Hacker News Reader

Comment by sampo | Hacker News Reader

> lessons from Black Mirror and 1984

Those are works of fiction.

They’re dystopian fictions, ie. examples of what not to do. But experience has shown that the real-world often recreates dystopian visions by example.

So trying to be the first to show something in a well-meaning way can nonetheless have unfortunate consequences once the example is copied.

Tell me, are the dystopian fictions that represent socialism or communism as bad, just as reasonable?

Then following up with whatever your answer is: Why are you picking and choosing which fictions are reasonable?

Let's dispel the notion that artists and writers are more aware and in tune with humanity than other humans.

>Then following up with whatever your answer is: Why are you picking and choosing which fictions are reasonable?

This is arguing in bad faith. You don't care what their answer will be, you have decided that they are absolutely picking and choosing, and will still accuse them of as much even if their answer to your first question is, "Yes".

This isn't an argument in the first place buddy.

You're right that I don't care, because it has already been decided that Orwell is representing the future if things go "The Wrong Way (tm)", buy 1984 at Amazon for $24.99, world's best selling book. Or more succinctly to OP, "The Capitalist Way (tm)".

It's okay to decide that something isn't worth arguing against, and to spend your time in a way you find more productive.

Having articulated an argument (which you absolutely did), it's not okay to try to retcon that you were just trolling and everyone else is the fool for having taken you seriously.

1984's Oceania is at least as Stalinist as it is anything else.

"The only thing stupider than thinking something will happen because it is depicted in science fiction is thinking something will not happen because it is depicted in science fiction."

https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/position-statement-on-...

Maybe because they are more digestible then reality. Reality is much much worse.

> Maybe because they are more digestible then reality. Reality is much much worse.

That makes it infinitely worse, because ANY work of fiction will inevitably not be able to cover every minutiae of detail that reality mandates be covered, even the extremely rare & bizarre. And it is those one-off rare events & coincidences that will lead to significant global change. (See the the assassin buying a sandwich & the consequent assassination of Archduke Ferdinand)

Fiction allows for ideas to exist in a vacuum without any challenges from the outside. It allows for the perfect execution of said ideas without diving into the technical details for said implementations. It allows for the assumption of zero external AND internal resistance, & zero internal schisms. It treats irrational events as impossible to manifest, and coincidences as oddities instead of common occurrences.

In short: Ideas from fiction should be treated like the simplified universal laws of physics that's commonly shown to the mainstream - Idealistic, only tangentially related to the actual observed/calculated models, & abstracts over the complicated implementations underneath them.

And works of prediction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com