 2 months ago

Wall-E by way of 1984.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Been reading Corey Doctorow lately and catch myself thinking, "Aw c'mon! That's not how it works!" And then remember, he's writing about the near future.

[-] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

Radicalized was pretty damn close to the mark. Sure in this case Luigi was radicalized from back pain and not cancer.

[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

As bland and forgettable as it was, the film adaptation of "Tomorrowland."

The premise (or at least my takeaway) basically being that, we might have been headed toward a techno-utopia of optimistic and bright developments, but greed and cynicism took over the spirit of invention, and everyone collectively became cynical and pessimistic about the future as a result.

Technology and those who claimed to wield it became enemies of the people.

Many of our most popular "near future" stories and entertainment are about societal collapse, disaster, the worst of humanity turning on themselves, and technology being used for its worst purposes. We almost enjoy morbidly indulging in forecasting our own bad ending, over and over and over. Warnings became franchises co-opted by the bad powers they warned against.

Partially, we'll get a crappy future because we've all been conditioned and used to the idea that it's inevitable and there's nothing we can do about it. This reduces our will to fight it, and instead we settle for merely enduring it.

If we had hope and fire and a taste of something better, we'd stop giving in to doomerism and just accepting it when it keeps getting worse.

This is why I really like the emergence of Solar Punk. It's a hopeful and bright rebellion against endless neon acid rain tumbling down towering corporate fortresses, rusting everybody's work-leased cyber-limbs as they gig-work 24/7 to afford neural software updates.

Instead, it's about embracing communitarianism, careful stewardship of natural resources, sustainable existence in tandem with nature instead of against it, open and free knowledge to all, endless invention with human thriving in mind.

If people actually believed, not merely that's how it should be, but that it could be ...we could make some real progress.

[-] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

I'm going to go obscure here and say that the world of 2077 from the television show Continuum

It ran for a few seasons; I enjoyed it for the most part. Not the best, not the worst. But definitely in terms of the premise where Corporations have essentially bought out failing governments, leading to an advanced surveillance state, and anti-corporate terrorists, etc... etc...

[-] recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

Dune.

Not the cool parts, the Butlerian Jihad.

I'd have gone with WH40Ks war with the men of iron but there's absolutely no chance we reach golden age of technology levels before we fuck ourselves.

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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
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