NationStates Jolt Archive

Be creative and create what you would see as the ultimate dystopia. Or just be an arse. Obviously, you can make more than one.

Mine:

Pacifistica

All traces of war and violence has been eradicated from mankind and now there is world peace where the world lives in collective communes. All evidence from wars has been skewed - books have been edited/burned/completely changed to eliminate any notion of war from society except that all violence is evil regardless if it is self-defense, etc.

Buddhism is the state religion, but they call it a philosophy. Any person showing any "violent" tendencies is taken, peacefully, to a re-education camp where they are taught to be nonviolent and compliant. Any with a violent past (even if it includes pushing someone) is deemed mentally unstable. Any items that resemble or can incite violence or hatred have been removed from society as well. Guns, toy guns, Grand Theft Auto games, etc are all banned and deemed as inventions by war-mongering neoconservative fascists. The Founding Fathers have had their definitions changed from "perpetrators of liberty" to "Indian-slaughtering racist violent hate inciters."

Also, Futurama is banned because Bender is too violent and will mar the children's fragile little minds.

does "what we have now" count?

No because you didn't create it, I did. Erm, nevermind.:sniper:

wait, what do you mean by worst? worst as in lamest? worst as in the one I would want to live in the least? more specifics please. My favorite kind of dystopia are the giant robots/aliens killing everybody types. But living in a post-nuclear-war apocolypse type seems like it would be the worst. From the movies I've seen in those apoclypses people end up going crazy and discovering creepy subway tunnel civilizations.

what interests me is more the fact that fiction doesn't produce utopias anymore, just dystopias. it's like we've lost the dream of the future.

what was that quote by Tolstoy, "All happy families are happy alike, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way"? Only replace families with societies and make this post less pretentious.

An ultra-environmentalist health-fanatic one-world government bans smoking, drinking, cars, fast food etc. Meat eating is also illegal. Work is compulsory. All modern industry and enterprise is banned in favour of healthy subsistence, but the abolition of pesticides and genetic engineering causes widespread famine. Most households have to cook up grass and leaves in order to comply with strict "5 portions per day" legislation. The world suffers from severe malnutrition, but the abolition of medicine tested on animals or made with synthetic substances means the IHS (international health service) is unable to deal with the influx of starving patients. The critically ill are prescribed foul-tasting herbal placebos in natural shades.

Humanity regresses more severely than the stone age (stone tools and weapons are banned for health and safety reasons) but instead of degenerating into a comparitively fun dog-eat-dog struggle for survival, the government somehow keeps a firm hold on the world, preventing any sort of violence or disorder. Fire is banned, but nobody cares because cooking has long since been forgotten. Human history comes to an end when the last surviving band of people are mauled by bears whilst preparing grass pie.

A slothful, ignorant society, easily. Indeed, I fear we may be headed in that direction ourselves, with the attempts to regulate education based on religion and the increasing deluge of reality TV and pop music, not to mention the fact that almost everyone would rather be a janitor than a doctor.

A slothful, ignorant society, easily. Indeed, I fear we may be headed in that direction ourselves, with the attempts to regulate education based on religion and the increasing deluge of reality TV and pop music, not to mention the fact that almost everyone would rather be a janitor than a doctor.

Politics aside, isn't a slothful society a utopia? Wouldn't everyone, regardless of ideology, prefer a world in which nobody HAD to do anything?

Religious fundamentalism and crap music are hallmarks of a work-embracing, ignorant society, not a slothful one.

"Capitalist" or "ignorant, immobile, and slothful," I can't decide.

Marx and Nietzsche continue their fight for my soul.

Politics aside, isn't a slothful society a utopia? Wouldn't everyone, regardless of ideology, prefer a world in which nobody HAD to do anything?

Religious fundamentalism and crap music are hallmarks of a work-embracing, ignorant society, not a slothful one.

I mean mentally slothful, not physically slothful.

I really would love to have posted, but my ultimate dystopia is basically an amalgamation of post one and post seven. So it would contribute little to the discussion.

If you really want to find great dys/u topias, read Aldous Huxley. He wrote two books. One, Brave New World, was his dystopia. The other, Island, was his Utopia.

On one, a primitive, regressive society packed with decadence, indolence and complete disregard for non-selfish human advancement is slowly overwhelmed by the outside world. (The only bit of the book I enjoyed.)

In the other; Eudamonia. Perfection. A society intelligent enough to recognise it's intrinsic flaws and prepare defences against them.

I mean mentally slothful, not physically slothful.

Thinking is work too :(

A society, without privacy, even thoughts are accesible by the Great Government. The socially inacceptable persons are tortured, but there is only a small line between acceptable and inacceptable behavior and thoughts. Work for the great government is mandatory and the position is selected by the government. There is no chance to rise, but there are chances to get demoted. There is no written legal code, the Great Government alone decides what is legal and what not.

Shitsville

a land where everything is just a little bit more shit than it is already.
is a subjective dystopia, magically adjusting itself to piss off the most people possible, and there is no such thing as pie. pie is verboten.
as are ties.
and anything that rhymes with pie or tie.


so it is written, let it be done... i have spoken!

Shitsville

a land where everything is just a little bit more shit than it is already.
is a subjective dystopia, magically adjusting itself to piss off the most people possible, and there is no such thing as pie. pie is verboten.
as are ties.
and anything that rhymes with pie or tie.


so it is written, let it be done... i have spoken!

No... no pie?! That dystopia is evil. PURE EVIL!

No... no pie?! That dystopia is evil. PURE EVIL!
wmuhahahaha!! *is so evil*

weebl will be upset

No... no pie?! That dystopia is evil. PURE EVIL!

Well, it is a dystopia.

what interests me is more the fact that fiction doesn't produce utopias anymore, just dystopias. it's like we've lost the dream of the future.

For those interestred Fredric Jameson recently published 'Archaeologies of the Future; The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions' investigates the development of this unique and relevant genre of literature since Thomas More. As the title alludes, the desire (and importantly writing) of utopian futures is still alive particularily in the genre of science fiction.

Within SF the problem of its (relative) decline can be linked to a change in the boundries or aims of science fiction itself. Paraphasing a SF writer (I think Arthur C Clarke) the genre has become more concerned with illuminating possible dystopian futures in the, perhaps vain hope, of avoiding them.

More generally, if we think negatively at a dystopian future the inverse of it will become Utopian or at the very least contain elements of a Utopian future. In this sense then, the emphasis on dystopia over utopia can be seen paradoxically as a reinforcement of the utopian desire.

The dream of the future is not lost but rather awiating discovery.

The worst dystopia I can think of would be combining the cruelest elements of 1984, North Korea, and our own Kraven Corporation.

Orwell, Kim Il-Sung, and whoever created Kraven are far more brilliant at making dystopias than I am.

If I had the power, I would carpet-nuke such a country. Their mere existance is provocation enough. For the poor peasants/proles/workers, death would be preferable to life.

Small alien overlords. Since they're smaller than us. If they were giant, I wouldn't mind so much. But small alien overlords...

what interests me is more the fact that fiction doesn't produce utopias anymore, just dystopias. it's like we've lost the dream of the future.
That is because Utopian Novels are crappy. To further the matter, most of the people who wrote them (*cough*BFSkinner*cough*) are out of their fucking heads and end up writing things that describe dystopias anyway.

Flat Whitebreadia

People are encouraged, to dress alike, outlandishness in any form is severly frowned upon. Individuality is looked on as a social disease. Building codes require that all dwellings are of a similar size, design and quality. Salaries are regulated, so no one is rich or poor. All children are required to take up one sport but are not expected to exceed in it. Books are not banned, but certain volumes are moved to the back shelves of the library, and you must obtain 'special permission' to take them out. Fiction is a dying art form. Love at first sight is a laughable myth, and dragons are not mentioned at all. Artists must follow government guidelines to have their art displayed publically. Broadcast media is similarly controlled.

There are no stars. Sports are not played professionally, so there are no sports heroes. Movies are cast using ordinary people, and telling ordinary stories, so there are no movie stars. News stories that are deemed too frightening, such as fires and plane crashes, are not reported in depth, just a passing mention.

Everything is just... normal.

the ultimate dystopia is communism.