I wouldn’t say that the Butlerian Jihad turned the world of Dune into a dystopia. I think Frank Herbert is a cynic, and the world was destined to be a dystopia computers or not, because dystopia is inevitable. If not for the Butlerian Jihad, humanity would have died out millennia before any of the stories take place.
Hard disagree here as marxist (well except Herbert being cynic, that he was). It’s the antitechnological pseudohumanism that objectified humans into what we see in Dune, feudalism, slavery, cults, the cruel transhumanism of the schools, etc. and it was inevitable in such circumstances because backing the level of development to subsistence farming would not have any other effect. Hell the entire premise exist just because several literally magical technologies like super cheap and low tech antigravity, shields, FTL travel etc has been hamfisted in as pure exceptions to the tenets of jihad, which btw are so hypocrytical and going so much far then the anti AI premise that even Brian noticed that and tried to explain it.
And ultimately, the only thing that make saving humanity possible was the breaking of the jihad tenets, by the time of Heretics many forbidden techs are back and there would be no scattering without Ixians inventing the navigational computer.
Never read Watchmen so idk.
Hard disagree here as marxist (well except Herbert being cynic, that he was). It’s the antitechnological pseudohumanism that objectified humans into what we see in Dune, feudalism, slavery, cults, the cruel transhumanism of the schools, etc. and it was inevitable in such circumstances because backing the level of development to subsistence farming would not have any other effect. Hell the entire premise exist just because several literally magical technologies like super cheap and low tech antigravity, shields, FTL travel etc has been hamfisted in as pure exceptions to the tenets of jihad, which btw are so hypocrytical and going so much far then the anti AI premise that even Brian noticed that and tried to explain it.
And ultimately, the only thing that make saving humanity possible was the breaking of the jihad tenets, by the time of Heretics many forbidden techs are back and there would be no scattering without Ixians inventing the navigational computer.