Idiocracy/Dont look up/1984/Judge Dredd
My bets on Robocop style corporate dictatorship until terminator style annihilation occurs.
Star Trek was never on the cards.
Actually, star trek might be. In their lore, things got a lot worse before they got better.
World War 3 began in 2026 according to TNG, we’re close!
In the aftermath, the world became an irradiated apocalyptic hellhole for almost a century, most cities destroyed and governments collapsed. I’d say we’re well on our way to that state, question is whether or not we emerge better on the other side. I’d almost be okay with that if there was some assurance that humanity would come out as Star Trek afterwards.
Bell Riots never happened, that timeline is broken.
V for Vendetta
I like your optimism
L for Luigi?
A combination of Snow Crash and Idiocracy
Might as well throw some Terminator and ‘The Machine Stops’ in there.
I do believe that a lot of aspects of The Ministry for the Future by K.S. Robinson have chances of becoming true.
The deadly heatwave in south Asia, governments going rogue and playing with geo engineering on their own, climate refugee camps and the general sense of too little too late.
But the book is fairly optimistic, so hopefully, people of the world getting together and accepting a new paradigm will come to be true.
Parable of the Sower
It was written as near future fiction anyway. In fact the dates mentioned in the book start out in our past. Just the catalyst events haven’t quite happened yet. Add a few years to the dates and I could see us heading towards that kind of societal break down.
This book is haunting. It made me seriously consider buying a gun. If I could convince my wife to read it, we’d probably have an armory by now.
1984
The Water Knife by Paolo Baccigalupi is pretty on the nose for the near future of the southern US
It thought that Vegas was an abomination, a testament to the vanity of mankind but that book made me understand that Phoenix has twice as many people, is bigger though sure, is a little wetter on average and should hold that title.
How is this one of the cheapest cities to live in in the US? Why are we moving the micro chip industry there?
Dune.
Not the cool parts, the Butlerian Jihad.
I’d have gone with WH40Ks war with the men of iron but there’s absolutely no chance we reach golden age of technology levels before we fuck ourselves.
I’m going to go obscure here and say that the world of 2077 from the television show Continuum
It ran for a few seasons; I enjoyed it for the most part. Not the best, not the worst. But definitely in terms of the premise where Corporations have essentially bought out failing governments, leading to an advanced surveillance state, and anti-corporate terrorists, etc… etc…
Been reading Corey Doctorow lately and catch myself thinking, “Aw c’mon! That’s not how it works!” And then remember, he’s writing about the near future.
"Lack of respect, wrong attitude, failure to obey authority. The Farm, immediately. - death sentence in Ellison’s book ‘A Boy and His Dog’
Awesome book. The whole series was good, except the last one.
Lots of good responses in this thread so far, but I keep thinking of the newest Gibson trilogy with regards to “the jackpot” where the majority of the population dies from a series of “not quite the big one” pandemics and climate issues and society is taken over by the kleptocracy. I love Gibson’s books, but I wish he would stop accurately predicting our demise.
A combination of all the worst bits of the worst ones
As an American I’d absolutely say Idiocracy, but that’s just my little corner of humanity.
If we don’t dodge that bullet, Years and Years. Or Neuromancer.
Neuromancer would be an improvement at this point. Gibson underestimated just how bad corporations could get.
