*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.
In Blade Runner, only cops get flying cars. "You got your dystopia in my flying car utopia!"
@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.
@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 I'm over 60.
@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?