Hacker News Reader

Comment by int_19h | Hacker News Reader

I would remind you that the fictional society that did this was also described as a feudal monarchy in which a tiny class of nobles exploits the economic output of trillions of people reduced to serfs by controlling all means of interstellar trade. Oh, and they also have legal slavery.

View on HN

The implication in the book is that the exploitation enabled by AI in their history was somehow even worse.

During the Butlerian Jihad, the people involved in it didn't know that ten thousand years of slavery would be what they are choosing, so we don't know how bad it actually was.

The way Jihad presented in the oblique references in books, anyway, it sounds a great deal like a fanatical fundamentalist religious movement to me. Those are not known for their fine reasoning.

I’ve gotta say ultimately I’m not convinced Herb put more thought into it beyond its purpose justifying human labour in his universe despite the massively advanced technology. There’s a similar shortcut in the Warhammer backstory.

Herbert did genuinely believe that people overly relying on machines is problematic insofar as it "trains the mind" to think like a machine, and in the process loses the indeterminacy that he believed to be an inherent and valuable trait of human thinking that machines cannot replicate.

(Coincidentally, this is also the main threat in the original books, just manifesting in a different form, with prescient individuals "locking in" the rest of humanity.)

Honest question, is an oppressed human society better than no human society at all? Isn’t there at least a hope for humans to free themselves from human oppressors?

I'll remind you that a fictional product that provided longevity and woo woo powers of prescience and was only available on one planet in the entire universe was the key context that enabled such a centralized society. Dropping thinking machines and their masters like a bad habit was only part of the cause, as it eliminated one means of safe interstellar travel in that reality. I can take ideas from this plot without bringing in the whole ridiculous mess if I like, just like I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, thank you very much.

“B-b-b-but muh pop culture trope”

Thank you for commenting this. I'm tired of hearing about Dune like its some kind of utopia

Do you seriously think that's that people mean when they quote that?

Of course they don't, but if you choose to use a work of fiction as an illustration, it comes as a coherent package (assuming the author did a good job at worldbuilding) - you can't just take the bits you like and ignore the bits you don't and still have something coherent.

What a stupid pov lmao

Reply on news.ycombinator.com