Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Sci-Fi
Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 07:33:49 PM PDT
He does his homework (socio-political and historical; I can't speak for the sci-fi and physics) and I found his discussion riveting and very, very scary.
Basically he posits that, after the 2008 election, the isolated skirmishes between the federal government and militias that began with Waco, Oklahoma City, and Ruby Ridge, turn into all-out civil war between Red counties in open, armed rebellion against the Blue counties defended by Federal troops. In 2015 the Russians and Chinese nuke all the Blue counties, allowing the Red-staters win by default. The U.S. Capitol moves to Omaha, Nebraska. Republicans and Democrats have long since disappeared, and there are 10 political parties in the US. Small college towns which were outside of the major cities (and therefore not nuked) are turned into "forts" and become the new urban centers of culture and learning-- the revived "blue states" of the new America.
It's not as simple as red vs. blue though. The old "wedge issues" go away and it is more like Urban vs. Rural, State vs. Federal. The right wing has never had a complete lock on Rural (just ask Arcata, California, or actually most of Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties), nor on State's rights (ask those taking medical marijuana or in same-sex marriages). I found his personal political goulash fascinating, and a bit prescient for someone writing in November 2000. No, I don't believe he "really" is a time-traveller from 2036, so I treated his posts as fiction written in late 2000, and got a lot of insight out of it as a result. I think the "truth" or "falseness" of his claims is irrelevant to the insights and ideas he puts forth.
"John Titor" claims to be a soldier and militiaman who has seen and perpetrated the horrors of civil war, so his politics are a bit more right-wing than mine in some ways (very pro-Second-Amendment, militantly Christian, pro-death-penalty and eye-for-an-eye) but in other ways he's a lot like a Western Libertarian-type Blog/Netroots Democrat: he's very pro-environment, will only eat Organically-grown food, is militantly pro-civil liberties, is viscerally disgusted by the consumer-marketing overconsumption and callous selfishness in "our" time, is appalled by the cable-news screaming-head pundits, and, due to his deep interest in the ethical implications of time travel, his Christianity is Gnostic and seems more like Daoism or Zen Buddhism than it does anything today's Fundamentalist Christians would preach or even accept. I got the sense that his politics might even fit in well on dKos, perhaps as a "fightin' Dem".
His future USA of 2036 is a relatively loose confederation of agrarian Anarcho-syndicalist organic-farm communes-- a lot like perhaps the idealised early USA of Thomas Jefferson. Except that it's no paradise-- they've just been through WWIII and a massive die-off of population.
Prejudice and racism are gone in 2036, as is homophobia and abuses of civil rights by the government. Multinational corporations are dethroned from their current position of absolute supremacy-- everything is local and rooted in the community, including commerce and banking. But also gone is the welfare system-- in fact there is not even any health care system to speak of. Darwin takes the old and those with exotic diseases, radiation poisoning, or drug or alcohol problems. The birth rate is very low and rates of stillbirth and horrible birth defects are similar to those reported in southern Iraq after our use of Depleted Uranium there. The 2036 Federal government has been reduced back to its bare-bones 1789 level of functionality-- and everyone still alive in his future is apparently happy about that.
Like any medieval township or remote colonial settlement, everyone pulls their weight or gets banished or publicly punished-- harshly. Basic survival and the search for fresh, uncontaminated, non-radioactive water dominate daily life.
But it's not a Grover Norquist every-man-for-himself free-for-all either, not by a long shot. In fact it sounds a lot more Communist or Socialist to me-- from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Anyone who is willing to "pull his weight" is taken care of by the community. All the social safety net is local: communities consider it a sacred duty to take care of orphans, and they revere the elderly in way that seems very Asian to me. Average life expectancy is age 60, so those who make it to old age are quite exceptional. People help each other out, give each other a hand, talk to each other in the community, etc. Anyone who is unwilling to play by the rules is in deep trouble, killed, or banished. Crime is much less of a problem because everyone depends on each other.
The oil and automobile addictions are obviously gone: people walk, ride bikes or horses, or take the new high-speed trains that link the major population centers. The Internet is still around and going strong, but it resembles a distributed community Wi-Fi network more than it does today's network. Most people use typewriters, wind-up radios, and wind-up flashlights. Solar is the major source of electricity.
I could have lived without all the sci-fi geek descriptions of his "time displacement unit", but hey I guess it's part of the genre. His posts were to Art Bell's paranormal discussion board, so I guess he had to keep that crowd entertained. But, for me, it was the socio-political and human stuff that really got me hooked. "Titor" is a very astute observer of our current condition and I found his future dystopia as compelling and plausible as Orwell's or Huxley's.
I found his description of the civil war and WWIII emotionally wrenching, since I have a daughter who is only a few years younger than "Titor's" character. In his story/prophecy, between 2008 and 2020, over half of the world's population is dead, including over 150 million Americans. His descriptions of life during the civil war between 2005-2015 sound a lot like the news reports from Iraq or Afghanistan. He claims that we "would not like 2036 at all", and I agree.
Especially painful was his condemnation of "our" (his "parents'") generation and how we are completely squandering the wealth, power, comfort, and leisure we now possess-- and how disconnected we are from each other, from our Earth, from our sense of spirituality and shared committment to the common good. I don't agree with a lot of "Titor's" opinions, but on this one I have to admit he's exactly right.
Highly recommended.
