Sick of Dystopian Novels?

Christine Wheelwright said:
But I don't think that "dystopian and apocalyptic media are the usual response to a little modern inconvenience." These stories are intended to be warnings. The question 'what if?' is being asked rather than a prediction being made.
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I'm sorry; I was unclear:
The cyclical popularity and consumption of dystopian and apocalypse media among the public are reactions to relatively tame economic trends.

What motivated each individual author I can't comment upon. I'm sure many are intended to be warnings. Some are subgenre entertainment. I have no idea if more gets written at some times more than others or if there is a steady drip that gets more publication during the down years.


Ever read The Unincorporated Man? It reads like dystopian fiction with all the warnings, but isn't.
 
This appears to be more of an emotional reaction to the media we expose ourselves to than an analysis of available data. It actually appears that a lower percentage of people die of violence today than in any other time, and fewer people starve than ever. Just in the last 25 years the earth's population went up by 2 billion but the number of people starving went down by 200 million.
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No, not an emotional reaction. People dying of violence today....If by 'today' you mean the last century then our modern age is unmatched by the scope and savagery of its wars and peacetime purgings. WW2 alone killed 70 million people. Then don't forget the Holodomor - 3,5 million deliberately starved - or the Kulaks - 10 million killed over two years - and the Chinese Cultural Revolution - 6 million (I think) killed - and the Khmer Rouge - 2 million (one quarter of the population of Cambodia) dead in two years, and so on. How many people died of violence in the past? Wars usually meant two smallish armies meeting on a battlefield somewhere and duking it out. After one, two or three battles the war was over. The civil population were hardly affected (except the unlucky ones that found themselves on the armies' route of march). Rampant crime did not exist as communities were generally small and self-regulating. There were no large cities in which gangs could lose themselves.

Starvation: do we have any reliable figures for how many people starved in the past compared to today? Before the advent of modern medicine most babies did not survive infancy as childhood diseases were the great natural population controller. But if you got past childhood you had an excellent chance of making it to threescore and ten (the Bible did say everyone could hope to make 70, even 80 years, not 40 or 50 - and it was an observation of fact, not a tenet of religion). People lived healthier lives then. You could have a run of bad harvests which created local conditions of hunger, but that was a relatively rare occurrence. Plague too, but also relatively rare.

For whom? The merchant and wealthy classes that consumed the literature that they've left to posterity, or the dead poor? No Irish potato farmer wrote a hit play.
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That's the point. Things weren't idyllic yet, but even the poor felt they could make it so some day. The Irish potato famine was a once-off and when the potato blight returned in 1879 the Irish had revolted against English mismanagement resulting in far fewer people dying of hunger. By the end of the century - as I mentioned - the Irish, like everyone else, could feel optimistic about the future.
 
Woah, the discussion has turned way more serious than I thought it would. Quick say something stupid. Cattlestrophe is "A dystopian tale about the cattle population trying to survive the onslaughter of the tyrannical human race."
 
Justin Swanton said:
After one, two or three battles the war was over. The civil population were hardly affected (except the unlucky ones that found themselves on the armies' route of march).
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That's a very romantic view.
en.wikipedia.org

Genocides in history (before World War I) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Orson Scott Card wrote a book that discusses how slavery was actually a humanitarian replacement for the previous mass sacrifices that followed one society defeating another.
 
hitmouse said:
Can I suggest that we get back to the very interesting subject matter and try to avoid lengthy digressions into personal interpretations of history?
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The point I was making is that our view of what is dystopian is often subject to very contemporary values. Brutality is not a new invention.
 
Swank said:
The point I was making is that our view of what is dystopian is often subject to very contemporary values. Brutality is not a new invention.
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True true, though the root of our understanding of dystopia stems from the violation of ethical and moral principles that were long since present in our society. What those fears represent evolves with time. (Cybernetic organisms, A.I., Extraterristerials, etc.) Yes, morals may be subject to change as they are influenced by cultures, traditions, and religion but basic objective morality still persist.
 
Erythr said:
Woah, the discussion has turned way more serious than I thought it would. Quick say something stupid. Cattlestrophe is "A dystopian tale about the cattle population trying to survive the onslaughter of the tyrannical human race."
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The Cowpocalypse .;)
 
Erythr said:
This just keeps getting better. Someone needs to write a blurb for this. :LOL:
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I make it a point to never pass up an opportunity to make a very bad play on words. :)

In a serious topic , a little humor and silliness is not a bad thing.
 
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BAYLOR said:
I make it a point to never pass up an opportunity to make a very bad play on words. :)

In a serious topic , a little humor and silliness is not a bad thing.
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Couldn't have said it any better. Humour is my favorite medium for addressing the elephant in the room. Or a cow.
 
I believe one was written. It was entitled "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie."
 
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