Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8413236" data-attributes="member: 7028554">I truly don't understand this urge to prove humanity's inherent goodness through isolated experiments using incredibly small groups of subjects, when history and current events offer exponentially more and better evidence of what people actually do when things get bad...or even when they simply pretend or imagine that things are getting bad. Those kinds of experiments don't account for different cultures, unexpected events that serve as flashpoints, or the general messiness of humans.I'm not saying those experiments shouldn't be done, but I'm fully saying that they aren't done in order to provide cherry-picked evidence that, Um, Actually, things will be better than the naysayers think, or other expressions of optimism that sound (to me) suspiciously like contrarianism for the sake of being contrarian, in proud defiance of the historical record. Try telling people in countries around the world that, see, those warlords might be robbing you and committing genocide and other atrocities, with no one stopping or even slowing them down, but at some point everyone will realize that's just terribly irrational and people will band together and start doing the smart thing. Even better, once that veil of reason descends upon the land, there'll never be further spasms of irrational mayhem that decimate whole communities, because humans always act in their long-term best interests and never give into disordered and self-destructive urges.I'm not arguing that when things fall apart everyone becomes either the marauder or the victim. I am arguing that carnage meted out by the idiotic and the powerful (usually the same thing) is not inherently and heroically resisted by the social contract, and doesn't care about anyone's sense of progress through community. When society falls apart the jerks sweep through like locusts. If someone was telling a story set 1000 years after an apocalypse, sure, there might be a new social order in place and communities that are thriving. But I think most post-apocalyptic stories are set when chaos still reigns, and when dismissing the notion of raiders and warlords with a knowing academic chuckle ignores all the times in our own history when selfish, brutish might has made right, and no one, no matter how smart or forward-looking, can stop it.EDIT: I had meant to add that being tired of Road Warrior tropes is completely understandable. Gaming and geek culture in general is full of corny old tropes that many of us would rather abandon or reinvent. But I don't think it's necessary to comb through pop science writing to justify feeling like most post-apocalyptic settings are played out.</blockquote>

Verification