I'll let you all guess which one was published in the 50s and which one was published in the 60s.
Both of these are terrible takes on the books.
Spice is not a solution in dune in fact the whole 4th book and the end of the third are centered around forcing humanity to wean itself off spice so that it may evolve.
The central concept is that humanity must not depend on machine or drugs or complicated eugenics and must instead look inwards and improve itself by facing hardship.
In foundation (at least the start) the complicated maths is essentially there to prove that all establishments fail and survival requires constant change. Very differently from dune foundation sees technological superiority as key to this and importantly the ability for society to change in order to support the technological progress.
Even if you don't agree with the above neither book aims to "fight imperialist bullshit" if anything they both quite staunchly support the idea of a benevolent dictator controlling all.
OP could at least make the effort to plug the dude's post.
Iain M. Banks: we're living in an AI-regulated Utopia, but the AI that we totally trust might be doing some light imperialism on the side.
Pratchett / Baxter: we're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, and another one, and another one, and another one, and oops, a blank...
Edit: added the Long Earth one.
Arthur C. Clarke: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from encountering benevolent alien intelligence we haven't discovered yet.
Ray Bradbury: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from rediscovering the beauty of books and humanity's inherent capacity for empathy in a world we're rapidly forgetting.
Robert A. Heinlein: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from pioneering individualism, libertarianism, and multi-planetary colonies we haven't established yet.
William Gibson: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from navigating and subverting the interplay of high technology and low life in a cybernetic reality we're only beginning to understand.
Ursula K. Le Guin: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from understanding and integrating a spectrum of social, psychological, and cultural perspectives we haven't fully considered yet.
Neal Stephenson: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from unprecedented technological and social innovation, often resulting from deep historical and philosophical introspection, in a future we're yet to engineer.
Octavia Butler: We're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity's salvation will come from embracing and adapting to change through the lens of bio-diversity and sociocultural evolution we haven't fully embraced yet.
Neither of the stories present salvation, merely survival.
Image Transcription: Mastodon Post
Peter Cohen, @flargh@mastodon.s...
"Foundation" vs "Dune"
Isaac Asimov: we're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense but humanity's salvation will come from using math we haven't discovered yet
Frank Herbert: we're headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense but humanity's salvation will come from tripping on drugs we haven't discovered yet
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Using drugs to solve the problem of institutional memory is my favourite Frank Herbert invention.
Peter Watts: We're already deep in some bleak dystopian hellhole which isn't even imperialist. We tried to bring salvation via transhumanism and utilitarianism, but that shit backfired like nothing else ever has. All humans died and vampires (that humans created because why the hell not?) took over.
Oh, there are some alien eldritch horrors lurking in the fringes of the solar system. They present a threat even for the vamps.
Pellegrino & Zebrowski: The story, taking place in some deep dystopian hellhole trying to bring salvation, begins with alien eldritch horrors wiping out 99.99% of humans with r-bombs.
And then it gets worse.
And that's why Dune rules.
¿Por que no los dos?
Pretty sure Hunter S. Thompson said that first (unquoted)
Blockchain and endorphins save us!
Yes I can
Dune: “salvation? sure, buddy, sure”
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