DYSTOPIA NATION: TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY

Here at Balladeer’s Blog I write plenty of items about myths from around the world. I often mention that my blog posts about figures from the American West are along the same lines to me since I think the exaggerated tales of whatever their real-life stories were originate the same way that many religious fables do: the usual human tendency toward superstition and embellishment.

Dystopian literature is similar but instead of embellishing figures and events from the past this type of fiction involves taking contemporary problems and/ or trends and extrapolating them into larger than life menaces in the near or far future.

Soylent Green did it with overpopulation and food shortages, One Blade of Grass did it with environmental issues and Orwell’s 1984 did it with totalitarian political forces which still threaten to use his nightmarish novel as their road map. Countless other examples could be cited.   

THE TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY – The modern-day versions of the disgusting old Robber Barons might well be the corporate fascists aka techno-fascists in assorted tech industries, not just regarding Silicon Valley but also  privacy-violating rich pigs at Facebook and elsewhere.

In fact, you could make the case that people like Mark “Skippy” Zuckerberg and his fellow corporate fascists are even worse since I don’t recall bloated rich pigs like E.H. Harriman or Cornelius Vanderbilt trying to police other people’s every thought, word and deed. The invasive and ever-expanding tentacular reach of techno-fascists or in this fictional case Techno-Tyrants would make these villains a very credible threat to political freedom and freedom of expression.

In recent years outfits like Twitter, Facebook and others even made public noises about banning customers based on their conduct UNRELATED TO THOSE UTILITIES! Can you imagine the old, old Ma Bell monopoly cutting off people’s phone service because their operators caught those users discussing voting for political candidates disapproved of by Ma Bell’s upper echelons or expressing opinions frowned upon by Ma Bell?

Even worse, places like Google and others have made it firing offenses to be caught holding opinions at odds with the one percenters and bloated rich pigs who run those tech-related outfits.

For the fictional Techno-Tyrants of this blog post it’s a quick jump to depicting such abusive totalitarians working in tandem with an oppressive government. They could leave citizens unable to access the internet or their various accounts or medical records until they recant any statements or opinions frowned upon by the Techno-Tyrants of Silicon Valley.

With Silicon Valley’s California location and given California’s periodic noises about seceding from the U.S. the fictional dystopian future pondered in this blog post could feature the Golden State already its own separate nation. The country of California could be a dictatorship led by a scientifically-preserved fossil like Jerry Brown, kept alive only through blood transfusions or organ and tissue transplants or other treatments that sacrifice the young.    

Depending on the type of story being written California might be a hostile nation using the “advanced” science of its Techno-Tyrants to prey on other countries, including the former U.S. Hacking and other such actions might be its major source of revenue, making it a virtual Pirate State or Criminal State if you think Pirate State sounds too romantic.

California’s growing tendency to be populated by just the very rich and the very poor could also be embellished in this fictional dystopian setting. The Techno-Tyrants of Silicon Valley might be depicted living spoiled lives behind the ever-higher walls of their estates, ignoring the suffering poor. The parallels with old forms of feudalism would slide right into any story.

I’LL BE MAKING MORE OF THESE DYSTOPIA NATION BLOG POSTS, ALWAYS WITH AN EYE TO EXAMINING HOW DYSTOPIAN STORYTELLING INCORPORATES AND EMBELLISHES CONTEMPORARY REALITIES.

For more looks at “future history” click HERE

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