What plot would a political thriller written in 50 years' time have?

[xxce2aab@feddit.dk]

I'm not confident those will be allowed.

[canadaplus@lemmy.sdf.org]

So I actually had to read into the history of political thrillers to answer this, because how they've changed before is kind of the biggest hint. All The President's Men is around that old, and while of course it was based on real events, it's pretty modern in the other ways. Technologies, settings and the inspiring fears might change (like all the terrorism-related plots after 9/11), but it could be that not much else does.

The other people mentioning it might not be allowed have a point. House Of Cards was huge in China, and it's been suggested that that was due to the total impossibility of any depicting any remotely cynical take on politics in Chinese productions. A lot can happen in 50 years, but it's good to guess that the authoritarian countries won't be the exact same ones as today.

Edit: A lot of the earlier yet examples Wikipedia gives are really more like spy or adventure stories. That might not be a coincidence; it's not just China that does self- and official censorship.

For me, a political thriller just has to be about internal struggles within institutions. That's bound to have elements of truth, since competition and personal advancement never goes out of style, but powerful people using existing institutions for personal advancement is also scandalous as hell. Or, at least is in modern times where we believe institutions aren't meant for that. Depicting it explicitly, as opposed to "in a dystopian future" or in disguise, is a pretty high watermark for media freedom, and media freedom was just not as strong in the 60's and earlier.

[darkfuture@lemmy.world]

Lol. This society isn't going to be intelligent enough to write a political thriller in 50 years.

[captainlezbian@lemmy.world]

An infiltration of the Chinese government with secret "Make China Great Again" radicals

[scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech]

What political thriller will AI write for humanity in 50 years?

[aatube@kbin.melroy.org]

bet

!remindme 50y

[deathbybigsad@sh.itjust.works]

Unironically, there are actual Chinese Nationalist with views even more extreme than the CCP. Like they are anti-CCP, but not in the egalitarian way, but in the "CCP lets in too many 'African Migrants', too many people are doing interracial marriages, eventually these [slur-word] are gonna take over China, we need to get rid of them" type of way. I know someone who actually think this way, its my older brother (I bet he's in some weird chat groups or something).

(For context: There are migrant workers that are from Africa in Guangdong Province, for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africans_in_Guangzhou)

Nationalists are crazy everywhere you go.

Edit: And funny thing is, he's not even a PRC Citizen anymore. Insane, right?

[captainlezbian@lemmy.world]

Yeah that's not surprising. If everything goes the worst it can for me personally as an American and the best it can for China, that faction will likely spend several decades as a "too toxic to touch" camp. Similar to how America had groups like the silver shirts and the German American Bund right up until 1941, then a solid generation in which the archetypal "evil loser" in the public consciousness was a neo nazi.

My main attempt in my comment was to imagine what the Chinese losers spoofing off American fascism would be like a la neo nazis as American losers spoofing off german fascism.

[solrize@lemmy.ml]

It was written in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress

[blackbrook@mander.xyz]

Grog and Thog plot to steal fire from the Priests of Oog, who hold power over their people by controlling this technology.