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Want beer all the time?
Evidently all you have to do is get sick enough that the bacteria typically found in your gut all die, and then make sure that the bacteria from brewer's yeast become the dominant strain afterwards.
[ http://tinyurl.com/beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer ] (Sorry for the socialist site but it's where the story was)
This dude's intestinal tract was acting like his own on-board brewery. Every time he ate carbohydrates he got drunk. Evidently it has happened enough that it has a name: "auto-brewery syndrome"
yikes.
What is your favorite dystopian future? Will the world become one? (We already know Mr. Foobar will claim is anyone but Trump gets elected we will)
What do you choose, 1984, Brave New World, Clockwork Orange, or some other?
By "favorite" do you mean the one we find the most well-imagined fiction, or the one we would most prefer to live in? (Assuming you get to choose your dystopia.)
Assuming the former, my favorite is Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). Actually, now that I think about it, I can totally see us heading there (unless Trump is elected, as zooer so correctly points out).
Which one are we headed to? I wouldn't want to live in any of them.
There is always the Huxley vs Orwell comparison from "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
http://imgur.com/gallery/2H8gZq5
Ninety-eighty-four didn't have designer babies. Brave New World encouraged sex and open relationships where if I remember correctly in 1984 people were suppose to be married but sex wasn't suppose to be enjoyable.
At this point it's hard to imagine a dystopia that doesn't have some sort of mandatory population control.
Didn't Star Trek allude to that, sorta kinda, with the episode where nobody could die, and the population grew incredibly out of control, such that people wanted to contract disease?
zooer, you are probably right about the Star Trek episode.
I always wondered why Fahrenheit 451 is so rarely listed alongside Brave New World and 1984. It is much simpler in all regards, less complex story, less action, less sex, less violence, less control by the state. And yet, it is so much simpler to happen. In fact, if it wasn't for Harry Potter and Shades of Grey, we might actually live in this world, were people constantly watch a screen. It is not wall-sized, but pocketsized. I love books, so Fahrenheit might be looking more threating to me, personally.
As someoen who's major is philosophy, I also have some beef with the simplifications in "Walden II", which is not really a dystopian future, but it was conceived as a contemporary vision, iirc.
Samyatin's "We" was not really convincing, it seems to not hit a spot, at least not for me as a westener.
There is another, rather recent, dystopian novel by french writer Houllebeq, whom I think to be vastly overrated. It is about a muslim becoming head of state in France, introducing Sharia, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submission_(novel)
My personal favourite dystopia is currently the ShadowRun "universe", I am collecting and binge reading all released novels since about two years. So far, I am missing only about a dozen of the translated ones, the rest are only released as english ebooks. There are also some recently released new round-based strategical SR games released, one is a multiplayer online game (search Boston Lockdown).
For those of you who were hoping to get your hands on the posthumous unfinished work of Terry Pratchett someday...
[ http://tinyurl.com/y8yczy7x ]
Mr. Pratchett's wishes have been fulfilled: all of the computers and hard disks that contained his unfinished work have now been flattened by a steamroller.
In other words ... those discs are no longer in this world.
I've read all the books multiple times.. Now I listen when I'm resting or in the car, etc... It allows me to a) enjoy b) get the odds and ends that I might've skimmed and c) think about the ideas without concentrating on the mechanics of reading.
I haven't read any Discworld books. They have been on my list of books to eventually read. I might have to start picking them up.
I haven't read much in a longass time, but some books became relevant recently:
1) Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_
Have known about this one for years; finally started and finished it. Wow, excellent.
2) Mikhail Bulgakov, _The Master and Margarita_
Now-classic Russian literature; scathing cultural satire set against the rise of communism/Stalin. Saw the stage adaptation a week or two ago, but it was very confusing without having read the book (which is full of ideas and surrealism.) A good stage or screen adaptation that stands on its own is not possible. Starting the read now...