The shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see

Re:The shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see by jgh on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @06:38AM (#17124963)

I've been having similar feelings about the state of the world for the past few years, and that's only been amplified by revelations like Cambridge Analytica and hysteria around GDPR. We're in a dystopian world now, one that could have been written about in the 70s or 80s when people feared technology, except worse. In those dystopian visions the world was chaotic. Today we are seeing the surveillance and panopticons that were envisioned in those dystopias, but we are, largely, comfortable.

So it's almost illusory. Am I paranoid, or is the world really walking down a dark path towards....what?

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Re:The shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see by netsharc on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @07:02AM (#17125048)

Makes me think of the intro movie to the game Syndicate Wars: the world looks shiny and beautiful, until an agent hacks your chip, and you see that you're walking a dystopian world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGvIrf86g4Y .

Another thesis which basically supports Charlie's is: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/13-cri...

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Re:The shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see by bhouston on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @08:08AM (#17125295)

> Makes me think of the intro movie to the game Syndicate Wars: the world looks shiny and beautiful, until an agent hacks your chip, and you see that you're walking a dystopian world:

Our existing dominant forms of escapism, video games & TV, have accomplished this fairly well already.

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Re:The shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see by bhouston on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @08:09AM (#17125311)

> So it's almost illusory. Am I paranoid, or is the world really walking down a dark path towards....what?

It is just change. It was hard for the world to adapt to the idea of nuclear weapons, and before that the awesome power of mechanized war.

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Re:The shape of a 21st century I don’t want to see by AlexandrB on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @08:19AM (#17125361)

> It was hard for the world to adapt to the idea of nuclear weapons, and before that the awesome power of mechanized war.

These are interesting examples because in both cases society only adapted to the new technology after it had been deployed to catastrophic or near-catastrophic effect. What is going to be the panopticon equivalent of WWI? I fear we're in for some interesting times.

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