Hacker News with Generative AI: Dystopia

Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Sci-Fi They Grew Up on Real (scientificamerican.com)
Science fiction (SF) influences everything in this day and age, from the design of everyday artifacts to how we—including the current crop of 50-something Silicon Valley billionaires—work. And that’s a bad thing: it leaves us facing a future we were all warned about, courtesy of dystopian novels mistaken for instruction manuals.

Science Fiction, Technology, Silicon Valley, Dystopia, Future

7 points by gladwindos 10 days ago | 2 comments

Skynet won and destroyed humanity (dmathieu.com)
For a very long time, it appeared obvious to outside observers of the time flow that Skynet would never win the war, and never annihilate humanity.

Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, Dystopia

198 points by xena 52 days ago | 137 comments

George Orwell's 1984 as a '90s PC game has to be seen to be believed (arstechnica.com)
Most readers come away from George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 with the same singular desire: to inhabit the world of the book by playing a late '90s first-person puzzle-adventure PC game that includes a "zero-g training sphere" for some reason.

Video Games, Retro Gaming, 1984, Dystopia, Culture

3 points by ksec 52 days ago | 0 comments

Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014) (dezeen.com)
Inevitably, in the latest book, The Peripheral, our unbridled materialism yields what we fear – climate-driven apocalypse.

Culture, Technology, Consumerism, Dystopia, Literature

252 points by delaugust 82 days ago | 265 comments

Stop Speedrunning to a Dystopia (theintrinsicperspective.com)
There’s been a string of recent news of big tech corporations doing—or at least testing—things that can be described as “pretty evil” without hyperbole. What’s weird is how open all the proposed evil is. Like bragging-about-it-in-press-releases levels of open.

Ethics, Technology, Dystopia, Big Tech

44 points by outrun86 104 days ago | 0 comments

CES 2025 Worst in Show: Betas for a Dystopian Future (thenewstack.io)

Dystopia, Technology, Future

38 points by speckx 105 days ago | 1 comments

Rod Serling on Doomsday (mubi.com)
Marking the centenary of the creator of “The Twilight Zone,” who knew that dystopia was always over the nearest ridge.

Science Fiction, Television, Dystopia

68 points by ecliptik 120 days ago | 11 comments

Living in Delhi smog is like watching a dystopian film again and again (bbc.com)
Winter has come to Delhi and with it, a familiar sense of gloom. The sky here is grey and there is a thick, visible blanket of smog.

Air Pollution, Delhi, India, Climate Change, Dystopia

6 points by Brajeshwar 157 days ago | 0 comments

Against dystopian views of high-speed audiobook listening (dynomight.substack.com)
There was recently a thread on r/slatestarcodex about “What life hacks are actually life changing”. One of the examples given was:

Audiobooks, Dystopia, Life Hacks

6 points by gregorymichael 198 days ago | 0 comments

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing is a dystopian nightmare (ycombinator.com)

Amazon, Publishing, Dystopia

288 points by suzzer99 282 days ago | 119 comments

HAMURABI.BAS and Its Dystopian Lessons (jeffquast.com)

Programming, History, Dystopia

32 points by Bluestein 287 days ago | 3 comments

'Russia now is like 1984': Inside a Russian dystopian library (bbc.com)

Russia, Dystopia, Literature, Censorship, Current Events

30 points by peutetre 324 days ago | 18 comments

For tech CEOs, the dystopia is the point (bloodinthemachine.com)

Tech CEOs, Dystopia, Criticism

46 points by kmdupree 346 days ago | 49 comments

A dystopian iPad commercial has X ripping Apple for crushing instruments and art (usatoday.com)

Advertising, Dystopia, Apple, Art, Technology

54 points by LorenDB 352 days ago | 78 comments