Dystopia 101, or how I learned to stop caring...

I honestly didn't know where to put this thread, I'm so lost since I came back on, I used ot have a nice groove to work in and a nice rhythm, heck DToM can tell you I've been kinda all over the place in the past few months, just here sorta..

Which brings me to the subject matter.

Dystopian Narratives and How I learned to Stop Caring.

I am a self admitted science fiction fan, the very first book i ever read was SciFi, A World out of Time by Larry Niven... I work currently in my spare time doing CGI work for two Star Trek productions, I am glad to count people that have acted in the shows as friends (John Savage is a hoot but I'll get to him another time) and I generally watch SciFi TV (not the channel per-say but the genre)

I started watching Revolution last year, I admit I love the show, it's Dystopian. BattleStarGalactica (I have quite a few friends that worked on it so I thought I'd watch it, the new one, not the old one) It's VERY Dystopian in it's overtones.. Movies, The Hunger Games, again a very bleak Dystopian Future being pushed upon us.. Why though? Why don't they want us to see a Trek like show where the future is bright and while not 100% perfect, we get a long and we work together for a better future? (Oh I forgot Defiance, another Dystopian show)

Question.. Quick, short, succinct.

Answer.. I came to the answer last night, and it really upset me, they are preparing us for this type of bleak, fight to survive future because they know that's what's coming, not through some engineered economic collapse, not through World War Three, or nanomachines turning off the power, but through ourselves and the way humanity is "evolving"

I have autistic children, and I don't' think of them as disabled, but evolved, another step on the latter, or a sideways lurch so to speak. They keep me grounded, and seeing life and the world through their eyes is frankly fascinating and I could write a book about it, but they even see it with people, the general everyday people on the street, people that don't really think too much anymore, it's all just instinct.

When is the last time you saw half the people that you run into daily walking down the street just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and say hmmm, "today is a day I'm going to do something good for another.." HA you don't.. .The everyone for themselves dam the world attitude is what's going to decimate our civilization, not war or engineered chaos..

Think about it, if you have say 4 billion people just walking around on nothing but instinct and suddenly the rules change or they get pushed off the path, you're going to have a lot of scared, and angry people, but they know not at what so it lashes out at everyone around them, cue societal collapse..

Human instinct is to protect self, family, possessions (sometimes for some not in that order) give the people a bg enough catalyst and you're not going to need Martial Law you're going to need a huge pandemic or something.. people are programmed NOT to care, NOT to help, NOT to be there for others, it's sad, btu that's what's going on now, everything we read, see, watch or hear, is showing us that the future sucks, like in the here and now, damn the consequences because in 10 years time you'll be in a gulag making gruel for your former neighbors..

I care, I help anyone I can anytime and anywhere, yeah I have a hairtrigger temper (ask Springer i've had to beg forgiveness from him on more than one occasion) but more and more i'm seeing "get out of my way" as the attitude of the day..

It's just sad and I can't expend energy caring anymore about all of the people that refuse to see that an act of kindness , no matter how small could change another's world in ways that would wake em up and stop running on instinct alone.

Intinct alone is what got us here, let's break that mold..and care again.

Thanks for letting my vent out, been on my mid for a while.

reply to post by vkey08


I see a lot of what you're saying. But there are some of us that care and have sacrificed for others and for ideals. I just hope there'd be enough of that type to make a difference. Maybe that's stupid, but I gotta hope, right?

reply to post by vkey08


Don't forget Jericho as a good future model, fractionalization, internalized faction conflict, societal collapse, pockets of cooperation, but a general overall malaise concerning the future. Humanity is like a macrocosm of ourselves, we all go through periods where we are less or more than what we think we are or can achieve. I have evolved, devolved and re-evolved a number of times and perspectives are always subjective from a relativistic viewpoint. It's the same way with societies on a larger scale.

I see a lot of people that care around me, of course I live in the middle of farming communities, our location is semi-remote and comprised of about 100 homes. Everyone helps everyone else and everyone here knows everyone at worst case once removed. I can sit on my deck and people wave at me or I wave at them. Driving in the area, same thing. In the smaller local towns, we say hi and ask people how they are out of concern, I know I mean it when I ask and I think they do as well. We've got our bunch of what are considered "rich" asshats, but what can you do? You have to get along with everyone because in a pinch, you have to be able to rely on everyone, within limits of course and money will mean nothing if SHTF, skills will be the real commodity.

When the collapse comes (not if), we can at least form pockets of cooperation, that can hopefully cooperate with other pockets and thereby become greater than the sum of our parts. However if that's not the case, I have deer and rabbits in my backyard, 1 acre of garden, walnut, butternut and apple trees, fresh water, a still, two wood stoves, a steam turbine for electricity, a 2000 joule electric fencing system and will help whoever I can ;-) I am pre-booking for hot babes LOL (j/k).

Cheers - Dave

Venting is good to do, as long as you avoid hurting others in the process.

I think a lot of people are feeling the same way these days, and I wonder if 'information overload' doesn't have a big impact on it.

With all of the controversial information so easily accessed through the internet, I don't know quite what to believe! Guess I'll just have to be patient and wait and see.

Just try to remember not to take life too seriously; none of us are going to get out of it alive.

reply to post by vkey08


Do you think people's behavior is instinct or programming? Do you think kindness is not a human trait? Or do you believe we learn to only care about ourselves through the constant bombardment of materialism that supports corporate profits? Do you think the world has been engineered for the benefit of a few or for the well being of everyone?
Ask yourselves these things, and then ask yourself why am i here? To endure this suffering and pay taxes your whole life?
Nothing worth having is easy to come by, that's what makes it valuable.
Waking people up isn't easy, but don't you think it might be worth it?
To know your kids will grow up in a kind loving world as a result of your efforts?
OR be recorded in history as that guy who helped save mankind from lifelong tyranny and slavery

You can be anything you want. Are you proud of who you are, or not?

reply to post by MOSTwanted


Personally I've dedicated 15 years of my life to helping others, and I love my day job with passion. I have taught my children that it's the right way to do business, I'm more concerned about the apathy I see around me and there are days like last night that I wanna say screw it, if they don't want the help or the assistance or th ewisdom, screw them... I know it's an awful way to think, but.....

Years of watching people self destruct has gotten to me I guess...

reply to post by bobs_uruncle


Yes I forgot Jericho... I even have it on DVD LOL. Even the crime dramas are full of dystopian references these days, it's just bombarding the general population...

I think we are led this way since the world has been almost fully explored. There is no longer any undiscovered country and now industrialization is creeping into the most remote places. The idealism that started with the inception of scifi was pretty much done away with when promises of high science and culture were squashed by the 70s and the sense of exploration was gone.

Everyone really thought we would have cities on the moon by now but instead we have iphones. Science like everything else has become about profit and all of those dystopian visions have merged with the cyberpunk scifi of the 80s where corporations rule everything and people are made into serfs. People just see exploitation all around them and this is reflected in our visions of the future. They have to look to other cultures in space within scifi in order to recapture those feelings of wonder and exploration.

It is like THX-1138 we are building our own robot captors and we are dead set on this path. Cynicism has crept into every aspect and it is really hard to be idealistic if you have access to any sort of information in this day and age and you see the advances in science. Even in series like Star Trek with the semi-communist and somewhat idealist side of things represented it took outside intervention to achieve this through the cold rational Vulcans.

I used to look at scifi and see potential for the future but now I just see it as a lie. Space travel is never going to be for anyone but the elite. Life extension tech, biomech upgrades, genetic alterations, all of this to the people who can afford it. We could have had wireless free energy according to Tesla but then they couldn't put a meter on it and that's how things will remain unless everyone collectively changes things.

reply to post by vkey08


I think you are absolutely right.
People run on the thought that they are owed what they want in this world and rarely stop to think of anybody else. It is selfishness plain and simple. The technology that we bury ourselves in has masked the humanity around us. It's now all about the biggest, the best and the fastest. People are becoming incapable of doing a job or carrying on a conversation without focusing more on the device in their hands than the person in front of them.

The technology that has turned into yet another money maker has only exacerbated the problem. There have always been selfish people in the world, but removing the need to look another person in the eyes and honestly communicating with them makes it easy for people to be that selfish. I have seen the selfishness expand to the point that any kind of rationality has faded. It's almost as if real life is taking on the lesser consequences that the digital world has created. I hope that makes sense. I see it in my life with family and friends. I have nearly ceased to exist in some of their eyes because I am not on Facebook. Entire conversations center on the " life " people have fabricated on social media, and you just aren't a part of it if you don't see their updates.

Helping people is the best feeling in the world, and the most precious lesson to teach our children. All we can do is resign ourselves to being obsolete and continue on a path that is not centered on the pretend world of social media and other such traps. And be prepared to answer your child when they ask why someone with a fancy car is picking up food while you are dropping off boxes of it for others out of your own beater. It's still worth caring, always, even if it hurts more than it should due to people's attitudes. Luckily we are still only responsible for ourselves and our children.

PS I wish that we were traveling the stars rather than staring at screens.