[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Paved with good intentions.

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Paved with good intentions.
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1176775335.shtml


   Ron Coleman liked [1]Hope vs. the Post West's focus on the Ricardo
   Montalban
   angle, so he posted this: [2]The Western World: âI grow fatiguedâ.

   Craig Mclaughlin commented:

     Everyone of those Star Trek episodes that Iâve seen were thinly
     veiled references to current or past events. Unless itâs just the
     notion that weâre not living in utopia. But any dystopian vision is
     by definition correct if you set the bar that low. One thing that
     all of them had in common, this includes Vonnegut (RIP) and Orwell
     is they all predicted massive catastrophic change that didnât
     happen. Things rot, they donât typically explode.

   My response (edited for all my previous mistakes and things left out):

     Actually, I was thinking more of general post WWII dystopian sci
     fi, which usually based on the idea that all scientific or
     political experiments were proto-apocalyptic. Some basic ideas
     we've all seen:

     1. a society eliminates illness and suffers from horrific
     overpopulation

     2. drugs are developed to cure mental illness or violence, and this
     leads to a decadent, doped civlization

     3. testing nuclear weapons produces huge people-eating
     ants/lizards/rabbits

     4. space exploration brings interplanetary viruses back to earth

     5. privatization and computer technology lead to a anarchic
     cyberpunk universe...

     A lot of writers took these ideas to extremes because that makes
     for more interesting reading, but most of these tales were based on
     the idea that the path to dystopia is paved with good (or not
     deliberately evil) intentions.

     What we're living in is not a utopia, but it's also not a normal,
     functioning society. What other society in history would react to
     an act of war by asking 'Why do they hate us?' What other society
     or species for that matter is so opposed to simple self defense?
     What other society holds itself in such contempt? This is abberrant
     behavior.

     Iâd guess that a lot of the mistakes weâve been making lately are
     based on our fear of our own military power (especially nukes) and
     our desire for peace. These good intentions are leading to a
     current dystopia that's more rot than bang.

   More on the Characteristics of dystopian fiction [3]here. I'd guess
   that our best chance for improving things is time travel...

References

   1. http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1176740196.shtml
   2. http://likelihoodofsuccess.com/2007/04/16/the-western-world-i-grow-fatigued/#comments
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia