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Bruce Sterling @bruces

*Well, that was ten years ago. That oppressive cyberpunk dystopia has got some staying power

@bruces@mastodon.social I guess that means this waves around is all your fault.

@bruces

In Blade Runner, only cops get flying cars. "You got your dystopia in my flying car utopia!"

I'm only 50 and I was promised both. I got only half of what I was promised, and not the good half.

@bruces yeah, but we were also promised a better life in the off world colonies.

And in The Handmade's Tale, Atwood portrayed Canada as a place to escape Gilead. Turns out that Canada will just be part of Imperial Gilead.

I watched "Escape from New York" last month. It looked quite upbeat. No ICE raids, police violence and low traffic neighbourhoods with a self-sufficient community & a strong sense of neighbourhood. Not even any Tesla or Uber presence. What not to like?

@bruces I beg to differ. Many more people have seen the future optimism of Star Trek over any of the classic cyberpunk dystopia stories or series. I don't think science fiction has overall promoted a dismal future; it is the media that has propagated pessimism it to sell ads. In a lot of ways science has made life better but we believe it is worse and succumb to learned helplessness.

@profdc9 @bruces umm…wasn’t the Star Trek optimism only after a global nuclear exchange and followed by something akin to feudal warlord rulers killing a fair chunk of the remaining population? I’m ballparking STtnG episode 1 and the borg movie.
So…umm…pass?

@bruces We (over 60) had some FUN imagining flying cars - nobody expected to survive the imminent nuclear winter...

@bruces thx for the wry reminder — I miss JPB.

@bruces the 90s dystopia is the deep state conspiracy one + aliens

@bruces
To be fair, Thunderbirds was repeated a lot in the 1990s and early 2000s, so we were promised some optimism?