Both of these are terrible takes on the books.
Spice is not a solution in dune in fact the whole 4th book and the end of the third are centered around forcing humanity to wean itself off spice so that it may evolve.
The central concept is that humanity must not depend on machine or drugs or complicated eugenics and must instead look inwards and improve itself by facing hardship.
In foundation (at least the start) the complicated maths is essentially there to prove that all establishments fail and survival requires constant change. Very differently from dune foundation sees technological superiority as key to this and importantly the ability for society to change in order to support the technological progress.
Even if you don’t agree with the above neither book aims to “fight imperialist bullshit” if anything they both quite staunchly support the idea of a benevolent dictator controlling all.
Or is Dune about the folly of different types of dictatorship; sadistic, benevolent, religious or machiavellian? Taking only the first book (because that’s as far as I’ve read) every leader is thwarted or confined by the consequences or weakness of their own style of leadership.
I read an interview where frank said that his intention was for Dune to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of charismatic leaders (which is to say, the “classic” hero archetype). Which - for the first book - tracks pretty well. The free are basically just used as cannon fodder for Paul to win back his power (and a lot more), then when he wins, he sets them loose on the universe because he can’t control them.
The trouble I have with that though is that he goes on to contradict that point in later books, but I won’t get into that because I don’t want to spoil anything for you
bitch better have my giant exo-foreskin
It’s honestly crazy how many people can read Dune and completely misunderstand the themes of the book.
Though to be fair, it sometimes feels like Frank himself didn’t fully understand what themes he was going for. Books 1-3 were staunchly “Beware of heroes, charismatic leaders will lead you to evil and despair”, then in GEoD, we find that literally the only hope for humanity was millenia of oppression by a totalitarian government.
But either of those two takes is still wildly better than “spice saves the universe” lol
Dune has one of the most complex (and necessarily logical) universe in it. I’m not surprised every reader found different themes more fitting.
Dune had no good guys, none at all.
Everyone was out for themselves or their narrow view of what was just and best for humanity from their simplistic and self-centered perspective.
Leto 2 was the exception because he was out for his narrow view of what was best for humanity from his broad, self-centered perspective that still didn’t really lead anywhere.
The actual point of the books is that no ideal survives the test of real time, and over time civilization tends to ossify, so we are doomed to catastrophe by our very nature.
It wasn’t the qctual only hope, just the only path Paul and Leto could see, and we know they aren’t omniscient
Ok but to be fair they were using spice for like 5000 years?
vs The Expanse: we are headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense but humanity’s salvation will come from… Nevermind, we’re fucked.
Just most of us, except Amos. Amos will be fine.
He is that guy
He’s got the shotgun, you’ve got the briefcase. All in the game, though.
Nothing this guy can’t shrug off. Litterally.
The expense always looked like almost utopic to me.
Truly ? What aspects of it ?
I mean they do have universal basic income on earth but apart from that humanity is all kinds of fucked. And it doesn’t exactly get better as the story progresses.
The fact that the earth is even united and not completely screwed is already a great start. It was even recovering from climate change before Inaros.
To be fair to Inaros he did end global warming and the overpopulation of earth.
Inaros did nothing wrong.
The earth is united like the United States is united. The tribes just got bigger is all. Instead of NATO vs BRICS, the Expanse universe has Earthers vs Martians vs Belters. And people are suffering hard on earth as evidenced during Bobby’s trip to the ocean.
Bobby’s saw a very different earth in the books tho.
People living in UBI weren’t really living a paradise but they weren’t homeless hobos like in the show.
Example B of earth being shittastic is the entirety of The Churn novella
The story for The Churn is entirely Earth based and provides a description of what the average life in a crowded, metropolitan city is like in the world of the Expanse. The city of Baltimore has given way to a multitude of crime bosses, and organized black markets. There are multiple bosses who each keep a “family” of personal guards that operate the smuggling of goods, illegal memory implants, weapons smuggling, cybernetic implants, and other illegal goods and services. The story takes place over the course of about two days.
Everyone starts to come together in the last book though.
They’re kind of forced to by an outside context problem, to quote Banks.
In a very… Specific way.
The earthers are not doing that bad in the beginning that is true. But the rest of the system have it rough.
Isn’t the UBI on earth literally so poor that people on it are stuck in lives of poverty unless they can get into some kind of training scheme?
Mostly they suffer from extreme boredom and mediocre lives. Nothing drastic but soul suckingly unfulfilling.
You mean dystopic right … right?
Not at all. It always looked like something in between for me. Humanity is still struggling but moving forward, and most people live under various kind of regimes but no big bad Empire.
Winston Duarte has entered the chat.
The chat has become Winston Duarte.
Well the belters have it pretty rough and Mars is basically totalitarian. And without spoiling anything I’d suggest you keep reading, it is worth it :).
So you would enjoy the belter life much?
Belters are a vast minority, though.
So?
OP could at least make the effort to plug the dude’s post.
https://mastodon.social/@flargh/110821695878847573
@flargh@mastodon.social
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I’m still absolutely loving the fact we are on different instances in completely different parts of the world, yet we can still communicate.
Man IRC would blow your mind.
Nah, I used that a lot back in the day. It’s just crazy that I’m seeing some real trends of interoperability between services. ActivityPub is a dream come true for me.
This is so much more than IRC ever was.
Arthur C. Clarke: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from encountering benevolent alien intelligence we haven’t discovered yet.
Ray Bradbury: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from rediscovering the beauty of books and humanity’s inherent capacity for empathy in a world we’re rapidly forgetting.
Robert A. Heinlein: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from pioneering individualism, libertarianism, and multi-planetary colonies we haven’t established yet.
William Gibson: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from navigating and subverting the interplay of high technology and low life in a cybernetic reality we’re only beginning to understand.
Ursula K. Le Guin: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from understanding and integrating a spectrum of social, psychological, and cultural perspectives we haven’t fully considered yet.
Neal Stephenson: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from unprecedented technological and social innovation, often resulting from deep historical and philosophical introspection, in a future we’re yet to engineer.
Octavia Butler: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from embracing and adapting to change through the lens of bio-diversity and sociocultural evolution we haven’t fully embraced yet.
Ayn Rand: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense 😃
Exactly what I thought for Heinlein. All aboard! 🚂
Liu Cixin: We’re headed to being fucked.
Douglas Adams: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense and humanity will almost completely be erased, but as a matter of fact, there is much more and weirder nonsense out there, which of course makes the previously mentioned nonsense quite nonsensical and thus the destruction of humanity quite unimportant from a galactic point of view. (Where this point is located, has been a debate for aeons.)
Gene Roddenberry: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from remotely incubating and uplifting improbably humanoid alien species across vast swaths of existence to shore up our defenses against mysterious adversaries that plot our extinction for reasons they’ve not monologued yet.
That sounds more like post-post-post-Roddenberry Trek.
Gene Roddenberry: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but don’t worry, it’ll get better.
Every fantasy author (except Tolkien): We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from an individual or small group who will save the world through the judicious application of violence.
Do Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from traversing complex, labyrinthine narratives and deciphering symbolic, metaphysical riddles we haven’t begun to understand yet.
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Neither of the stories present salvation, merely survival.
Warhammer 40k:
we’re headed for some bleak imperial nonsense butBY THE GOD EMPEROR SUCH HERESY IS INTOLERABLE.I’ll let you all guess which one was published in the 50s and which one was published in the 60s.
Using drugs to solve the problem of institutional memory is my favourite Frank Herbert invention.
Why not both?
Why not try three fold? Alien A.I technology, psychedelic drugs, and high level mathematical systems all incorporated into painting a potentially very complex future of humanity lol 😉
Asimov: weird mutants capable of overthrowing the universe should be put down with prejudice.
Frank Herbert: weird mutants capable of overthrowing the universe should be made emperor.
If you read Foundation til the end (Foundation and Earth), you’d see that it’s the other way around.
the mule did nothing wrong!
I’ve tried to read Dune a few times and quit I have read all of foundation however. Not saying foundation is better but Dune is probably just not for me.
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Saberhagen’s Berserker: The machines will visit some bleak imperialist nonsense on you a hundred fold before wiping your entire fucking species out.
Just putting this out there for future reference, I am pro Basilisk.
You hear that future A.I. singularity overlord?
Oh fuck don’t remind of this
¿Por que no los dos?
vs Hyperion:
Dan Simmons: We’re headed for some bleak imperialism nonsense but humanity’s salvation will come from serving AIs we haven’t discovered yet.
Blockchain and endorphins save us!
