Ask Lemmy

Parable of the Sower.

Murderbot if we as a species ever make it that far

Cyberpunk but without the cool stuff like cyber ware or flying cars.

Present day isn't Idiocracy, in the Idiocracy the president cared about his people and listened to the world's smartest man to fix the crops.

Brave New World needs an honourable mention for only looking more plausible a century later. We do like our horny birth control sex and not thinking too hard about sad things.

I hope for cyberpunk, because Star Trek (post-WWIII) isn't gonna happen. Dune or a boring version of Terminator are also in the running, possibly at the same time.

Edit: A cyberpunk phase might give way to a far future that's not exactly Star Trek, but that is similarly equal, tolerant and pleasant. I know that wasn't the question, but that's why it's the direction I'm pushing for.

If it's Dune, the last couple centuries were a blip, and the kind of violent autocratic hell that existed before that is just what human civilisation naturally looks like, so it will keep going. If it's Terminator, hopefully the AI does something nice without us, at least.

Ratchet & Clank

Warhammer 40k /s

The Expanse.

Wondla

Quality land by Marc Uwe Kling. The world is basically ruled by hyper capitalistic cooperations, people are rated by their productivity people don’t buy stuff actively, it’s bought for them by their personal AI when the algorithm thinks they need it.

The plot partly follows the presidential election between an AI powered Robot that tries to act in the interest of humanity versus a populist right wing TV cook that’s a shockingly close prediction of Trump. The other part is about the main character on his mission to refund an item he didn’t actually want.

To this day my favourite dystopian book.

Idiocracy.

Elysium seems a good candidate.

I think the Wired of Serial Experiments Lain is pretty accurate.

Companies like Meta are actively trying to create an immersive digital world (the "metaverse") like the Wired.

And the Wired is symbolic of the issues with the modern internet, from the escapism and addiction to rumors to false information shaping peoples views to companies controlling the world throigh algorithms and censorship.

The multiple Lains are symbolic of how everyone can a different view of you and your opinions, often shaped by lies, and the Wired Lain which is the one of these actually controlled by her is symbolic of how we act differently online than in real life.

Masami Eiri is symbolic of companies and powerful individuals controlling online narratives and owning most of the internet you interact with.

The Phantoma game is symbolic of how the things that happen and the things that are said online have real world consequences.

It is an absolutely brilliant show which I highly recommend watching if you like visual metaphors.

It's not a sci-fi dystopia, but I just watched Zootopia again and the plot is harsher in hindsight. The villain is trying to gain power by turning everyone against a minority population and making them fear that minority. To think this came out before Trump's first presidency.

The Running Man novel is set in 2025 and the second movie adaptation just came out. Things aren't as bad as they are portrayed there. Reality shows aren't killing people yet. But people are going on exploitative reality shows because they feel desperate for money.

I dunno but I feel like if we get another year of trump, we will be doing “the running man” competition with immigrants

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

Visionary Aldous Huxley

I don't know, I'm not sure anyone has made a movie about a boring-ass dystopia where the rich plunder everything and the rest of us are too propagandized to care no matter how desperate things get. I'm going for a special mix of Harrison Bergeron, The Day After Tomorrow and The Road ultimately. Oh and Snowcrash , but until we get there I'm sure "The Frog Boil" will be a hit when it does come out.

Elysium - rich people living in space or enclaves; the rest of us in slums with robots and AIs controlling us.

Not exactly sci fi, but the TV adaptation of Handmaid’s Tale bears some striking parallels to the current renaissance that extreme right ideologies are currently enjoying. Off the top of my head…

• It shows how quickly and easily street-level enforcement of an authoritarian system can be implemented, and that there is no shortage of people willing to take on that role.

• It shows that the architects of an oppressive system aren’t necessarily “true believers” in such a system, nor are they held to the standards demanded of the average citizen.

• It shows how extremist ideologies bleed beyond the borders of one country and begin to infect others.

You can see examples of all three of these in what’s happening now.

Back to the Future 2's bad timeline.

Children of men.

Plastics that have accumulated in our bodies are going to have massive impacts on our bodys regular functions. Covid ran rampant causing mental decline and increased weaknesses to milder diseases, leading to further degradation of our body's regular function. Authoritarianism is deep set into our politics Climate change is forcing more and more people into refugee status. The rich and wealthy continue to violate our planet for their own gain, building themselves bunkers and personal armies to defend themselves from the consequences of their actions.

Three way tie in my book:

That episode of Black Mirror where everyone had to ride stationary bikes and were forced to watch unskippable ads if they didn't have credits, except everything you have to watch is AI slop instead of your crush doing porn.

Or the Handmaid's Tale, but instead of some mysterious infertility crisis, fertile women are rare because they die in pregnancy and childbirth due to anti-science rhetoric flat out killing them. (Look up "free birthing", etc.) At some point it gets bad enough that replacing your wife is more like getting a new pet.

Maybe the hot version of The Road. We just have wars over water and resources until the plantet's too fucked for human life, and the survivors are left roaming around making jerky out of each other until the end.

Could be all three at once. Yay!