List all of the fictional "Dystopias" that are actually better than our current world

[Town Drunk]

Mentioned twice already, but I read 1984, then Brave New World. BNW is the superior version of the the future, and I didn't find it as bad as I was supposed to.

I work everyday with people who just want to show up, work and get paid. Not paid to make decisions or have responsibility if things go wrong. I'm halfway up the chain, so I also have this luxury to a degree.

In BNW, everyone is happy, even if they were conditioned to be that way. Finding joy in menial labor is more than most people can expect, when you are probably going to work a soulless job your entire life in our reality.

The government isn't oppressive, it just wants to keep the wheels turning. People who throw a wrench in the gears only get banished with other like minded people.

Compared to what world we live in now, where everything is crumbling, everyone is miserable, and can do nothing to stop it, except take drugs to escape, like the Savage's mother.

Facing brutal reality, or living a happy life in blissful ignorance, who's to say what is best?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The movie. But whilst it portrays a more functional fascist society and brings in positive ideas (I quite like the Service Guarantees Citizenship), it's not realistic. Fascist societies rapidly end up no longer selecting on merit but on ideology. The conceit of Starship Troops (movie version, don't know about the book) is that you have a fascist society which is meritocratic. It may well be preferable in some ways to our own, but it doesn't hold up. Remember we only see the propaganized version. Which is why when it was released every European and Brit I was friends with thought it was hilarious and a large number of Americans got all upset because they thought it was "glorifying fascism". (I very much remember this being a widspread view). The Americans quite literally couldn't recognise the propaganda flags.

In the book the Federation is a minarchist state where service (not necessarily of a violent military nature, it just has to involve some physical peril and they cannot deny an applicant the right to service) is the only condition of suffrage. The book frequently has these philosophical passages. It's a good concept.

 

[Cherry Eyed Hamster]

Mentioned twice already, but I read 1984, then Brave New World. BNW is the superior version of the the future, and I didn't find it as bad as I was supposed to.

I work everyday with people who just want to show up, work and get paid. Not paid to make decisions or have responsibility if things go wrong. I'm halfway up the chain, so I also have this luxury to a degree.

In BNW, everyone is happy, even if they were conditioned to be that way. Finding joy in menial labor is more than most people can expect, when you are probably going to work a soulless job your entire life in our reality.

The government isn't oppressive, it just wants to keep the wheels turning. People who throw a wrench in the gears only get banished with other like minded people.

Compared to what world we live in now, where everything is crumbling, everyone is miserable, and can do nothing to stop it, except take drugs to escape, like the Savage's mother.

Facing brutal reality, or living a happy life in blissful ignorance, who's to say what is best?

That’s why BNW is a lot more resonant and terrifying than 1984. Everyone became soulless, lobotomized husks who were more than happy taking pills and indulging in empty consumerism and sex. There’s a degree of personal culpability in BNW that’s absent in 1984, where everyone is held up and watched against their will. The people of BNW are perfectly happy being stupid and indulging in their basest desires. They are trivializing themselves out of existence and passively engaging in distracted complacency. Sound familiar?

It also makes you question if the world is even a dystopia. Is it really dystopian if almost everyone is content? If the lower classes can actually be conditioned to enjoy their work, is it really so horrible? Is trading agency, culture, and individuality worth it for consistent comfort and pleasure?

Almost everyone would opt out of living in the 1984, but when it comes to BNW…would you do it?

 

[Overly Serious]

That’s why BNW is a lot more resonant and terrifying than 1984. Everyone became soulless, lobotomized husks who were more than happy taking pills and indulging in empty consumerism and sex. There’s a degree of personal culpability in BNW that’s absent in 1984, where everyone is held up and watched against their will. The people of BNW are perfectly happy being stupid and indulging in their basest desires. They are trivializing themselves out of existence and passively engaging in distracted complacency. Sound familiar?

It also makes you question if the world is even a dystopia. Is it really dystopian if almost everyone is content? If the lower classes can actually be conditioned to enjoy their work, is it really so horrible? Is trading agency, culture, and individuality worth it for consistent comfort and pleasure?

The underlying argument of BNW actually not being a dystopia is based on the idea that contentment is the highest goal, that if one is happy this is the best thing. Many of us, and Huxley's mindset, was that this devalues the human spirit. Which would be find most laudable? The opium fiend who sleeps and dreams his life away in blissful degredation? Or the man who strives and suffers and makes a difference. Van Gogh was not a happy man but he achieved. BNW is not a dystopia only to those who value contentment over meaning. And in BNW, that prioritisation is made for you. They sexually abuse children and use pain to condition them out of curiosity.

Almost everyone would opt out of living in the 1984, but when it comes to BNW…would you do it?

The people in BNW are like that cow-thing in Douglas Adam's The Restaurant at the End of the Universe which was engineered to first have language skills so it could express a preference and then to have being eaten as its life goal. In the novel, Arthur fumbles and tries ad fails to explain why this is wrong to the creature. Doubly so because he is willing to eat an Earth cow which doesn't want to be eaten.

It's a slightly worrying that you meet people who don't seem to feel being turned into that cow thing would be dystopian because you'd be happy about your situation. To some, BNW is the worst dystopia because all meaning has been stripped from life. Others seem not to care. You ask people if they would opt out of living in BNW? Everybody who in their daily lives chooses to try and do something meaningful rather than waste their time away watching porn, is someone who makes that same choice. You're setting meaning over satiety, purpose over indolence. I thank God there are such people.