Dystopia is popular because people are idiotic. Fantasy folk are just backward. Both examples of what Bruce talks about above. Dystopia seems imminent only because a majority of people can't imagine The Culture. But it [will] happen. Technological development alone has been set in motion that will give them no choice.

Well, I guess Bruce has to pay the bills somehow and baseless fascistphobia is selling like hotcakes. Just a shame coming from someone who made a name as an iconoclast.

The Author apparently didn't read Science Fiction from the 1970s.
All the stuff in the 1970s was Dystopian.

ALL OF IT.
At least until "Star Wars" showed up.

IT IS CURRENT YEAR!!!

I was with him on a boat trip along the adriatic coast a few years back when he was researching all this. He did a really nice presentation at the start of the conference and I closed the end of it. It was one of the most magical adventures in my life. He;s amazing.

SciFi is everything and currently the only thing worth reading in this sea of bull. My book of the month: The Bequeathal: Godsent (on amazon) – staggering tech, concepts, AI and the singularity unlike any you've heard of. Oh, and it's happening during the 'captaschism'!

Two very great and very popular science fiction writers were Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan- both decidedly " left " in their political views. I also think that H.P. Lovecraft- a fantasy cult horror writer- is being unfairly smeared - and even ostracized -by the politically correct for effete racial views common to the early 20th century. By the time he died in 1937 H.P. Lovecraft had evolved into a democratic socialist - fond of Norman Thomas and H.G. Wells- and said in one of his numerous LETTERS that he was pleased that FDR was elected for a second term. [ http://radicalrons.blogspot... ]

Read Stanislaw Lem's "Return from the Stars" to understand what a hell a society like that would be.

In reply, I suggest you read Iain M. Banks' Culture series of novels, to see how a post-scarcity society deals with incentive and without a privileged class (though you might argue the Minds are privileged, they are also decidedly not human).

And he saw the fnords everywhere!

You think a society without a privileged class would be a hell for everybody else ? Does Science make any claim for an eternal human nature that can only thrive under an eternal capitalism ? Science fiction is all about CERTAIN CHANGE in the social order based on changes in technology ( a very Marxist notion ). Even Stephen Hawking speculated a while back that the extreme use of robots would demand an end to capitalism.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a generation ago second rate intellects have babbled about the " end of history ". Social thought does not culminate in Ayn Rand and " Atlas Shrugged ".

Capitalism is incentive. Take away incentive, and you have people simply sitting around at leisure, not creating anything new.

All of our technology we use was created for profit.

Incentive is love of body and the love of using it.

Science teaches that human beings have been living and surviving on this planet for several million years. " Incentive " did not begin with capitalism .

Ancient slavery also gave the slaves " incentive " to work in those cruel gold and silver mines, those fertile fields of wrath: there was always suicide as a way out.

The working class in 2016 is in the same horrible situation as when Frederick Engels wrote about the condition of the English working class way back in 1844.

What " incentive " is there in low wage jobs ? Why should working class people - the vast majority of the nation- love capitalism ? Marx explained all this very well in " The Communist Manifesto " . Later Engels explained their ideology in " Socialism - Utopian and Scientific ".

Also very instructive : " The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State ". And Lenin's classic " The State and Revolution ".

What do all these pseudo-liberal, bourgeois, academic, charlatan scholars offer as a rational explanation for the misery of this world ? They are presently besotted with " identity politics " .

Here is what I can Promise you will happen when BILLIONAIRE Donald Trump and his BILLIONAIRE and MULTIMILLIONAIRE Cabinet takes over,

-- with the help of the GOP/TEA Party controlled Congress:

First, since they're very Powerful and very Wealthy businessmen:

They will CUT Government Programs to the BONE to Reduce Government Costs.

They will CUT Medicare Benefits to the BONE to Reduce Government Costs.

They will CUT Medicaid Benefits to the BONE to Reduce Government Costs.

They will CUT Social Security Retirement Benefits to the BONE to Reduce Government Costs.

They will CUT Public Education Funding to the BONE to Reduce Government Costs.

They will CUT Taxes to the BONE to Reduce their BILLIONAIRE and MULTIMILLIONARE Tax Liability.

They will CUT Federal Environmental Regulations to the BONE that

-- protect our Clean Air
-- protect our Clean Water
-- protect America the Beautiful

in order to give Big Business a free hand in mining, oil drilling and fracking, gas and oil pipelines and

-- by also Reducing/Eliminating Federal Controls over industrial air pollution, and water pollution, and ground pollution.

For BILLIONAIRE Trump's BILLIONAIRE and MULTIMILLIONAIRE Cabinet Secretaries not only represent Big Business, but they are also Real Big-Time CONSERVATIVES who know how to make Big Money

-- especially for themselves.

Whether that will Result in "Draining the Swamp" or in "Building the Wall and Making Mexico Pay for it" or in "Making America Great Again" remains to be seen.

But hold on to your hope that BILLIONAIRE Trump will make good on his promise to white Americans if that makes you feel better about yourself.

And if it doesn't work out, you can always Blame it on the Press, the Liberals and President Obama...but you already do that...

Ok, you make a promise of what will happen, now make a promise of what YOU will do to YOU when it doesn't happen.

What you don't get is that to the people who voted for the cheeto (white nationalist, evangelical taliban, and just outright morons) everything you wrote about sounds great. they are all for it. The other 75% of us are screwed but we all knew that on Nov 12.

Mike Williams lies: "The other 75% of us are screwed but we all knew that on Nov 12."

Lets fix that: "The other 25% of us are screwed but we all knew that on Nov 12." (25% = 52% vote - 27% fake votes)

hey bro do you have down syndrome

Sounds good! Let's get started!

Nice copypasta. Try thinking and presenting your own reasoned arguments instead of blankly pasting that sort of twaddle.

“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the
Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every
other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them
cower, to judge themselves against.”

...a warning of whom to look out for, and how they're think, from...

―
Ray Bradbury,

Fahrenheit 451

Politically speaking, Ray Bradbury would have been very comfortable at Trump's inauguration.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ray several times, while working on a documentary about his life. I can't say what he would have thought of Trump or his inauguration, but he was no fan of the left. Fahrenheit 451 was a pretty spot on prediction of PC culture obsessed with media, and no real grasp of what was going on in the real world. I asked him how he felt about Micheal Moore using his book title and turning into Fahrenheit 911. Ray shot back, "Micheal Moore is a son-of-a-bitch." I miss Ray.

He spoke at my college and of course I went all starry-eyed because he was Ray Goddamn Bradbury, one of the best living writers, and he spent a lot of time attacking Steinbeck and espousing the work and worldview of Hemingway, particularly Hemingway's disparagement of Fitzgerald, comparing himself to Papa and all of that egotistical crap, just locker room dick measuring. This was around the time of the parrot story, you may remember -- was it called Hemingway's Parrot? (It was brilliant fantasy, but ultimately meaningless.) In any case I suddenly realized I knew nothing about this man. I thought he was relevant to his times, but no, he wasn't. He was a poet writing in a locked room. I reread everything I'd ever read of his after that. And then I never read another word from his pen.

I know that later in life Ray regretted his own "ego" driven actions, which he openly expressed. I will have to stand with him regarding Steinbeck. Don't get me wrong, Steinback is a good writer with good ideas, but smothers them in cynicism. Ray was all about optimism. His stories challenge a lot of people's world views, especially today. They more than relevant, they are timeless. They reflect civilization and human behavior. That's the real secret to predicting the future. That's the very meaning of Fahrenheit 451. Challenge people and the reaction is usually dismissal if your dead, or a media witch trial if you're alive. Come to think of it, witch trials are quite fascist by their nature, aren't they.

I thought once as you do about Ray, but no longer. (I am also a Lefty, so there is that.) I love Steinbeck in much the same way you love Bradbury. I mean, Bradbury couldn't even bring himself to learn how to drive a car! Some futurist! That said, I rather like it that people still feel passionate about his work (picket fences on Mars?) as reading, writing, book appreciation are all being shoved to the side by a populace incapable of more than momentary reason. Books invite you to live in them, and a person who can live in a book can build a starship, not just pretend to.

Well let's be fair, if you know about Ray than you know that:

A)
He had very strong reasons for not learning how to drive, but not
bringing himself to learn was not one of them. He also had very strong
reasons about not letting his books be published online, while he was
living. He would be the first to tell you that he was not a futurist,
but a writer of metaphors. "I don't try to predict the future, I try to
prevent it."

B) He openly stated many times that his works are
metaphors. Picket fences on Mars (which is not entirely unreasonable.
They haven't gone out of fashion on Earth yet.) is as much of one as a
big company mining "unobtainium" and has the added bonus of not beating
over the head with shameless, on the nose, vacuousness.

If I may, the
world could use a little more metaphor these days. Imagine if people
faulted Shakespeare for writing ghosts and fairies into his plays. The
literalists and technocrats are sucking all the soul out of everything.
Now wonder we have so many collectives of zombified masses worshiping at
the cell phone or big screen alter of anyone with a lab coat and a
degree, or who sits behind a desk, proclaiming charismatically, "Your
thoughts are invalid. I'm the expert. Those who deny my proclamations
are fools and must be brought to heel."

Yes, it's all metaphor
and it's all true. Mildred does sit in front of the wall, watching the
family, but we call it reality TV. The firemen do exist, but they don't
need to burn books because it's all online. Amazon.com can re-edit a
book, erasing the offensive words from literary history. CNN, ABC, MSN,
FOX, can all gate keep information instead of setting it on fire. If a
fire need be set, the people (“It didn't come from the Government down.
There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!")
can be incited. All the gate keepers have to do is spin a few facts to
enrage the masses and off they go. They'll be happy to beat and burn the
houses of the heretics.

That is the essence of fascism.
Democracy without a republic is just fascism by popular vote, and what's
popular, what people think is virtuous changes with a word from the
"right" person. It's how the Nazis took hold, how Mao & Lenin lead
their people to mass graves, and it never ends. All of these themes can
be found in Bradbury's work. You may not like the man or agree with his
stance, but to say "He was a poet writing in a locked room." is, in my
humble opinion, unsubstantiated... Although, I do enjoy and appreciate
the opportunity to elaborate my observations how what makes his work so
good.

What can sci-fi teach us about fascism? Nothing. Sci-Fi fascism is made up fantasy stuff from the imaginations of writers, producers, and directors. Real fascism is real life stuff. As in it actually happened and you can look at history for how it took hold, how it grows, how destructive it is, and how to defeat it. Real money. Real power. Real death. Real life. Nothing close to imagining a movie scenario and acting it out.

To paraphrase your fallacy: "What can fables teach us about morality? Nothing. Fables are made up fantasy stuff from the imaginations of writers and storytellers. Real morality is real life stuff."

Science fiction is speculative fiction in much the same way. By using an entertaining tale, real-life stories are repackaged and concepts explored. Star Trek's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is often belittled for the makeup, but it is iconic for taking a stance and showing us our racial attitudes.

Got me there. Although I suppose the difference would be what the motivation and wisdom of the person doing the story telling is and what perspective they are presenting. I suppose my argument fails because obviously the pro sci-fi crowd would expand the argument to include every single bit of story telling, not just movies or books, but all the way to telling people parables and fables, and then include history itself. So I lose.

But my point of view in stating that is that so many in Hollywood create these fantasy worlds, fantasy conflicts, with over simplified villains and heroes, that all neatly wraps up in 2 hours of story telling. Then they act so enlightened and superior and feel that they can lecture the rest of us about whatever topic they feel moved by that day. They come off as so pretentious and arrogant. And yes, so much of what they produce creates a straw man to characterize what they perceive as the antagonist or villain, and label that character as somebody religious, right leaning, corporate, etc... and the characters that share THEIR view are so enlightened, heroic and honorable. And that takes place for decades in schools, in story telling mediums, and the media, and now you have indoctrinated people to hate (take a look at the news) certain segments of the population for no good reason. No compassion. No debate. No respect. Just hate. All based on exaggerations, misrepresentation, and/or flat out lies. And that is what these modern day, self-important storytellers have done to this culture and it is disgusting.

So yah, the question struck a nerve I guess. :)

Buuut, you can still just make it all up! Just because someone is trying to make a point in any of the arts doesn't mean the point is necessarily valid. There is an endless stream of TV and movies that have a massive slant to the left and I find a lot of those points simply ring hollow.

Oh, please. You are now moving the goalposts. Getting a conversation started is nothing? Using a story to reflect actual history is nothing? You know nothing about the media, and are only getting all prissy because it doesn't support your preconceived notions. As for the "massive slant to the left", well that hoary old canard kind of gives you away. It's an unsubstantiated claim.

The one nobody wants to discuss is the horrifying prospects of Star Trek. The idea there's "no money".

Okay. Picard's family has a mansion and huge vineyards. Kirk had an apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

Both of those, today, would be millions of dollars to possess. In this future world "without money", but with billions of people, who decides who gets those prime living locations, while others live in an apartment in the midwest?

An all powerful State? Favors? Families?

Terrifying when you think about it. Makes the whole universe go from utopia to stinking pretty badly.

Popcul is a dumb waiter. Star Trek - at best 50% SF, the rest being Sci-fi (skiffy, as in iffy) - is a Resource-based economy. And that is the answer - the only answer - to support human frailty. As in The Culture. http://www.vavatch.co.uk/bo...

*Shrug* your judging from an incomplete information base. You see snippets and imprint today on those snippets.

The disconnect in your analysis, is most noticeable you think people want to live on Earth vs anyone of millions or billions of Moons, Planets, Space Stations, Asteroids etc.

You also forget no one is denied access to anything if they want to go live in the Sahara and contemplate their naval then they, quite literally can as the Replicator and Transporters will allow them to do that just fine.

So I can imagine such freedom would be mind numbingly terrifying to those that just can stand to see others .... free to pursue the path of their choice.

Seriously, Replicator + Transporter is simply going to force the demise of an economic system.

1. In the Star Trek history the earth had been largely depopulated by war when the warp drive was discovered which opened new planets for colonization. So there is no overpopulation like we have today.
2. There is still money in the Star Trek universe but all basic necessities are provided so it is only used for luxuries.

3. The main idea of the Star Trek society is that greed is no longer worshiped and admired as it is today in America.

You may want to revisit Star Trek. The Earth was not depopulated. It was the Hub of the UFP. It had billions more on it than today. Due to being the Hub of the Federation. With San Francisco the size of a megaopolis.

The federation does not use currency at all. A point made several hundred times throughout most of the serieses. There were places which used a barter system. Like Ferenginar and on Deep Space 9. There was not a set currency mentioned anywhere. And Gold Pressed Latinum was an exchange on a standard weight of gold pressed Latinum.

Star Trek does not have a reliable number on the population of Earth, really. In the original series that was actually the intent of the creators and the writers to leave it vague. The same is true about why money is no longer interesting to those on Earth. The idea was to concentrate on contact with the unknown, and not look back at Earth (well, as little as possible).

By the time Deep Space Nine rolled around, the producers caved to the habits of writers and let "gold pressed latinum" become a quasi-currency, as by then the "Yankee Traders on Steroids" conceit of the Ferengi was too hard for them to write for without the concept of currency.

I think you get too hung up on the idea of "depopulated" mean ing "no one living there". Also you neglect the fact that centuries have passed in the canon history of Star Trek. The 23rd century we see in Star Trek II is an Earth that has healed the wounds caused by the war that happened centuries earlier. The only problem is that the writers placed the unnamed war some time at the beginning of the 21st century, and we have already gone past the date when Khan had ruled half the planet in the devastating Eugenics War.

You may want to revisit Star Trek history ala the Movie Star Trek: First Contact.

Your Billions more people on Earth than today does NOT imply Billions they all lived here on Earth 24x7x365.25. Besides, the logistics of such a population would create the same problems we have today, so another implication is there were external resources being brought in to Earth, which would only make sense as not all of those people could eat Earth Food or Drink Earth Liquids.

At the end of the day, I think you are seeing something that does not make much sense.

That's the disconnect for the Socialist/Communist crowd. It sounds nice to treat everybody equally, but who gets the beach front property? What if I want a red sports car instead of the government issued black sedan? At its core, Socialism/Communism is anti-freedom and stifles human creativity and innovation. No thank you.

Post-WWII Germany's socialism didn't restrict it from continuing to make some of the best mechanisms in the world. Comments such as yours don't reflect on social systems, but on human nature. But, as I said above, and others here have said, socialism and communism are not the answers. A Resource-based economy is.

Beach front property is reserved for resorts that are available to citizens as a job benefit. And if you want a red sports car, you'll have to build it. You may not be able to, but hardly anyone can afford a red sports car (Porsche, Ferrari, I mean an actual sports car) in a capitalist society. Mexico is capitalist, they live like shit. Late 1800's US was capitalist, it was terrible for the working class apparently. And you certainly won't be treated equally, you'll be treated based on your ability. And people being people, politics, networking, and nepotism certainly won't go away. So being good at sucking up will work equally as well in a corporation as in StarFleet.

One can imagine though, that Picard's family gets their property grandfathered in, so it stays in the family. Kirk, being a very high ranking officer (a starship captain is a big deal) gets priority in housing assignment vs. an ensign.

While its true that communist countries are terrible at inventing gadgets and convenience items, they have no problems inventing weapons, spaceships, computers, enormous factories, and other stuff that's important for civilization. Presumably, Star Trek humans will be similar, they have no problem building warp drives and replicators, they'll buy toys from the Ferengi in exchange for something.

Actually, hell, with replicators, markets will be utterly different. You have to pay for stock material, energy, and replicator time. A Porsche costs exactly as much as an equivalent mass Corolla in these conditions. Most likely, the biggest cost associated with either, is parking. Dickies overalls would cost the same as an Armani suit. Maybe the designer gets a small royalty.

Presumably, humans will have evolved (in the 24th century) in their culture somewhat, to where greed isn't the only motivator, and socialism doesn't degenerate into a rent seeking mechanism for the clever and unprincipled. Most truly creative people can't help themselves anyway. They'll continue to create. And maybe the reward mechanism will be social prestige instead of money. Ultimately, that's what we use money for anyway.

You're absolutely right. In essence, socialism/communism are dressings for slavery to a collective. There's irony that the Federation resists The Borg.

What is odd to me is the amount of affection in our country for the character of Darth Vader and for Stormtroopers. And it's really not all from one political alignment or the other.

It's because we don't see Stormtroopers do really bad things. They don't spit on people. They don't break arms and legs. We don't see their daily jobs, like what despicable soldiers did in WW2 while they tried to keep people under control in occupied countries. Basically in any war-movie you see the Nazis do bad things ; in Star Wars the violence is way less bloody and is more justified in the fight between the both sides.

If we'd see sci-fi concentration camps and we'd see Darth Vader issuing orders to exterminate people, then that would make the whole movie not just unpleasant to watch ; it would destroy the dynamics between the good and light side. Nobody would like DV and that isn't the goal of the movie ; both sides have to be likeable (for merchandise for example). There aren't any Hitler, Goering or Himmler-dolls around unlike the SW Darth Vader dolls/miniatures etcetera.

While DV destroyed a planet it was a very clinical scene. You see something that resembles a planet explode but it isn't human. It isn't personal. It was an explosion of something. You didn't see people incinerate. You didn't see limbs flying around. You didn't see children disembowled. The planet just disappeared. No blood. No screams. So for the audience it wasn't a traumatic experience. It just happened. It was 'a bad thing' and because of that Skywalker C.S could continue their quest against the Empire.

We did see a bit of that in Force Awakens, in the opening village massacre.

Lkewise, in Rogue One, we see "rebels" speaking of killing innocent people, and we see Cassian murder a freedom fighter of a different faction.

That was appreciated. It made the big picture a bit more muddled.

Not only do they not seem to do evil things, they seem kind of inept - ie not being able to hit the broad side of a barn...

True that, I expect most stormtroopers to be myopic as hell and Darth Vader isn't allowing them to wear glasses, else they'd look less cool.