After A.I. — There’s Only Gonna Be Religion and Politics… Dune’s Sprawling Future

I’ve always been a fiction lover. I absorb fiction. I still remember being in elementary school, spending many, many hours in the school library. Reading fiction while waiting for the bus to pick me up from school.

Harry Potter, Rick Jordan novels, Artemis Fowl, etc. Young Adult fiction was my jam.

More than a decade later — I still love fiction. I watch movies a ton. Did a short stint as an actor roaming around Manhattan, pre pandemic, of course.

I’ve always read a lot, but over the past couple of years — I found myself reading less and less… Until the pandemic hit and I had all this free time. On twitter, this guy highly recommended this novel called Dune. Science Fiction. Ugh.

I’m nerd and a geek, however sci fi never was a genre I loved. I liked crime, humor, thrillers, some comic books, and action (Jackie Chan, big budget flicks, etc.) In college, I was known for creating black comedy thrillers — that was my bread and butter.

Anyway, I just finished a Elmore Leonard crime thriller and I had all this free time on my hands, so how bad could it be, right?

I bought the book on kindle. And read it on my laptop. And the verdict was… I was boring outta my mind.

It was my first sci fi novel in God knows how long. And I was so bored.

Why?

It was all politics. And if you know me — you know I hate politics with a passion. I made the mistake of talking about it in the Trump era (who wasn’t?) but now I won’t do it at all.

For the rest of year, I had this bad taste in my mouth from Dune. To me, it was boring and dry. Like super boring. I finished Book 1 and never looked back. It sat in my kindle collecting dust bunnies.

Fast forward to 2021, I was on vacation and I read a book called Snow Crash. Now with this book — I wasn’t bored. This book was my speed. I wasn’t bored. It was hip, cool, frenetic. I finished it in a couple of sittings. The physical novel too.

After, I found Audible and created a personal project called “Jak’s Book Club.” With a goal to read even more than I was at the time. (It actually worked, I finished 11 audiobooks in 2021!)

For some reason, I was hell bent on listening to and reading sci fi novels. Also, I was watching sci movies like Blade Runner, The Matrix, Minority Report, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.

Sometime around fall 2021, I saw flyers of the movie Dune popping all over the place, and my first reaction was, “Ugh, not watching that, gonna be hella boring.”

During that time, I saw James Bond, No Time To Die — which I felt was amazing.

… Still keep seeing Dune posters and commercials.

Dune finally came out in the U.S. and a client who knew I loved movies, was a film major, and was on a Sci Fi Romp — asked, “Hey, Jamual — are you gonna watch Dune?”

I flat out said, “Nope, the book was so boring.”

A couple weeks later, I was bored on a Saturday night — looking for a movie to watch on my ThinkPad Laptop and I saw the poster with Zendaya again.

I said to myself, “Let’s see how boring it is, maybe I could turn into content,”

I turned on the movie, and from the opening dialogue — I was freaking hooked! It’s insane how much I love this freaking movie. The look of the scenery, the characters and the sound. Everything was iconic and each scene has been drilled into my head.

This movie is gonna make give the novel and the full series another shot cause even though the politics is boring — Dune showcases a big idea that I think is gonna be synonymous with our future.

After A.I. and specific robotics advancements — humans are gonna look for meaning in places other then work/labor — and they’re find it in politics, economics and religion, which are huge themes in Dune.

In the Dune universe, they have amazing ships, lamps that move autonomously, humans with psychic powers, BUT are still fighting each other over the most powerful and scarcest resource of all — spice. Then that’s when backstabbing ensues — all over one resource. When it seems like human existence is already preposterous.

This economic resource creates political strafe in the Dune Universe, much like our universe. Remember those riots when Trump became President? Millions and millions of people were fighting in what they believed in. So much conflict — even though the USA is one of the most developed countries in the whole world, with the highest GDP in the world.

I think Dune got this part of the future right, after A.I. and high tech space ships and robots automate everything — all that’s left will be politics and religion.

Historically, people found meaning in these things and I think it’s gonna be even more prominent after big corporation invest thousands of dollars in A.I and robotics — automating our jobs into oblivion.

Once the robots take over though, there’s gonna be big need for therapist like Dr. Frankel.

Why?

Cause so much of folks meaning in life is tied up in their jobs(including me), and if you don’t have a job — what are you gonna do?

…

Who knows?

That’s something that’s gotta be addressed as soon as possible cause A.I. is coming!!!

P.S. If you wanna talk more about the future of civilization Follow me