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

Even when I was watching Fight Club for the first time I never really thought his life was all that bad honestly.
You gotta read the book, my friend.

It's such a great way to spend an afternoon.

The author is still alive.

He was completely delusional/mentally ill. He was beating himself to the point he had holes in his face. The ending in the book is also very different than the movie.
 
During the height of the black death, the mortality rate was around 50%. Half of everyone you know or ever knew would be dead. Piles of corpses in some places littered the streets and a significant amount of people believed the world was literally ending. This dystopia of a world ending was a fiction. The world did not end, but the conviction it would, really existed in the minds of many people. They still had a fertility rate above 2.

A civilization which can not reproduce and thus propagate itself has failed its most core and fundamental directive. It doesn't matter how advanced our technology is, how comfortable we are, how much we "know" or how beautiful our art is, given the choice between "to be" and "not to be" our civilization collectively chooses the later.

The us fertility rate is currently 1.7
ok. then we should just let more spics and niggers infect the land?
 
At least the Combine from Half Life 2 functionally banned homosexuality.
Based?
(or is that not how the suppression field worked?)
 
Well, are you talking about the Book or the Movie? I don't remember the movie enough, but the book isn't a dystopia at all.
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.

That's kind of my point. While possibly a bit melodramatic, the Western world is increasingly descending into a society that almost taking Huxley's ideas as inspiration.
It is. But then how does that make the dystopia in Brave New World, a version that has all the negatives of our own dialled up even further, a preferable alternative to our own world?
 
Not any fiction dystopias, but Current Year Clown World from before that 2016 election was better than Current Year Clown World from 2016-2019, and Current Year Clown World 2020+ sucks compared to Current Year Clown World 2016-2019. Clown World keeps going suckier.
That's the funny thing about Clown World. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.
 
Though one could also theoretically argue that he's a white collar worker who's getting the long end of the stick of the dystopia (who's only grievance with life is he can't find meaning in the Ikea furniture he buys) while the work class die in car accidents from the crappy cars his company doesn't recall.
Yes, he wasn't materially impoverish but deprived of meaning or raw stimulation.
 
Death race 2000 and rollerball. We already have the corporate bullshit, just stay off the roads when the brightly colored murder cars pass by and don't join the blood sport. Sure you got rich assholes blowing up trees with future guns but at least they're not raping kids. Plus eventually Frankenstein becomes president and runs over Austin powers and you get to chant "Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan!" While spooky organ music plays.
If I remember correctly, the cast and crew of rollerball actually started playing it in their off time.
As for my contribution, the Chiba City from Neuromancer is pretty cool. It sucks ass but it has all the cool cyberpunk shit you'd want and you can spice up your days running from and fighting vat grown ninjas.
 
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I want to add one:

Super Earth, from Helldivers 2... because holy shit for a game released during the woke era of media it is unapologetically based in bringing the Starship Troopers satire to a new audience.

I want to live in the Federations from Starship Troopers and Helldivers. It may be a facade pseudo managed democracy in which every citizen is born to serve the state but those humans are living their best existences. Imagine waking up every day - no race issues, no religious bullshit Just you, and your fellow humans, based and alien-slaughter max pilling your way through the Galaxy while you know your death will serve to defend your home planets which house, feed, educate, and give all essential needs to your family with no expectations other than to defend humanity. None of the extremes of the 40k Universe, no universal poverty, no dealing with pointy eared fucked like Star Trek... just destroying everything not human and dying knowing you were always on the right side of history.

Also if people didn't pick up on the whole point of Starship Troopers 3... The Federation really wasn't bullshitting about the bugs wanting to fuck up humanity. The Federation Council was always on the right side of history. It was never a method of control - the need to service the federation and humanity was the nature result of extensive human peace and the bug war wasn't expected and the Federation got majorly caught off guard which is why they threw so many to the meat grinder. AKA - fuck the bug apologists.

Plus...



 
Yeah. When watching Starship Troopers I was like "OK... so why I am supposed to consider Federation bad guys"?

"It may be a facade pseudo managed democracy in which every citizen is born to serve the state but those humans are living their best existences"

Actually, Federation looks like state with big amount of liberty. E.g. in first movie Rico's parents are openly critical towards Federation - and instead of going to jail, they are rich and prosperous enough to have option of sending their son into prestigious university or visit other planets recreationally.

"Also if people didn't pick up on the whole point of Starship Troopers 3... The Federation really wasn't bullshitting about the bugs wanting to fuck up humanity"
And in the second one, bug possesing human openly says that bugs hate humanity and to eradicate it because it is too chaotic and undisciplined (aka freedom loving). Speaking about "fascism".

"bug war wasn't expected and the Federation got majorly caught off guard which is why they threw so many to the meat grinder"

And look how Federation reacts to Klendathu massacre. Instead of trying to hide it with propaganda, they openly admit "Yes, we screwed, we understimated bugs, we have to do better" and current Sky Marshal (de facto dictator of Earth) peacefully takes responsibility and resigns from office. More honest behaviour than in many real-life democracies.
 
Mad Max, specifically Fury Road. Drive cool car, blow things up, die in glory, shiny and chrome.
Is there anything stopping you from doing that right now? You could get hold of a cool car, drive around in it and blow stuff up. None of that is hard, only getting away with it is. Which is where the getting shot and killed whilst doing it comes in. Everything you listed doesn't require a dystopia to do. In fact it's easier - vehicles aren't some rare resource nor is fuel to commit your arson with.

If any of your reasons for not doing this are it's not socially acceptable, you have responsibilities, you have dependants, cops scare you, your don't want to hurt people then congratulations, you wouldn't do it in Mad Max, either - you'd be one of the obedient people who didn't do it there, either.

A Scanner Darkly. Imagine getting paid to spy on yourself taking assloads of drugs.
I mean the question is about the dystopia you'd rather live in. You don't necessarily get to pick the protagonist of a novel to live in. A Scanner Darkly is pretty much just our world with more police corruption. And anyway, you read the end of the novel right?
 
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Honestly the one that always got me was Sauron in the LotR.

He offered freedom and liberation against the worthless Valar spirits and ghosts who destroyed the glory that was Númenor because they were so apparently arrogant to want more.

We explore, we discover, we build while you assholes sit up in your lofty towers in hullshit land telling us what to do. These lands are ours, everywhere in this goddamned world is ours and you aren't going to stop it. Fruity ass Gandalf lecturing me about death, get lost you fucking immortal sprite.

Fuck you! Númenor will go wherever we want and you so-called asshole "gods" and your bullshit won't stop us.
 
Everyone who says WH40K is better than our world is overlooking the fact your soul will probably go to Hell/the Chaos Gods' section of the Warp when you die. That alone makes it far worse than Clown World or any other real life dystopia. The Cthulhu Mythos is more upbeat than the 40k galaxy.

It's been said before, but the movie version of Starship Troopers pre-bug invasion seemed like a much nicer place to live than our world.
 
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