vs The Expanse: we are headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense but humanity's salvation will come from... Nevermind, we're fucked.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Just most of us, except Amos. Amos will be fine.
He is that guy
Nothing this guy can't shrug off. Litterally.
He's got the shotgun, you've got the briefcase. All in the game, though.
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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.
Ok but to be fair they were using spice for like 5000 years?
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
I'll let you all guess which one was published in the 50s and which one was published in the 60s.
Warhammer 40k: ~~we're headed for some bleak imperial nonsense but~~ BY THE GOD EMPEROR SUCH HERESY IS INTOLERABLE.
Neither of the stories present salvation, merely survival.
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.
Yes I can
Blockchain and endorphins save us!
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.
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Iain M. Banks: we're living in an AI-regulated Utopia, but the AI that we totally trust might be doing some light imperialism on the side.
Pratchett / Baxter: we're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, and another one, and another one, and another one, and oops, a blank...
Edit: added the Long Earth one.
Dune: “salvation? sure, buddy, sure”
I think Dune has very many themes, but the biggest one is the dangers of religion (which is not really portrayed in the movie I think)
The 2022 movie covers the first half of the first book and that theme only really comes into its own in books 2 and 3.
Thing is, the Asimov Foundation universe could actually fit in the "past" of the Dune universe.
In the non-canon book Psychohistorical Crisis, the Dune universe is part of the past of the Foundation universe. The Fremon are known as the "Frightful People" to historians.
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.
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