• fellowmortal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    14·
    2 days ago

    Nobody got this feeling from altered carbon? Immortal, immoral rich, and everyone else struggling to survive. I mean, it’s guilty-pleasure watching, but I am not ashamed.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
      25·
      3 days ago

      It may seem like a meme, but Idiocracy did actually nail it. Dumb and aggressive with no attention span.

      • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
        191·
        3 days ago

        Idiocracy was less mean-spirited than reality, though. Sure, people were assholes, but they weren’t trying to eradicate trans people or immigrants.

      • tibi@lemmy.world
        91·
        3 days ago

        No they didn’t. The president recognized a smart person and put them in charge to fix their problems. Do you see the Trump administration doing that?

    • 1SimpleTailor@startrek.websiteEnglish
      26·
      3 days ago

      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

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
      11·
      3 days ago

      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.”

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
    78·
    3 days ago

    Alt: duck soup movie poster, in which a grifter con man fails upward to leading a country, makes a mockery of justice, appoints idiots spying for a foreign government, and ends up in a losing war and destruction.

      • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
        21·
        3 days ago

        And some song lyrics from the first music number:

        The last man nearly ruined this place,

        He didn’t know what to do with it

        If you think this country’s bad enough now,

        Just wait till I get through with it. /

        The country’s taxes must be fixed,

        And I know what to do with it.

        If you think you’re paying too much now,

        Just wait till I get through with it. /

        I will not stand for anything

        That’s crooked or unfair.

        I’m strictly on the up and up,

        So everyone beware. /

        If anyone’s caught taking graft

        And I don’t get my share,

        We stand ‘em up against the wall…

        And pop goes the weasel!

    • Donkter@lemmy.world
      47·
      3 days ago

      I kind of thought this was the joke. Many many dystopian plots are about governments ran by corporations and filled with foreign spies.

      • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
        8·
        3 days ago

        I figured this was just kind of a blurb by someone who just lacks depth in knowledge of these things

        • go $fsck yourself@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          3 days ago

          Sarcasm often employs acting as someone who lacks knowledge about something. You can easily identify this when the person describes something unusually specific.

          • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
            11·
            3 days ago

            It’s not unusually specific here, per se. It’s just a list with descriptions of several Americans who were elected into government. I couldn’t name novel or movie characters that precisely fit these traits off the top of my head.

    • falidorn@lemmy.world
      7·
      3 days ago

      This movie is eerily accurate despite being scathing satire. There’s more than a hint of truth in it. More like a mountain.

      • boomzilla@programming.dev
        2·
        2 days ago

        General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?

        Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I… no, no. I don’t, Jack.

        General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.

  • mm_maybe@sh.itjust.works
    4·
    2 days ago

    The Man in the High Castle comes close… or at least, makes it clear that it’s not as though the Nazis and Japanese occupying America would actually live by the code they dictate for others.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
    22·
    3 days ago

    kak·i·sto·cra·cy

    noun

    Government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.

    • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      3 days ago

      On behalf of all the Welsh people I know would you have a problem with “cac” rather than the Dutch based (?) “kak” in this word?

      • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        3 days ago

        “Kak” is from Greek. “Cac” is an alternate spelling coming from the same root via French, as in “cacophony” or

        • Klear@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          I’ve recently started coming up with new words by changing eu- (meaning good) into caco-. You get some great ones like:

          • cacophoria
          • cacovangelium
          • cacogenics
          • cacology
          • cacophemism

          And my favourite, cacothanasia.

        • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          3 days ago

          Interesting. I know “kak” from Afrikaans and “cachu” from Welsh. I’ve never seen the word definitively derived from Greek; I always believed the root was from PIE language. What do I know?

          • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            I looked up the Dutch “kak” and that’s pretty funny. It means “bad” in Greek, but the Dutch meaning still works great - rule by the shittiest people.

            • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
              3·
              3 days ago

              Yeah - I assumed “shit (people)” was what we were going for; “k” doesn’t exist in Welsh so I asked for the alt spelling. Cacophony then translated as “shit sound” in my head - which again, kind of, works. Language is difficult.

  • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
    16·
    3 days ago

    The amount of sexual predators Epstein’s closest friend have nominated to position of power is incredible,

    • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      3 days ago

      Oh man Transmetropolitan, Judge Dredd, and some other deeply satirical stories like Harrison Bergeron have ended up being closer to reality than even the best attempts at dystopia: Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 (though its critique of what is essentially social media is on point), Minority Report (let’s see how AI in law enforcement goes…), Handmaid’s Tale…

      I save a special spot for 1984 because our technology is spying on us, our governments and billionaires are using the media to manufacture consent, and the lies and danger around us make us not trust each other. 1984 did get pretty close, but 1984 was made with the assumption that our elites are competent and willing to work together and that does not seem to be the case actually. That’s our one saving grace and we need to act on it as soon as possible.

    • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
      1·
      3 days ago

      Neither the Beast nor the Smiler are ignorant, conspiracy theorists, or foreign assets though (grifters and sex criminals, most definitely, I’ll give you that, especially the Smiler, but most of the City’s population seems to fit in those categories too, so in that sense they do represent their electorate).

      They’re both quite competent and intelligent psychopaths.

      Now, if we’re talking about the Republican Party Reservation and its associated TV show, or the vat-grown VP…