Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dystopia

Accentuate the positive?

dlugoczaj — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:22:16 -0800

Does "utopia" exist in modern/contemporary fiction? I was chatting with a friend about a potential college seminar about dystopian literature. Both of us rattled off numerous examples of books and movies with wide-ranging dystopian concepts (i.e., postapocalyptic, disease/medical, fascistic government, media domination, etc.)--each of us with plenty of things that the other one hadn't heard of. As we were doing so, I started to wonder: are there contemporary utopian visions? Does that even still exist, or are we so jaded that all we can see is the negative?

I asked my friend and he couldn't think of anything. The only thing that occurred to me was Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time, which was partially dystopian but at least had a competing utopian concept (kind of dated but still interesting). Is there anything else? I'd be willing to accept utopias within the 20th century (around the time of Brave New World or 1984 and beyond, up to the present).

I'm going underground...

ghost dance beat — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:48:20 -0800

It's time for another round of 'name that childhood story'! Please help me identify a novel about a society that (literally) lived underground... From what I remember, it was a sort of futuristic/sci-fi story. Humans lived underground and believed that they couldn't go up above the earth's surface or something terrible would happen. Eventually, one boy decided to go and gathered a group that was willing to leave with him. They were warned that they couldn't return once they left, but they still went. It may have ended with them standing in a field? I've been wondering what this book was for years, so I hope this rings a bell for someone!

Name of movie where kids lock someone inside during the one safe time to enjoy the outdoors?

babsomatica — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:27:51 -0800

What's this movie? Basic plot: children living in a future where it (acid) rains all of the time and cannot go outside except for one rare, short period that it will be clear..... and they lock some child inside the school? I am guessing I saw it in the mid 1980s but it could have been older than that. I just recall the basic plot and the horror of the poor kid locked inside unable to experience outside ever.

What is the title of this book?

Uncle — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:58:42 -0800

Identify a book for my girlfriend please. Read in the mid 90's maybe had 'children' in the title. Sci-fi novel about children held captive with woman in a castle after being placed with her through a government forced foster system (children are lent out to childless people for one month). They survive nuclear meltdown and years after by being put into suspended animation. When they wake up thousands of years have passed and they are kept subdued with drugged wine. David(?), the main character, escapes and finds a village of survivors who have become mutated from the radiation and inbreeding. They live off beetles and giant rabbits that have grown to the size of cattle. David has a close relationship with a girl in the castle and returns to save her?

I want more of the same.

Autarky — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:07:17 -0800

I enjoy literature with a dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic bent to it. I want more. Recommendations? Examples of books I've really liked:

1984
Fahrenheit 451 (pretty much anything by Bradbury. Love, love, love Bradbury's stuff)
We (Zamyatin)
The Giver

The movie Gattaca was also good. I realize that several of those are very "high school reading list" (because, in fact, a few of them were on my high school reading list), so works that differ a bit from those are certainly welcome.

Sci-fi spitting in Mona Lisa's eye

bollockovnikov — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:56:52 -0800

Short Story Askme: I read a short dystopian story many years ago set in a run-down, post apocalyptic future. A queue of people line up on a street to spit at a painting. The painting represents all the problems of the past. It is implied that the painting is The Mona Lisa. What is the story?

who are these children?

pointystick — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:44:13 -0800

Yet another what-is-this-book/story question (sci-fi, possibly young adult, writen pre-1983) This, I think, is a novel and not a short story and either was YA sci-fi or at least an adult book appropriate for 11 year-olds.

It's a dystopian future society and there are children who don't live in families (and possibly made to labor) who escape or try to escape from their situation. The thing I remember best is that their first names began with the same letter if they were the same age. (like Anns would be a year older than Benjamins) I think the main boy character was an "E" and there was a "J" girl.

Does anyone else remember this?

At my small elementary school before they built the cafeteria, we would eat in our rooms and our teachers would sometimes read aloud to us. This was one of those books and it would have been read to us in the early 80's. I will be embarrassed but relieved if it is something obvious.

What fictional evil has great corporate branding?

cowbellemoo — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:09:22 -0800

What fictional evil has great corporate branding? I'm knitting myself sweaters and want to use the merchandising logo of fictional and cinematic dystopian/corrupt/evil corporations or organizations. A few examples I've thought up with a great deal of satisfaction:

Black Mesa from Half Life
Aperture Science from Portal
Umbrella Corp. from Resident Evil
uNorth from Michael Clayton
Three Bees from The Constant Gardner

I'm really interested in a fully-realized brand identity, not just any old evil corporation/organization. Ideally they'd have a nice little logo design and have short names, since it'll look better knit. It takes forever to knit up sweaters, but patterning out different logos keeps me really excited about them. Thanks!

Know a short story where service-worker drones started being managed by constant messages in their earpieces?

so_necessary — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:37:05 -0800

Looking for a short story I read online, where technological advances eliminate middle management and then junior employees, with a fast food restaurant used as an example... So I read this story online maybe a couple of years back. A system is invented that essentially orders around junior employees via earpieces by providing very precise instructions. (Now, sweep the floor. Done? Now, wash your hands. Done? Now...) This essentially replaces middle management, especially when they upgrade the system so it can also track performance, share performance with the systems of other employers, and so on.

Eventually this leads to a massively chaotic society where really only company owners have any assets, and millions of unemployed are shifted to special camps to keep them under control. However, at this point in the story some contrivance (possibly involving uploading to a 'virtual world', but maybe not) leads to things ending up happily ever after. It may instead have been an illustration of a different society where the technology had been used for the common good and the benefits shared equally among everyone. In this better society, everyone spent all day having fun, being creative, and stuff like that.

Essentially though, I'm looking for the first bit. The technology itself was explained in the context of a fast food restaurant, I believe. Orders came to you via earpiece.

Ring any bells? Let me know! Thanks.

Minority Voices on Dystopia

jjjjjjjijjjjjjj — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:27:21 -0800

Looking for traditions/ideas/conjecture/debate about hypothetical "dystopias" (from/not limited to: fiction, film, social/political theory, philosophy, eschatology) that come from non-White/European (of any gender) voices. Researching the idea of Dystopia and finding almost nothing coming from non-White folks.

I am interested in mythologies and beliefs held by religious groups, but I am much more interested in notions/works advanced by individuals.

(Also, a slightly-unrelated second interest, looking for sources of quick-and-dirty descriptions of the views on eschatology created by: the various African tribal groups, Australian Aborigines, and Micro/Mela/Polynesians.)

Thanks.

Which road to despotism?

orthogonality — Tue, 31 May 2005 23:15:06 -0800

If the United States of America becomes a despotism, what sort of despotism might it be, and by what steps might we arrive there? In my last question to you, I asked What events would have to happen for you to conclude your country had become a despotism?

Now I'd like to know, what sort of despotism can America most readily become?

A theocracy led by a Nehemiah Scudder-like charismatic (in both senses) backwoods preacher?
A regimented Handmaid's Tale that mirrors the Old South, with its slavery and Herrenvolk democracy, but also Puritan New England's sumptuary laws?
Will a demagogic Huey Long "rescue" us from economic depression, or do we still say It Can't Happen Here?
Or will a growing wealth gap grind America into northern version of Brazil?
Or...?

More importantly, I'd like to know how you think we'd arrive at this dystopia?

Will an oil crash halt transport and trigger food riots and martial law in the cities?
Will Iraq War veterans raise Freikorps to defend the Red States from the threats posed by immigrants and homosexuals and evolutionists?
Or will modern day Esaus slowly bargain away their American birthright of liberty for a mess of security pottage?
Or....?

What despotism is most easily achieved, and what sequence of events gets us there?

Panopticon

ronv — Fri, 28 May 2004 12:07:31 -0800

continuing on the 1984- teaching front, my students are working on a final project and need some help... [mi] ... they are giving a speech next week that argues that we are nearing orwellian dystopia because of the omnipresence of satellite cameras and all variety of surveillance systems.

can anyone help them find web sites that offer zoom-able arial photography of areas in the u.s. or around the world? i know they exist, but can't find them/ don't remember URLs.

ps.
my students ROCK.