Isn’t that Atlas Shrugged?
Back to the Future 2 was pretty close
The Man in the High Castle comes close… or at least, makes it clear that it’s not as though the Nazis and Japanese occupying America would actually live by the code they dictate for others.
Nobody got this feeling from altered carbon? Immortal, immoral rich, and everyone else struggling to survive. I mean, it’s guilty-pleasure watching, but I am not ashamed.
I mean, you could replace Russian assets with Japanese elves and that’s basically Shadowrun. Ignore the fact there are also literal dragons and ancient gods as part of the conspiracy ring; that’s just an aesthetic and has no bearing on how they are basically just regular billionaires.
There was a Tom Clancy novel, either Sum of All Fears or Red Storm Rising, where the president and cabinet were a bunch of stupid fuckups that kept on making bad decisions taking us closer to World War 3.
And the president elect checks every one of those boxes.
The techbrocalypse is a woefully underexplored dystopian future setting
Handmaidens tale comes close tho
I’m throwing Starship Troopers in the ring
Book or movie? Because if you mean the book we’re going to have words.
i can think of a few stories…
Idiocracy?
That government had the intelligence to see they needed to listen to someone smarter than them and gave Not Sure the freedom to do it how ever needed, even if it was something as ridiculous as water from the toilet. Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
Nah a lot worse. President Camacho was a good dude who had his peoples best interests at heart.
Not even!!! Nobody ever imagined such a horrible scenario
The last, uhh, 24 years keep reminding me of this line by Yeats:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Transmetropolitan nails this.
Unfortunately for us as a civilization, the series has aged quite well.
Oh man Transmetropolitan, Judge Dredd, and some other deeply satirical stories like Harrison Bergeron have ended up being closer to reality than even the best attempts at dystopia: Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 (though its critique of what is essentially social media is on point), Minority Report (let’s see how AI in law enforcement goes…), Handmaid’s Tale…
I save a special spot for 1984 because our technology is spying on us, our governments and billionaires are using the media to manufacture consent, and the lies and danger around us make us not trust each other. 1984 did get pretty close, but 1984 was made with the assumption that our elites are competent and willing to work together and that does not seem to be the case actually. That’s our one saving grace and we need to act on it as soon as possible.
My God, how I miss Warren Ellis.
Neither the Beast nor the Smiler are ignorant, conspiracy theorists, or foreign assets though (grifters and sex criminals, most definitely, I’ll give you that, especially the Smiler, but most of the City’s population seems to fit in those categories too, so in that sense they do represent their electorate).
They’re both quite competent and intelligent psychopaths.
Now, if we’re talking about the Republican Party Reservation and its associated TV show, or the vat-grown VP…
THIS. Where is the Transmetropolitan streaming series? The time has never been more right.
