Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by BorgHunter 1465 days ago
"Intentionally campy and satirical" and "chillingly predictive" are not mutually exclusive. The movie Idiocracy has probably become the canonical example in that space.

In any case, speculative fiction is usually more about the present than it is about the future. The original Star Trek, for instance, dealt quite a bit with the racial politics of the 1960s, even though it was set in the 2260s. The hypercapitalism in Snow Crash (and other cyberpunk works around that time) reflected the trend of American society in the 1980s and 90s. It was less "telling lies" and more logical extrapolation of the existing trend, which hasn't really been arrested since, either.
1 comments
anotherman554 1464 days ago
It's "telling lies" in the sense that I wouldn't expect the author to think that the plot of the book, or anything like it, is a logical extrapolation of existing trends.

Could hyper corporatization of America continue? Sure. Might the author be commenting on present trends? Absolutely.

Does the book's author actually believe the mafia might hire street samurai to do pizza deliveries? Probably not.

link