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And the president elect checks every one of those boxes.
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.
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.
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."
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
i can think of a few stories…
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.
THIS. Where is the Transmetropolitan streaming series? The time has never been more right.
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
This movie is eerily accurate despite being scathing satire. There’s more than a hint of truth in it. More like a mountain.
Gotta protect those bodily fluids boiz!
Tom Clancy may yet surprise you
I feel like altered carbon might be on the right path, possibly blade runner as well.
Alt: duck soup movie poster, in which a grifter con man fails upward to leading a country, makes a mockery of justice, appoints idiots spying for a foreign government, and ends up in a losing war and destruction.
And it came out in 1933.
Something about history rhyming and all that.
And some song lyrics from the first music number:
The last man nearly ruined this place,
He didn’t know what to do with it
If you think this country’s bad enough now,
Just wait till I get through with it. /
The country’s taxes must be fixed,
And I know what to do with it.
If you think you’re paying too much now,
Just wait till I get through with it. /
I will not stand for anything
That’s crooked or unfair.
I’m strictly on the up and up,
So everyone beware. /
If anyone’s caught taking graft
And I don’t get my share,
We stand ‘em up against the wall…
And pop goes the weasel!
I have to watch it again, along with some of the others like coconauts and day at the races
Morons from Outer Space is a classic you should include
So we’re a decade early. WWIII 2029?
So many villains in fiction are depicted as intelligent, phew, did we ever get that one wrong
It may seem like a meme, but Idiocracy did actually nail it. Dumb and aggressive with no attention span.
No they didn’t. The president recognized a smart person and put them in charge to fix their problems. Do you see the Trump administration doing that?
Idiocracy was less mean-spirited than reality, though. Sure, people were assholes, but they weren’t trying to eradicate trans people or immigrants.
Go away, baitin
Honestly, its always been anti-intellectualism. Sure not all smart people are good people, but in general empathy is a sign of intelligence, while malice and stupidity go hand in hand.
Edit: There’s also the fact that the smart tropey villains also often happen to be wealthy, and as we all know being wealthy means someone is smart/s
If they were intelligent, we wouldn’t even figure out they’re villains
Dr Evil is pretty dumb, he only surrounded himself with intelligent people. Still not an equivalent since DT is hiring idiots.
Fun fact: DT can mean alcohol withdrawal and the symptoms resemble Trump. “Severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms such as shaking, confusion, and hallucinations.”
Dr Evil is pretty dumb, he only surrounded himself with intelligent people
TFW you realize Dr. Evil is wiser than our President Elect.
Dr. Evil is a parody of a mastermind Bond villain, which is why he was dumb as a subversion of the trope.
But you also could say Bond villains were also dumb. They always seemed to make stupid mistakes and allow James to foil them, long monologues that gave him a chance to think.
