Drain the swamp tho…
Can we instead install a drowning pool? It’s usage can be for the “elites” and not the peasants this time.
V for Vendetta seems close though
I kind of thought this was the joke. Many many dystopian plots are about governments ran by corporations and filled with foreign spies.
How about the TV series Years and Years?
Atlas shrugged? I only read half of it.
I did a report on that book in high school. I got through maybe 15 pages before losing all willpower. Then I read a bunch of summaries and other reviews. I got an A. I think my teacher hadn’t read it either.
The 1000+ pages of Atlas Shrugged are all an excuse for a 48 page Manifesto portrayed as John Galt’s speech that occurs in the middle of the book.
If you want to understand what Rand was saying, just skip the book part and go directly to that manifesto. Its still a long slog to get through just that part. The rest of the book is slightly worse than bad teen fanfiction.
Eh, I thought the opposite. I thought John Galt’s speech was absolutely skippable since the point had already been thoroughly made by that point.
That said, here’s my cliff notes of what I remember from the book:
- overly protectionist government makes rules to favor its preferred industries
- innovator refuses to kowtow to the protectionist rules and innovates, creating a better product for lower cost
- government (in concert with cronies from the market) shuts down 2 to preserve its protectionism
- innovater from 2 leaves society to start/join a group that refuses to interact w/ the government
- group from 4 convinces more people to join them, which removes all the innovation from the market
- market collapses due to too many cronies and not enough innovation
- John Galt speech, which is basically “told you so”
The whole story could and should have been told in less than half the pages, and probably closer to 250 pages. Fountainhead has the same essential story, but in half the pages and much better storytelling IMO, and Anthem has a very similar message in a 1984-esque world in far fewer pages.
I’ve read all three, and I recommend them from shortest to longest (i.e. if you like Anthem, you’ll probably like Fountainhead, and only read Atlas Shrugged to say you did.
I agree with Ayn Rand on some things (i.e. protectionism is bad), but disagree on a lot of things (almost the entirety of Objectivism). I consider myself a left-leaning libertarian, and I largely reject Ayn Rand’s message, especially the one about how charitable giving is bad (I believe in wealth redistribution via UBI or NIT). That said, I think her ideas are instructive, especially when it comes to understanding some of the fringe ultra-conservative groups in the libertarian and libertarian-adjacent movements.
So many villains in fiction are depicted as intelligent, phew, did we ever get that one wrong
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 a parody of a mastermind Bond villain, which is why he was dumb as a subversion of the trope.
Dr Evil is pretty dumb, he only surrounded himself with intelligent people
TFW you realize Dr. Evil is wiser than our President Elect.
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
It may seem like a meme, but Idiocracy did actually nail it. Dumb and aggressive with no attention span.
