I would bet for "brave new world", because there's plenty of places ("islands") to leave a modern society and live your life without google, DNA tests, antibiotics or anything else.

Just going to throw antibiotics in there...lol

I think they mean indiscriminate antibiotics (in foods). At least vaccines aren’t included in there.

Sure you could live your life with the perception that you're not participating in those features of modern society, but that won't stop those same "features" from acting on you. Or do you think Google will stop prying and respect your "Right to be Forgotten" when you recede into the jungle?

No antibiotics? I guess if you don't want to live long.

Well I think the government sells us fear aka-1984 and the tech world sells us pleasure aka-Fahrenheit 451.

Really it’s just two sides of the same coin. And that coin is control.

But we get cool stuff like Seashell Radios--err, Airpods!

I love putting my dystopian hat on, because I think it offers a convenient and critical lens to look at daily life through...

I'd say the coin is a little more subtle than overt control, too. It's breeding passivity through comfort and entertainment, through the facade of individual power.

Same thing they talked about in the Federalist Papers. Give some poor people a bit of land and they're no longer part of the poor class. Do that, the wealth in control gets a buffer from the masses. You create a class that will fight for you, because it means they get to keep their acre.

Same thing we see now. A passively entertained populace has no reason to revolt. So just keep giving them small luxuries and distractions.

Precedents extend much farther back[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses#Ancient_Rom...

It's the Brazil dystopia that seems most likely to me, and about which I worry about the government having access to DNA.

I don't mean this in a seriously snarky tone, but: What you're saying has been said by every generation which experienced great leaps in technology.

Why is this wave of technology, one less transformative than the invention of the printing press or transistor or nuclear bombs (none of which lead to ruin), going to be the one that leads to a dystopia?

I think you bring up an interesting point. For those of us who are employed in the darling industry of our time, in the most liberal societies, who manage our money well, and are not related to anyone undesirable, this will not be a dystopia, it'll be paradise!

It would be beneficial to your friends and family, and probably your own quality of life, to start considering whether those who do not meet the above criteria should be subject to oppression, while those privileged by birth and wealth live in paradise.

That is until something you're doing becomes undesirable or threatening to the natural order and then it'll stop being paradise and become a hell you can't outrun.

Of course... that's always a risk. The government could turn the military machine on its own people and you'd end up there anyway.

We can live in fear, or we can cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

There is still plenty of time to for the invention of the transistor or the nuclear bomb to lead to ruin.

And the printing press. But that's unlikely.

I'm just trying to understand where this feeling of impending doom is coming from, and how it's being rationalized.

Books didn't keep track of you. A few transistors couldn't come close to approximate thinking. Nuclear bombs were a weapon of the last resort and may only end humanity, not enslave them.

But now our technology is becoming an approximation of the human mind. Our sensors are ever present, there is not even the illusion of privacy. Our algorithms get better everyday on predicting who you are and what you want, just by the friends you keep.

Was something different said by generations which prevented great leaps in technology?

Was the way in which the great leaps in technology happened unaffected by what those generations said?

How do you know that every other wave of technology wouldn't have led to dystopis if noone had said anything about it?

Not everything about Brave New World was bad. The modern polyamorous movement would love the "Everyone belongs to everyone" concept as a way to deal with loneliness. [some spoilers ahead] Sure creativity is reduced, but they've also reduced war and conflict. People who learn to think for themselves aren't executed, they're sent to an island with other thinkers (although the general population is led to believe this island is terrible and a punishment). The classic way of life is preserved .. although at the expense of those people who are sorta in their own little zoo.

Brave New World is more a mixed bag than an absolute hell.

Snow Crash, obviously.

(it really is kind of the most ... human ... and thus most likely )

All of the above? Technology is a nondiscriminatory enabler