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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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"Stand On Zanzibar" by John Brunner won the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 1969.
The story is set in the early 21st century; one of the problems caused by the rapid changes of the times is 'muckers.' A mucker is someone who has 'run amok' and is out to kill as many people as possible. In the book the preferred weapons were knives and swords.
Brunner based his novel on the works of sociologist Alvin Toffler, who coined the phrase 'future shock'
The only shock from the future is how hard someone has to work to survive. Not thrive, not live, but just get by. The shock is learning that this hardship is caused by 4700 people on the planet who have more money than they can spend in their lifetime and want to ensure the system that grants them privilege at our expense. The shock is learning that the entire societal system is rigged against anyone and almost everyone.
The shock isn't the future itself. It's the state of the present.
It's often useful to know what a term means.
In this case, 'future shock' meant that there would be people who couldn't/wouldn't adapt to the shift from the Industrial Age to the Digital Era. People who were fine with Tom Hanks wearing drag in his TV show lose their minds over drag forty years later. People who grew up getting vaccines in school suddenly decide that all vaccines are poison.
That was basically Orwell's 1984 though. The Proles worked hard all their lives just to scrape by and the Inner Party lived like kings and the Proles weren't able to stop them even if they wanted to, which they didn't because they were brainwashed into maintaining the status quo through control of the media.
Sounds quite familiar, doesn't it?
sounds like pretty much all of human history, no?
I think life was a lot harder in the past
Yup humans are shit, I know that, but it doesn't make me wanna kill a bunch of random strangers. That's just insane.
Sounds like you've given up.
"Amok", incidentally, is a Malay word referring to a seemingly random killing spree that would take young men sometimes. Americans occupying the Philippines would sometimes be attacked by Muslim swordsmen insurgents in a berserker state, which led to the concept of "stopping power" and the development of the Colt 45
In the book they specifically say that a 'mucker' isn't a 'mugger.' A mugger only wants your money; a mucker wants to kill you.
I've been thinking about muckers ever since I read the book back in the early 2000s. Wish more people knew about it.
If you really want to depress yourself, read 'The Sheep Look Up." His take on environmental collapse.
Right now I'm reading The Little Dummer Girl by LeCarré, and it's plenty depressing already. But I'll put this on the queue.
Stick with happy stuff, imho.
I remember having read that book but I absolutely don't remember the contents
I think it's worth re-reading. He uses a lot of cute writer tricks