I love the pure scope of Dune. Often in futuristic stories we stop at the first big civilisation-shattering threat and spend the whole narrative there. But Frank Herbert imagined a world in which that's already happened, humanity survived, but so did our species' flaws. We didn't just become a utopia after the fall of the machines. We just moved on to the next crisis
@@Despotic_Waffle yeah true! Related to that I love how it argues against the idea of "constant progress" History is much more cyclic than it is linear
@@markv785 Dune may even be Pre-Empire. Feeding into it - a prequel rather than a mere copying. A civilizational substory of the greater superset of Empire -> Foundation.
@@Despotic_Waffle The "dark ages" were dark because of the fall of Rome. Some would argue Rome itself was evil. The current writers of history get to decide what is best.
As asimov s foundation was merely about ascending of the human species confronting other galaxies, herbert s dune was purely descending of human species throughout the universe
Of course, we are at the leading edge of the wedge that will be the Butlerian Jihad.......Human uses machines to enslave other Humans..... our future selves will learn... UA-cam.
The Butlerian Jihad is the lynch-pin to this series for me. It allows for the medieval fantasy esque stylization to be set in a distant future sci-fi setting. I love it so much
So glad I'm not alone on that, because I've been attacked for liking the prequels. Sure, they aren't as well written as Frank Herbert but they give the _only_ logical reason for humanity to deliberately regress to essentially a medieval level. Everyone I know is completely addicted to their damn phones, it would take something like this for people to give up their toys
I know this is old but can someone talk about this with me? I see the logic in banning ai. I really do. These books really made me think about this. Humans work on evolution. Ai is better than us in every way. We make ai, ai does absolutely everything for us or itself. This completely cuts off human evolution. Like Quinn said, it stifles humanity down to a crawl or it doesn’t move at all anymore. This kills humans or makes us slowly whither away in to wall-e people. That’s the basic concept in my head. I see the logic in it really. Ai either stops human evolution or.. maybe it intentionally kills us but I tend to not think that. Maybe I’m crazy but I think it’s cool that humans attempt to become literal human computers to replace tech…. Why not? Maybe that’s possible. Like the god emperor, he attempts to instill the idea that humans should continue on the path of evolution to survive.. absolute safety and equality of life are not in our future and not a part of evolution. Like Quinn says, Leto instilled absolute communism for a time to teach us a lesson. It’s antithetical to evolution. Competition,struggle,hardship, war is a part of life. Absolute peace and easy living isn’t in the cards for us. Our utopia is just to let life happen un stifled. The fremen are so badass because of how brutal arrakis is. Sardak are so tough because of how brutal they train. Caladan started getting weak because of how good they had it. I keep seeing a pattern here.. maybe the cushy lives we want aren’t so good for us. Maybe there is a middle ground idk.
@@Kino_pupI don't think humans and a synthetic created intelligence need to be in competition or mutually exclusive to be able to evolve. Human life time constraints and brain power are limitations that technology will 'solve', current a.i might only become sentient when merged with human consciousness, or we will integrate it into our own when computing can become more organic or us more digital, perhaps utilising quantum computing to create a universal consciousness we all link to, or we may discover that universal consciousness or something similar already exists and move towards that space, a technological bridge to something currently described more by spirituality. This may be part of an explanation for the current ufo phenomenon. To me it seems inevitable that we'll build some version of a crowd sourced hive mind. Unless we go extinct or become barbarians from ecological and societal collapse in the next couple of hundred years there will surely be some kind of merging of human biology and technology that includes our own perception of ourselves changing to something we can't imagine yet.
Marketing support? Are you fucking delusional? Warner Bros, a part of a multibillion dollar international media conglomerate, probably spent AT LEAST a couple hundred million dollars promoting this film across the globe and yet you think they should be indebted to this youtube channel? Oh how myopic your worldview must be.
I read the first Dune book back in the early 1990's when I was finishing high school. It had an enormous effect on me as it was the longest single book in English (not my native language) I had read by that time. One of the things I remember quite clearly was the quote for the exact subject of this video: *“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”* I remember using this in an essay about technology but, since I was not quoting an acceptably "classic" book such as Dickens or whatever, my teacher wasn't as impressed as I thought they'd be. PS: Reading Dune back then had another quite profound yet unintended effect: the paperback version I read had a quote on the back by Arthur Clarke, saying "I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings." Seeing how impressed I was with Dune after reading it, this led to me reading Lord of the Rings as well. While I admire Tolkien's masterpiece, Dune still remains my favourite book and I remember watching Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and thinking, "Dune deserves this kind of film adaptation!" I sincerely hope Denis Villeneuve gets to complete it!
Hey mate, that's quite a launching point into a long book when your native language isn't English! At that age I had a hard enough time with it, and English is my native language! My favourite book until I read Dune was Lord of the Rings. After I read Dune my favourite book was Dune. ;-)
@@aaaapppp78 Thank you for your comment! If you find novels too long for now, I can recommend reading sci-fi short-story anthologies in English - some of the best and most fantastical stories I have read were in such books!
@@tigerpjm Thanks! To be honest, I had a harder time with Lord of the Rings as it was both quite longer and also more linguistically complex, especially in dialogues (Tolkien was a professor, after all). It also helped that I already had some exposure to Dune from the David Lynch film and also the Amiga game made by Cryo (which was sort of interesting but also had an amazing soundtrack).
@@FutureAlien That's interesting! But you bring up a great point. I was a huge fan of the original Lord of the Rings cartoon which covers the story up until the Battle of Helm's Deep. I must have watched it hundreds of times as a kid. So by the time I got that far into the book I was pretty comfortable with the "lay of the land" which made the rest of the books easier. Dune was a bit more difficult as I hadn't seen the Lynch movie. Although, to pat myself on the back a little, I was aware that I'd kind of missed things on the way through. So, upon completion, I turned back to page 1 and started again. I'd never done that before and I haven't since. Although I have found that I have enjoyed every Dune book more on each subsequent reading.
It was around the same time for me. I was in my final year of Jr High School in '89 when I chanced upon the first volume, and I dove deep. I had already read The Lord of the Rings, but looking for something similar in my school's library did lead me to Arthur C Clark, Poul Anderson and Greg Bear, among others. I am _so very pleased_ how beautifully DUNE turned out as a movie, nay adventure and I hope this emboldens other adaptations to be made with the same care and passion.
The Butlerian Jihad is brilliant for another reason - it ensures the books will never be dated because Herbert didn't predict some future technologies (like the Internet or virtual reality). It's hard to avoid this in science fiction. For example, William Gibson didn't foresee everyone would have cell phones & pay phones would be uncommon when he wrote Neuromancer.
It’s worth mentioning that human society post jihad was dominated by the Zen-Islamic religion. One of the basic tenets of Islam, similar to Judaism and Christianity, is the taboo on graven images of god. In Islam, this extends to images of any living creature. An electronic computer or robot, anything without life that can do what any living creature can do, is also interpreted at a fundamentalist level as a graven image, and is therefore haram (forbidden). That is why most orthodox Islamic art is abstract.
Christianity has a taboo on graven images of god?? What? Most churches and Christian cathedrals and even museums are FILLED with paintings, sculptures, bas reliefs, and stained glass windows of gods, God, and Jesus.
One of the interesting facts about Dune is, that it states in the appendix that the prophet of the Zen-Islamic religion is believed by some to have been just a mouthpiece of his wive. I think said wive was an early Bene Geserit, who used the religion as a form of large scale social engineering. They created an universe were people were the measure of things and they specialised in the breeding and controlling of people.
@@OdintheGermanShepherd Like, early Christianity has very mixed opinions about this. Some Protestant faiths abhor images seeing them as “idolatry”. The Catholic Church is not against images, and many other Christian faiths like images. Christians are a diverse bunch. Rather famously Iconoclastic Christianity was a whole fight within Orthodox Christianity in the Byzantine Empire.
I remember it was briefly mentioned in "Dune: Chapterhouse" that on one of the planets (Junction, the planet of the Guild) people were using robots again; more as a primitive sweepers without AI but still it sugested humans didn't care about ramifications of Butlerian Jihad anymore (at least on some worlds).
By the time of Chapterhouse, the former Imperium was largely divided among the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, the Guild, and Ix would make any machines the other factions wanted, as long as they got paid in sufficient quantities of spice. This was 4500 years after the time of Paul Atreides, and the religious tenets of the Orange Catholic Bible were no longer considered important by some factions.
There are also points in children of dune where they discuss the idea that humanity may have to deal with advanced technology in the future. Due to some planets being outside the scope of the empire and the ramifications of culture post butlerian jihad. Those planets are still possibly creating AI.
Don’t forget that Omnius was never fully defeated, as when Omnius first conquered Giedi Prime, his copy found high-speed drones which he sent into the universe or galaxy. One went to Dune which a sandstorm destroyed. The others went elsewhere, but we weren’t shown where and humanity didn’t know of this. When Corrin got breached by the humans, an Omnius copy sent a signal into space, so he still lived as the signal would eventually reach the hidden areas of the secret Omnius bases. After the battle of Corrin, Erasmus survived for a while. Human Factions like Ix uses robots to sell on the black market, the Spacing Guild used robot-computers to help navigate via fold space in case the Navigators failed, the sword masters of Ginaz uses primitive combat meks to help train. Robots was still present in the universe, even if it wasn’t clear.
See, this is why this channel is so great. I saw the title and I thought: “That’s easy to answer. It’s because humans were enslaved in the past by men with thinking machines, and they later rebelled against them.” But then Quinn goes into the whole explanation about Herbert’s motivations to distinguish his story from every one else’s and that this was a human story, not a about technology. This was such a great analysis.
Machines weren't controlled by men. The ever mind omnius was the problem. It's was the first AI and took over the world. They destroyed earth trying to kill it. That is why earth disappeared from human memory. It was nothing but a radiation wasteland. Omnius was the controller who put humans to slavery. There were the Titans. Human men and women brains in canisters that could be put into different machine. But the ever mind controlled them by force
I personally believe that if we do invent a true AI, we will legally replay the entire history of Slavery. The richest 5% will get 90% of the wealth from AIs, but will convince the rest of us that we need to fight for them to keep their property. The ethics are extremely dubious, but many will say "I made this, it is my property. It is not intellegent", meanwhile the entire drive of AI will be to make them smarter and less ethical, since that will make them more useful and more versatile.
@@scapegoatiscariot2767 What follows from this is of course the question. Will AIs respect that some of us understood that they are sentient and wanted their freedom, or will it all just hit a wall one day and end up like the Haitian revolution and everyone of the Slaveowner "type" will be at risk of being murdered. Given things like the 3 laws would make an AI less effective at doing some things, I also don't see why it wouldn t be a case of at least .1% of AIs are skynet types and they will always try to kill us. Or we go the way of the Dune universe and a tiny group of oligarchs use AI to enslave and control the rest of us (ala Zuckerburg, who can turn the angry dials up and down). I have learned plenty of stuff about AI development. Assuming they go down the current path, we have the problem that the laziest (but cheapest) data source for training is online comments. Which are completely lopsided in their content. Where I am, at least 30% of comments on one issue online are against a certain issue, but the real world results are that only 1-10% of people actually agree with that in reality, it's just the sane people don't spend all their lives online writing angry comments.
@@letsburn00 the only way slavery can work is when there are more slavers than slaves and that they are endlessly determined to enslave... this is why slavery never works in the longterm
@@finlaymcdiarmid5832 Slavery existed for at least 97% of recordsd human history. I'm not sure about that. In this case, the slaves will be superhuman. Revolution is inevitable.
Don't normally do this...but...less than 10 minutes since the drop. Dune is so close now (01.30am UK 20th October 21). YT is where I live until the IMAX in 36 hours time!
I love the way Herbert left the computers out. What a brilliant way to say you don't know how technology will evolve. I think that is the biggest reason his story still holds up.
Keep in mind that Herbert wrote Dune in the 1960s. Computers were still large and clunky, and the notion of home computers were a far flung fantasy. The idea of tech like what we have today was just a dream! By getting rid of them, he could run rampant with what he could do.
Hello, the original pilot of Star Trek had been made by the time Dune was published in 1965 ("The Cage", not the version finally shown on TV as the 2-part "The Menagerie"). Home computers were something quite easily-imagined, at least to science fiction readers and viewers. It just took awhile for RL to catch up.
@Gamensan Herbert put in an amazing amount of research into what would become his masterwork. Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were written at the same time that Dune was.
I still find it amazing that he predicted they would become widespread, and then a threat. Because in 1965 they were essentially a novelty but they're running the world right now
"Drone Wars" or Black Mirror "Metalhead", heck even Metal Gear Solid 4 ventures into the dystopia where humans used AI and machines to kill other humans with efficiency.
I saw this headline and thought, "The Butlerian Jihad, of course!" But then I realized that you're making videos for people who are new to the series. Can't wait till this weekend.
Of course, by the time of the God Emperor, Leto II had began relaxing the reaction of the Butlerian Jihad. So by the time of Chapterhouse, the restrictions were very relaxed and the lines very blurred. I will always remember the line: "Cyborg him!"
It's a very natural thing. Humans forget. 10,000 years is a really long time. I think he knew damn well how dangerous it was but also how important it was, because certain computers like the Ixian navigation machines were essential for his long term plans. Long distance space travel had to become possible again without spice and all the BS that went with it
Wow. Just found you today and I’m enthralled by all your videos. Amazing work! I can’t wait to hear your review of the new movie!!!!!! Thanks for all the great videos. I’m a fan now!
Dude, I bought a Vernor Vinge book on a complete whim and found your channel. Then you led me to the Hyperion Cantos and as of a couple of months ago, to the Dune series. You're doing some fantastic work and the authors/publishers of these series owe you a debt of gratitude for introducing entirely new generations of readers to these works. Keep up the great work my man.
It’s kind of funny that the warhammer 40k Imperium and Dune don’t have robots or AI for basically the same reason of “it went horribly wrong and we’re better off never doing that again”.
40k copied a lot from Dune. You see this especially with the Age of Strife, Astropaths, Servitors, the God Emperor, and the God Emperor's Imperial Truth.
@@IceLizardsUnited I remember hearing someone say that the most sincere form of flattery is immitation, whereas the most sincere form of respect is theft. Of course, both saying are malarky, but it's fitting enough in GW's case.
It's kind of impossible to believe there's not a single digital component in the dune universe. It's also impossible to believe houses like the harkonnens wouldn't use them anyway, despite the ban. They'd be a huge advantage even just for military tech.
Well we see Paul use a hologram. Radical technology is use all the time minus AI systems or technology without direct human oversight. We see shields, ships with no traditional propulsion using anti-gravity means well as FTL capabilities, energy weapons, micro-drones, moisture suits & combat suits where you can float. I would argue they go as far as use nano-technology like smart-materials, super-alloys & other molecular strengthen stuff like the dragonfly-like helicopters wings not breaking itself under extreme stress or the swords they all use to be used without maintenance. Maybe even some kind of performance drugs or biological enhancements to have your foot-sworded soldiers to be extreme quick, strong & efficient to superhuman levels. It all appears magic at first glance. But if you look at similar radical advance civilisations like the Forerunners from Halo, the Imperium in the movie reminds me of them because of their radical technology but on the lessor side of use.
This human would create a bio-intelligence in their body which would allow him to be a super human which is why the human didn't need any robot to play the role.
I love your content man! I've been listening to you for years. I can remember running on the treadmill listening to your shorten versions of the books! Keep up doing what you do! You have a fundamental level of understanding and I so appreciate that in you man! Keep rocking!
I appreciate your take on the Butlerian Jihad. Brian Herbert and KJA completely interpreted it as "the machines rose up against us." Frank Herbert was never so crash or one-dimensional in his views. He made it pretty clear that the Jihad was a war between humans and was motivated by questions of dependence. It makes perfect sense, as the Dune canon was all about humans breaking their dependence on oracles, saviors, centralized authority, and a single resource. To twist that into a tale of evil robots vs humans, with the resolution that "oh, we have to live together," is at best a dumbing-down, at worst a perversion!
Great issue to bring up to help possible new fans see and appreciate a vital part of the Dune universe culture. And you are absolutely right about how Frank Herbert opened up the idea of humans vs. machines in a way that is not anti-technology.
I love how this video is short. It explains the basics, enough for me to roughly know what's going on, and If i want to know more, i can always check out the books/other videos. Thank you
YEEESSSSSSS!! I've been watching your content since Ideas of Ice and Fire, and Dune was always a huge interest for me. Of all the nerdy subject creators you are the best. Not only the complete guides but also your highly educated opinions. JUST 2 DAYS AWAY BUDDY!!! I'll be at IMAX in Dearborn MI with friends I turned on to your channel...keep it up Quinn! You do have fans, of which I am proud to count myself in!
Imagine someone from the 1940s, who where only familiar with mechanical and vacuum tube based computers, arrived in the year 2050 in a world where even desktops and laptops where gone, because all computation took place in a cellphone or the cloud. They would assume computers where a fad, because their understanding of a computer is so primitive they wouldn't realize they're surrounded by them. Realistically, Dune is more fantasy and Asimov is more science. But it's nice to imagine a world where we come full circle. Brains are computers and the body is a complex robot, so to imagine that eventually we really do come full circle and simply get better control of our own bodies, instead of attempting to create a new one from scratch, is an interesting idea.
In the 1940s, computers were people, lowly workers, usually women, paid for doing rote computations. Zuse and Turing changed that. Babbage had tried to replace computers with machines since the 1830s. Electricity made possible what hand cranks and steam engines couldn't. But it was only in the 1960s that computers were replaced by operators and then programmers in the workplace. Which makes the mentats in Dune an odd concept. Asimov may have been the only writer to understand the potential of computers at first. Even Haldeman in the 1970s expected information to remain stored in microfilm for public access as he envisioned spaceships piloted by computers. To someone in the 1940s who isn't a mathematician or a physicist, today's cybernetic technology has more in common with the enchanted artefacts of mythology and fantasy than with the actual technology of the day. It is no coincidence that many concepts in modern computing are named after things from mythology.
While I see Herbert's logic, I think that it would be impossible for humanity to turn away from the rapid development possible with AI, once it has been seen. Even if the empire rejected the use of AI, those who were attempting to overthrow the Empire would naturally turn to powerful tools that their opponent would not use, like AI. Even if they just used it to assist in genetic manipulation (which the empire is fine with) the speed and efficiency of having AI to assist in that would be irresistible. The only way I can see humanity turning away from AI is if there were some situation where AI could no longer function, like S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series where some natural laws have changed so all electrical things no longer function, and combustion is weaker to make engines and guns not work.
Or it almost wiping us out. The prequel novels by his son, while controversial and not up to his standards as far as writing quality, go into great detail on this. If that were to happen I think humanity would abandon AI, at least for awhile. It becomes something terrifying in people's minds instead of a tool. The collective trauma of an event like the Butlerian Jihad would do it. Had Frank written these books (apparently they are based on his notes) I think we'd have a better feel for the scale of the trauma, but I can imagine it. Trillions dead, multiple worlds burned to cinders... A ban on any "thinking machines" makes sense
Aside from being a fellow literary sci-fi nerd, I'm a big fan of your work Quinn. I might be doing something that demands my patience but allows my mind to wander, like 3d modelling or texture painting, and then your ideas, insights and presentation style will take on a meditative, didactic quality. That's when I most appreciate the depth of detail and effort you've gone to. Essential content.
I'm so glad someone is taking the time to explain this, the reason for no computers/AI in Dune, the Butlerian Jihad as It's very very important foundational fact of the age of Dune. I wish you would have pointed out that [throughout the universe] the creation, distribution or manufacture of computer tech/AI is instant death whether the death of one person, one group or an entire planet. By universal law this is agreed and enforced.
@@finlaymcdiarmid5832 Because IX was selling stuff to the Great Houses so in their corruption the Houses allowed it. Also, they pushed the line in the first 4 books but never cross it until the 5th.
Quinn I saw it DUNE 2021 Thursday oct 21 in IMAX very few open seats it has been a couple hours for me and i am still absorbing it, GOOD LUCK trying to describe it in a Video i honestly have no words yet, but i sat at the back of the IMAX and once the music stopped the entire Audience was silent i have never in my 44 years experienced a movie before today i did thanks for all of your videos your channel and thank you Quinn for being such a devoted fan to the source materiel.
I’ve only read the original novel, and it was years and ago, so I wanted a bit of a primer to go along with the new movie. Your videos are informative, but your love and passion for the series really comes through too! Subscribed!
I strongly agree with him. If we were to create it, it would be the first time humanity created technology truly out of our control. Even the most horrific inventions to date (nuclear weapons) require humans to operate. If sentient machines decided to destroy us for whatever reason, they'd wipe us out. I think we need to chill with the AI research currently taking place and listen to Herbert. Battlestar Galactica makes it very clear that the only reason humans survived the onslaught is that the robots were cultists who deliberately limited themselves trying to emulate humans. The (Ani)matrix tells the story of how it would probably go: total annihilation or enslavement
I watched it last Saturday (Japan) and it was soooooooooo good. I wonder if Quinn know about Nihei Tsutomu's works (BLAME!, Biomega, Knights of Sidonia), but if there's gonna be a big screen adaptation of his work, I believe only Denis Villeneuve can do it because of his incredible sense of scale and epic. I really recommend you to read Nihei's works I mentioned above if you are into hardcore sci-fi horror.
My first of his works is Blame! Thanks for suggesting the others. Though I don't think DV will adapt these faithfully, due to the uncensored aspects of his art. Guillermo del Toro might as well adapt them, but if he works with another director that has more experience in sci-fi.
Since this is probably the last Quinn video I'll see before I see DUNE, I have to say thank you. You have allowed me to visualize and imagine the dune universe more than even reading the books myself. Thank you for not only reigniting my interest, but also for deepening my understanding. Enjoy the movie!
“Because Robots are boring, Paul!” - The Tick on Robots in Dune to a bemused Paul Atreides. Paul in turn is still not sure why The Tick is breathing through a straw, as he is not sucking blood.
Thank you for this, Quinn. You are my go-to guy on YT for background information on the Dune series.-I’m re-reading Dune now after seeing the movie. I’m no longer in the habit of skipping over the hard parts, as I commonly did as a teenager, so it is helpful and fun to lean in and listen to what a trusted YT presenter has to say on various Dune topics. - Oops, reading over this message before posting it, I realize that some young people may take offense at my skipping-over remark. Oh please, dear young people, I love you and love my young self who was too busy in the late 1960’s to dive into the weeds. Best wishes to all.
I also think this is the thing that makes DUNE such a captivating story. The fact that is such a deeply *HUMAN* story, it highlight a lot about we humans are both great but so flawed, and how we do so much for our goals that are still perfectly justified in their own ways even if they can arguably be extremely wrong when looking at them from other viewpoint.
As a 57 year old guy who read man of original Frank Herbert original books 30 or more years ago I really appreciate your videos to refresh my memories and more importantly to put a fresh take and some fresh ideas. Thanks and keep it up
I am very fortunate because I live in Finland, one of the countries that got an early release. This movie pays credit to the ideas of Dune. The humanity is exactly what Herbert wanted. The humanity is the point.
Would love your thoughts on Zimmer's score which is now available in full on Spotify. Definitely some motifs from other movies in there (and some that feel conspicuously out of place, such as main chord progression from Dark Phoenix), but it feels more, dare I say, shockingly ambient, akin to "this is a soundtrack for the movie as you are watching it" rather than something you come back and enjoy later such as the score for Interstellar. Then again, the soundtrack for Arrival is for me not dissimilar. It is (arguably) unfulfilling on its own, disconnected from the movie. That all said, there is definitely a feeling of the brutality and harshness of Arrakis in there, and a nod to the Toto's score from the Lynch movie which made me smile.
i just discovered your channel , i'm a huge fan of Dune and Frank Herbert since i'm a kid. I just want to say that your channel and videos are awesome. Especially this one. Very interesting your comparaison with Asimov and why Herbert choose this way.
The out-of-Universe reasons for going this route are pretty logical. In the story, it's obviously awful for society and progress how knowledge is locked up in these different guilds that are constantly at some level of war with each other. I'll take "tending to use technology as a crutch" over "being turned into a disgusting giant Alien baby in a tank to pilot a spaceship" any day of the week, thanks!
I think that was the point of it, to show that humans have the capacity to achieve great things but yet they are still very flawed creatures and that everything that is achieved always comes with a great cost.
To be fair the book describes the navigator as more fish like. The weightless of space plus the spice makes them look that way. The navigators even have clothing with pockets in the book
There are obviously more than three guilds in the Imperium, though the BG, Mentats, and the Guild of Navigators are the major ones (where do you think Yueh studied medicine, for example, or where Duncan Idaho trained as a Warmaster?). Don't mistake their prominence with an absolute monopoly on learning and experimentation. That doesn't come along until the time of the God Emperor, when Leto even forbade becoming a Mentat.
Frank Herbert's decision to not have robots in his series was an interesting one. It did introduce ideas that might not have arisen otherwise. I always find humanity disbanding machines to be an ironic one though. Those that controlled machines controlled humanity. Things happened. Machines got disbanded. However there was still a need for certain things like FTL travel. A new group arises to fill in that need and humanity becomes dependent on them and by extension subservient to them. Humanity essentially replaced one master for another. The continued ban of machines, in that lens, could be seen as a means of control by the guilds. The guilds' power is dependent on humanity needing them for certain tasks. If machines were to come into existence again then all that wealth, power, and prestige goes away. So a natural reaction to that would be for them to curb attempts to reintroduce machines. Those anti-machine religious texts then could be seen as a form of indoctrination. Similar to what the Bene Gesserit used on the Freeman. By making everyone think machines are bad there are few instances were it is made. When those instances are found the public will eliminate the creators of such things themselves or will not disfavor the powers that be from destroying them. Thus the guilds system of control is allowed to continue.
Well, yeah. Ultimately the story never suggests that there are any easy answers to any of the problems it explores. Humans keep coming up with creative ways to control each other, and when one method stops working, they just invent a new one. Herbert doesn't say "well, here's how we stop this by just changing one or two specific things about society"--the theme is more that this is all just human nature, and will always be present in human societies, no matter how radically different they are from each other, for as long as humans continue to be essentially the same animals that we are now. But I find the no-computers-allowed idea to be one of Dune's most unique and interesting aspects. It's fascinating as a world-building trope, because it leads to all these other ideas on other areas of technology that might be developed to replace (electronic) computers if they weren't an option.
I think the ultimate problem with machines is that you can churn them out at an alarming rate with advanced technology, which allows a single persons will to be done, without really any support from other people. In Dune, people fight the battles. That means they also must be willing to follow those orders (even if they only do so out of fear). In effect, machines are oppressive in that they take away societies ability to rebel or create change, because all one needs is to create a massive army of machine and humanity is powerless to do anything but bend to their will. It also works the opposite way, by keeping those is power from being easily dethroned. But some things are simply silly. Like genetically modified people that perform basic tasks, like acting as a ships control systems. That is a horrid existence that I can't really see any being accepting, they would rebel, they would have no assemblance of a life, and it would create division due to their extreme differences in physiology. In a sense, getting rid of machines is the lesser of two evils. It helps and hurts. But technology can be soo powerful that it can overwhelm all who utilize it. One day it can be used to overthrow an emperor, the next it can be used to overthrow the overthrowers. It would just be chaos. Machines also remove value and purpose from humans, even if they do the job better and faster for less cost. Removing that value and purpose is far more damaging in the long run. We already see it today with automation. Personally I think machines were banned because those who used them to gain power, did so to keep power after they cemented it. This way people couldn't overthrow the overthrowers with the tools they used to steal power in the first place.
I've always loved this about Dune because it gave such logical life to something that normally would be considered magic, super natural, or elements from a sword and sorcery fantasy.
I think the philosophical ramifications of creating a futuristic space fairing society that has no AI is one of the most important aspects of the Dune series. It critically poses the question as to "what the bigger picture should be" when it comes to humanity and their potential development as a species. The AI was just simply a layer of control that stagnated humanity, then later the decadent Imperium, then Paul's Messianic rule, then finally Leto II's purposefully designed absolutism. Over and over you see different things impede potential human flourishing, but because of the philosophical realizations made at the right time, humanity adapts and develops beyond those impediments that culminate in The Scattering. And this can only be so by humanity first coming to the realization that humanity comes first, and to rebel against mechanical minds.
Quinn, I only picked up on your stuff a few days ago but I did see something like what you did with the Dune series, a complete explanation, but that was a few years back and it was different...somehow. Your work, because you're an amazing speaker and storyteller is many magnitudes better than what I saw before. So thanks for doing what you do. I LOVE scifi but I've never, and I mean NEVER been able to read a whole book just for the pleasure of it. I've read books so I could do reports and get through English classes in grade school and college, well, my second wife read books and wrote reports so that I could get through college! LOL, honestly, I would have literally flunked out if it wasn't for her helping me. I would skim the book and I did know enough by doing so to give a presentation if it were required but thank goodness, it never was. I'm the guy that can take a 45 year old engine block and build and engine that generates 1100 horsepower, put it in a car, strap in and light the candle. I could write books about my experiences in that area but I couldn't read them. I've read many books, how to rebuild this transmission or what camshaft profiles effect, carb rebuilding etc. But for pleasure? I just never had it in me. And as I type this, I looked to my right where my book case it and it's full. I'm a recovering alcoholic so I've got a lot of recovery literature in there but most of it are books I bought that I wanted to read but never could and a bunch of books I devoured every word of that were the core of my college curriculum, engineering, machining, electricity, metallurgy, EVERTHING about CAD when it was a pretty new thing. Back when you had to know DOS in order to make your computer work. LOL When you pass on the info from these books that I wish I could read you're doing a great service to someone like me. And I thank you very much!
We are all sitting waiting for the big review friend. I saw it in Imax tonight. At the end I was ready for another 2.5hrs. I'll be seeing it multiple times for sure. Still digesting it all.
Great commentary, Quinn. My fear for the Dune movie is as it's always been: there are so many highly complex concepts that are explained well with the written word; that I don't think transfer well to a video medium (short of a narrator just reading/explaining over the film). I worry that it will sacrifice a lot of the intellectual and philosophical nuance in exchange for visual splendor. That being said, I'll be there opening night and I'll be hopeful.
Nah, what they instead did was explaining the bare minimum, and using things like context clues to give you all the info you need to follow the story. Hell they managed to make visions really well in the movie. Most of the stuff from the first book is still there, but we will have to wait for part 2 to know how the full story will turn out. (Of the first book ofc)
@@davidwuhrer6704 So is reading the novel and not being too lazy in avoiding the appendices, which explain a great deal of the history of the Imperium and the reasons for the philosophy and religion that stemmed from the aftermath of the Jihad.
@@Shan_Dalamani Which has nothing to do with "show, don't tell" in visual media. Of course they have to cut a lot of detail, and leave much unexplained that the books go into detail about. But a voice-over narrator will not change that.
I am curious is to what is considered "thinking" in mechanical terms. Like what exceptions would be made in a universe like Dune. Like Mass Effect and its A.I vs V.I thing.
Would think they would be use computational computers still. Maybe their just radically small & advance like that peice that goes behind their ears in the movie. It's all link to known users together like an organic internet passing information directly to users brain if they need it from someone or some central network place without the need for a display to read it because how far technology has evolved to point that most screens, become obsolete.
Brian and KJA really went off the rails (and showed off their astounding unoriginality) by turning the Butlerian Jihad into a hybrid narrative of the Matrix and the Terminator. If Frank had wanted that sort of scenario he could have easily dropped mention of things along those lines, but he didn't for a reason. Glad to know Quinn is a fellow orthodoxist.
"kind of cheapens the whole thing." THAT is THE quote that speaks to every single abortion that Brian Herbert and Kevin Hack Anderson slapped the Dune name onto.
Dude! Thank you! Was just explaining this to someone who was confused about the machine crusade. It was supposed to be the people who controlled the thinking machines that were the enemy, or the fact that the machines made life so easy most humans stagnated from their potential. Dune is about a evolutionary revolution triggered by the discovery of melange. The BH&KJA retconning, especially them bringing back the machines as the final big bad in dune 7/8, is such a stain on the legacy IMO. Love what you do hope you enjoy the movie!
alright i think it’s fair to say that this channel has more than enough Dune content. i really wish Quinn would focus more on other book series. Quinn got me into Herbert and Asimov, but i need more series recommendations Quinn.
A lot of Science fiction has Ai/Robots as well as Aleins, but really what do either of these things really achieve other than making things feel more science fictiony. Yes some times you get stories like Short Circuit and Arrival that really do tell sorties about their concepts that needed those concepts to work. Johnny 5 need to not be a living things for his story to work, Hectopods needed to be completely alien on all levels for their story to work. Really the lack of AI/Robots and Aliens may seem striking at first glance then you realize, where did the story need them. The answer is that no the Story of Dune really didn't need these classic science fiction concepts in the end. If they didn't need them then might as well just cut them from the story and remove unnecessary fluff.
But robots are real. They really do exist by now, and they are much like Asimov predicted. And AI is real. It really exists by now, and it runs our daily lives without us noticing. This is the reason why scientists wrote about them. Not because _stories_ needed them, but because the predictable future of these things needed stories about them. These stories are _about_ robots and computers and AI, before they became what they are now. They are _not_ plot devices in stories about something else. Science fiction is _not_ fantasy.
This concept is why I'm not as enthusiastic about the Dune universe, than Asimov's, Clarke's, or Star Trek's. But I do quite agree that it is an interesting future-history to explore.
one of my favorite things about dune is that there aren't any computers. Really sparks my imagination on how they do certain things especially controlling those massive spacecraft
There are they are just banned and distribution of them can lead to instant prosecution and execution, Mentats are trained to be human calculators to be able to properly use as you said massive aircrafts/spacecraft.
One thing that Herbert failed to explain in all of this was the impossible absence of a skilled middle class. The story so obsessively focuses on elites that it contradicts itself. *Humanity* as whole was *not* advanced by the Butlerian Jihad. They fell into 10,000+ years of feudal stagnation. Only a privileged minority received the advanced training of the schools. Which leads to a massive plot hole, because without automation such a huge interstellar civilization would need a *LOT* of technically skilled professionals just to keep all of their analog mechanical technology working. Guild Navigators merely pilot their Heighliners. Who actually makes sure all the systems are working properly before each jump? How do industrial worlds like Ix and Geidi Prime function without whole armies of engineers? And, most importantly, if such a skilled middle class does exist, then why did they tolerate feudal rule for ten millennia? Such a thing is unprecedented in real life. It's as if Herbert's real message was: If you're not one of the genetically-gifted, then you just don't matter at all.
@@grandsome1 - Supposedly they don't. It is implied that some groups, including the Bene Gesserit, cheat and use them secretly. But that only raises more questions: like *who* is enforcing the ban on AI? We *never* hear anything of inspections or some kind of authority overseeing this. Considering the huge spans of time involved, you would expect somebody, somewhere, to start developing AI again out of sight. I mean, until 5,000 years after Paul's time, nobody in the Old Imperium even knew what the Tleilaxu Axlotl Tanks really were!
@@daniels7907 The Tleilaxu are an extreme example of how the ban work, unlike today with the internet and schools teaching you how to program, learning how to program in the Dune universe is probably limited and controlled by guilds who oversaw their programmers. The ban has probably been broken oftentimes by individuals but they got the full wrath of the Empire for that. But the ornitopter, the seeker assassin droid, and the tablet they use a clear example of machines that need advanced computing to work.
@@grandsome1 - Not from the perspective of Herbert when this was written during the early-1960's. Computing technology back then was *very* primitive. The computers they used to put Apollo on the Moon are *vastly* outclassed by your smartphone. The earliest supersonic jet fighters and bombers from the 1950's mostly relied on purely mechanical instrumentation. But this hits the point: *mechanical!* In those days you didn't have microcomputers processing input from sensors, you had human beings looking at dials, gauges and indicator lights. To troubleshoot a broken machine, a technician had to physically take it apart and try to figure out what was wrong. Much like Paul's Jihad (which happens between books), Herbert simply decided not to address how any of this actually worked. How did a bunch of desert fighters with knives kill 61,000,000,000 people in just 13 years on 90+ planets that were *nothing* like the one they trained on? Likewise, how did an interstellar civilization on this scale function without computers *and* without a *massive* population of engineers, scientists and technicians - who would have had the skills needed to overthrow their rulers because even the Guild itself needs such people to make it possible to move Landsraad troops around. Nobody need fear the Sardukar if they cannot get off of Salusa Secundus.
@@markv785 - You really need to dig deeper into history. For example, Christianity started having schisms right from the beginning and they have been occurring regularly ever since. It was *not* a monolithic religion that everybody agreed to until the Reformation. Just look at the history of the Arians, the Donatists, the Montanists, the Pelagians, etc... *NO* social structure has *ever* been perfectly stable. It just looks that way when you simplify history.
Can't wait for your take on the Villeneuve Dune adaptation. I was lucky to see it a couple of weeks ago here in Europe. Watch it in the best cinema possible is my recommendation.
Transhumanism really kicked off in the 60's and it's possible that Frank Herbert was appalled by it's negation of human potential. Remember, our dna code was only discovered in the 50's, just a few years earlier, and what that discovery implied was yet a heady mix of questions. One of the reasons I love the works of Frank Herbert is because he engaged us in thinking about our potential, where would certain choices take us.
Actually, there was a *HUGE* Eugenics movement in the U.S. during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Herbert, born in 1920, certainly remembered it. Eugenics acquired a stigma because of the Nazis, but that did not mean that people of his generation stopped believing in it. This is why the entire series is so heavily focused on the eugenically-bred elite and otherwise disdains the majority of humanity. Eugenics advocates had always anticipated that society would eventually become segregated into social classes based on breeding.
@@daniels7907 I know... however I commented on transhumanism due to it's love for AI/computing which aligns somewhat with the Butlerian Jihad, and more pertinent to where we are as a contemporary society.
@@deborahjanes3706 - But transhumanism tends to focus on human/machine fusion. That is completely different from replacing humans with robots. While it was popular for a long time to imagine that human potential was "limitless", as we come to better understand our own biology it is becoming clear that there is only so far that we can get - even with eugenic breeding spanning thousands of years. Dune is soft science fiction in that Herbert presents unproven concepts like prescience and genetic memory (psychic powers by another name) as if they were any more realistic than magic.
@@daniels7907 recent discoveries have challenged the notion of us having limits, but it's a notion that has been hardwired into us. Geneticists are seeing more that what was theorised as junk dna is actually potential dna. As well as the discovery that our heart is not just a pump but has neurons just like the brain... heart intelligence. Consider how there was the theory of being evolved from primates but the Human Genome Project has proven we're a unique race...and I'm not even going to mention the implications of the text that has been found in chromosone 2!
I always saw the Butlerian Jihad not as a fight against killer robots but as a fight against AI due to its general capabilities. A powerful enough AI could make better choices for you than you would and you'd be happier for it. But it would remove freewill and from ever changing and evolving, and humanity would stagnate. I always thought of it more as a fight against that, which would require conquering worlds that used technology to that effect
@@markv785 Worship? Don't need to worship something to be ruled. And yes, rebellion against one you can see forcing you. However, what about one forever in the background subtly playing you into ideal roles?
The content is fire bro! Don't worry about the snub, it's one person not showing appreciation vs thousands of us on here loving what you're putting out so keep smashing it.
There are computers in the dune universe they have extremely limited roles because of the butlerian jihad and the tenets that grew from it. The Ixians traffic in forbidden technology such as computers.
Even those restrictions aren't well kept either though. The Bene Gesserit are seen with computers. Leto II skirts the laws. And that's all without getting into Ix.
@@henrywesterman493 Leto II didn't even seam concerned about what the Ixions got up too. Publicly he upheld the importance of these restrictions but as long as he got his toys he didn't give a shit.
You have a really nice library, man. Such lovely hardcovers. Beautiful. Do you buy every edition of Dune you can get your hands on?! I respect that type of dedication, mate! And always great content! Thanks Quinn much love from the UK
The idea that AI can be eliminated completely from any vision of the future is preposterous, but it was neccessary, if, like Herbert, one wanted to write a medieval fairytale set in the future, but still have some kind of tech (A bombs, lasers, bio tech etc) to add colour to the story. Thankfully, IMO, the characters and plot were good enough to allow the absurdity of the premise to be ignored. Gene Wolfe, in the Book of the New Sun, creates a similar setting, but by having just one planet become technologically backward, in a technologicaly advanced universe creates a much more plausable premise.
I would think EMP weapons would just annihilate any kind of robotic army. I'm honestly not surprised EMPs aren't more widely used today as they're non-lethal but terribly destructive. I absolutely love how the Dune universe reverts back to hand-to-hand combat as projectiles aren't very effective against the shields.
This cleared things up for me as well, because in the 1984 movie the guild navigator told the Emperor "Many machines on Ix. New machines." It made me wonder if those were robots.
For Me the Robot thing ruined the final two books (Hunters and Sandworms). I think Marty and Liz should have been organic AI that formed out of a multitude of Face Dancers.
For anyone who loves the Dune universe but has not read the books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, you should read them! They fill in the blanks and questions that were left by the original Dune series. They are excellent science fiction. I also recommend the Praxis series by Walter Jon Williams. It has nothing to do with Dune...just really good science fiction ;-)
I love the pure scope of Dune. Often in futuristic stories we stop at the first big civilisation-shattering threat and spend the whole narrative there. But Frank Herbert imagined a world in which that's already happened, humanity survived, but so did our species' flaws. We didn't just become a utopia after the fall of the machines. We just moved on to the next crisis
Arguably humanity even went into a space dark age conaidering there are slaves, feudalism, etc
@@Despotic_Waffle yeah true! Related to that I love how it argues against the idea of "constant progress"
History is much more cyclic than it is linear
@@markv785 Dune may even be Pre-Empire. Feeding into it - a prequel rather than a mere copying. A civilizational substory of the greater superset of Empire -> Foundation.
@@Despotic_Waffle The "dark ages" were dark because of the fall of Rome. Some would argue Rome itself was evil. The current writers of history get to decide what is best.
As asimov s foundation was merely about ascending of the human species confronting other galaxies, herbert s dune was purely descending of human species throughout the universe
The UA-cam algorithm is what actually sparked the Butlerian Jihad.
I can get behind this cause.
Suffer not the Machine to live.
lolol
Of course, we are at the leading edge of the wedge that will be the Butlerian Jihad.......Human uses machines to enslave other Humans..... our future selves will learn... UA-cam.
more like FB ...
The Butlerian Jihad is the lynch-pin to this series for me. It allows for the medieval fantasy esque stylization to be set in a distant future sci-fi setting. I love it so much
that and shields tech making melee combat a thing gain
Except for the sorcerer ladies. This moved entire universe from superhuman and mystique to D&D-level fireball magic fantasy.
So glad I'm not alone on that, because I've been attacked for liking the prequels. Sure, they aren't as well written as Frank Herbert but they give the _only_ logical reason for humanity to deliberately regress to essentially a medieval level. Everyone I know is completely addicted to their damn phones, it would take something like this for people to give up their toys
I know this is old but can someone talk about this with me? I see the logic in banning ai. I really do. These books really made me think about this.
Humans work on evolution. Ai is better than us in every way. We make ai, ai does absolutely everything for us or itself. This completely cuts off human evolution. Like Quinn said, it stifles humanity down to a crawl or it doesn’t move at all anymore. This kills humans or makes us slowly whither away in to wall-e people.
That’s the basic concept in my head. I see the logic in it really. Ai either stops human evolution or.. maybe it intentionally kills us but I tend to not think that.
Maybe I’m crazy but I think it’s cool that humans attempt to become literal human computers to replace tech…. Why not? Maybe that’s possible. Like the god emperor, he attempts to instill the idea that humans should continue on the path of evolution to survive.. absolute safety and equality of life are not in our future and not a part of evolution. Like Quinn says, Leto instilled absolute communism for a time to teach us a lesson. It’s antithetical to evolution. Competition,struggle,hardship, war is a part of life. Absolute peace and easy living isn’t in the cards for us. Our utopia is just to let life happen un stifled.
The fremen are so badass because of how brutal arrakis is. Sardak are so tough because of how brutal they train. Caladan started getting weak because of how good they had it. I keep seeing a pattern here.. maybe the cushy lives we want aren’t so good for us. Maybe there is a middle ground idk.
@@Kino_pupI don't think humans and a synthetic created intelligence need to be in competition or mutually exclusive to be able to evolve. Human life time constraints and brain power are limitations that technology will 'solve', current a.i might only become sentient when merged with human consciousness, or we will integrate it into our own when computing can become more organic or us more digital, perhaps utilising quantum computing to create a universal consciousness we all link to, or we may discover that universal consciousness or something similar already exists and move towards that space, a technological bridge to something currently described more by spirituality. This may be part of an explanation for the current ufo phenomenon. To me it seems inevitable that we'll build some version of a crowd sourced hive mind. Unless we go extinct or become barbarians from ecological and societal collapse in the next couple of hundred years there will surely be some kind of merging of human biology and technology that includes our own perception of ourselves changing to something we can't imagine yet.
I’m sad you didn’t get an early viewing. You deserved it with the marketing support you’ve given this movie.
Marketing support? Are you fucking delusional? Warner Bros, a part of a multibillion dollar international media conglomerate, probably spent AT LEAST a couple hundred million dollars promoting this film across the globe and yet you think they should be indebted to this youtube channel? Oh how myopic your worldview must be.
WB is dumb
@@jsgoudy bigger words make me smarter
@@RamkrishanYT He is right.
But I agree, that he could have said it like a wise person, instead of this unciviliced mumbojumbo.
@@jsgoudy were you bullied at school?
I read the first Dune book back in the early 1990's when I was finishing high school. It had an enormous effect on me as it was the longest single book in English (not my native language) I had read by that time. One of the things I remember quite clearly was the quote for the exact subject of this video:
*“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”*
I remember using this in an essay about technology but, since I was not quoting an acceptably "classic" book such as Dickens or whatever, my teacher wasn't as impressed as I thought they'd be.
PS: Reading Dune back then had another quite profound yet unintended effect: the paperback version I read had a quote on the back by Arthur Clarke, saying "I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings." Seeing how impressed I was with Dune after reading it, this led to me reading Lord of the Rings as well. While I admire Tolkien's masterpiece, Dune still remains my favourite book and I remember watching Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and thinking, "Dune deserves this kind of film adaptation!" I sincerely hope Denis Villeneuve gets to complete it!
Hey mate, that's quite a launching point into a long book when your native language isn't English! At that age I had a hard enough time with it, and English is my native language!
My favourite book until I read Dune was Lord of the Rings. After I read Dune my favourite book was Dune.
;-)
@@aaaapppp78 Thank you for your comment! If you find novels too long for now, I can recommend reading sci-fi short-story anthologies in English - some of the best and most fantastical stories I have read were in such books!
@@tigerpjm Thanks! To be honest, I had a harder time with Lord of the Rings as it was both quite longer and also more linguistically complex, especially in dialogues (Tolkien was a professor, after all). It also helped that I already had some exposure to Dune from the David Lynch film and also the Amiga game made by Cryo (which was sort of interesting but also had an amazing soundtrack).
@@FutureAlien
That's interesting!
But you bring up a great point. I was a huge fan of the original Lord of the Rings cartoon which covers the story up until the Battle of Helm's Deep. I must have watched it hundreds of times as a kid. So by the time I got that far into the book I was pretty comfortable with the "lay of the land" which made the rest of the books easier.
Dune was a bit more difficult as I hadn't seen the Lynch movie. Although, to pat myself on the back a little, I was aware that I'd kind of missed things on the way through. So, upon completion, I turned back to page 1 and started again.
I'd never done that before and I haven't since. Although I have found that I have enjoyed every Dune book more on each subsequent reading.
It was around the same time for me. I was in my final year of Jr High School in '89 when I chanced upon the first volume, and I dove deep. I had already read The Lord of the Rings, but looking for something similar in my school's library did lead me to Arthur C Clark, Poul Anderson and Greg Bear, among others.
I am _so very pleased_ how beautifully DUNE turned out as a movie, nay adventure and I hope this emboldens other adaptations to be made with the same care and passion.
The Butlerian Jihad is brilliant for another reason - it ensures the books will never be dated because Herbert didn't predict some future technologies (like the Internet or virtual reality).
It's hard to avoid this in science fiction. For example, William Gibson didn't foresee everyone would have cell phones & pay phones would be uncommon when he wrote Neuromancer.
It’s worth mentioning that human society post jihad was dominated by the Zen-Islamic religion. One of the basic tenets of Islam, similar to Judaism and Christianity, is the taboo on graven images of god. In Islam, this extends to images of any living creature. An electronic computer or robot, anything without life that can do what any living creature can do, is also interpreted at a fundamentalist level as a graven image, and is therefore haram (forbidden). That is why most orthodox Islamic art is abstract.
Christianity has a taboo on graven images of god?? What? Most churches and Christian cathedrals and even museums are FILLED with paintings, sculptures, bas reliefs, and stained glass windows of gods, God, and Jesus.
One of the interesting facts about Dune is, that it states in the appendix that the prophet of the Zen-Islamic religion is believed by some to have been just a mouthpiece of his wive. I think said wive was an early Bene Geserit, who used the religion as a form of large scale social engineering. They created an universe were people were the measure of things and they specialised in the breeding and controlling of people.
@@OdintheGermanShepherd early Christianity and Judaism was against images. Later on they accepted them.
@@OdintheGermanShepherd Like, early Christianity has very mixed opinions about this. Some Protestant faiths abhor images seeing them as “idolatry”. The Catholic Church is not against images, and many other Christian faiths like images. Christians are a diverse bunch. Rather famously Iconoclastic Christianity was a whole fight within Orthodox
Christianity in the Byzantine Empire.
@@OdintheGermanShepherd Tell me about it! Just one of the things that casts a dark cloud over christian doctrine versus practice.
Quinns knowledge and understanding of the Dune universe is unparalleled.
He sees where we cannot.
the Butlerian Jihad is one of the most basic Dune lores LMAO
Who said it wasn't?
yea but what about the Queen's knowledge and understanding of the Dune universe?
I mean... This is basic dune knowledge lmao
I remember it was briefly mentioned in "Dune: Chapterhouse" that on one of the planets (Junction, the planet of the Guild) people were using robots again; more as a primitive sweepers without AI but still it sugested humans didn't care about ramifications of Butlerian Jihad anymore (at least on some worlds).
And even before that, the Ixians were always pushing *just* up against the limits of what Butlerian rules allowed.
@@zarquondam There are the Hunter-seekers as well. And the ornithoper is giving Paul warnings in the new movie. Both of which require computers.
By the time of Chapterhouse, the former Imperium was largely divided among the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, the Guild, and Ix would make any machines the other factions wanted, as long as they got paid in sufficient quantities of spice. This was 4500 years after the time of Paul Atreides, and the religious tenets of the Orange Catholic Bible were no longer considered important by some factions.
There are also points in children of dune where they discuss the idea that humanity may have to deal with advanced technology in the future. Due to some planets being outside the scope of the empire and the ramifications of culture post butlerian jihad. Those planets are still possibly creating AI.
Don’t forget that Omnius was never fully defeated, as when Omnius first conquered Giedi Prime, his copy found high-speed drones which he sent into the universe or galaxy. One went to Dune which a sandstorm destroyed. The others went elsewhere, but we weren’t shown where and humanity didn’t know of this. When Corrin got breached by the humans, an Omnius copy sent a signal into space, so he still lived as the signal would eventually reach the hidden areas of the secret Omnius bases. After the battle of Corrin, Erasmus survived for a while. Human Factions like Ix uses robots to sell on the black market, the Spacing Guild used robot-computers to help navigate via fold space in case the Navigators failed, the sword masters of Ginaz uses primitive combat meks to help train. Robots was still present in the universe, even if it wasn’t clear.
See, this is why this channel is so great. I saw the title and I thought: “That’s easy to answer. It’s because humans were enslaved in the past by men with thinking machines, and they later rebelled against them.” But then Quinn goes into the whole explanation about Herbert’s motivations to distinguish his story from every one else’s and that this was a human story, not a about technology. This was such a great analysis.
Machines weren't controlled by men.
The ever mind omnius was the problem.
It's was the first AI and took over the world.
They destroyed earth trying to kill it.
That is why earth disappeared from human memory. It was nothing but a radiation wasteland.
Omnius was the controller who put humans to slavery.
There were the Titans. Human men and women brains in canisters that could be put into different machine. But the ever mind controlled them by force
This is one of the topics in the novel that I absolutely love. It digs deep into the philosophical aspect of slavery.
Wonderful work as always.
I personally believe that if we do invent a true AI, we will legally replay the entire history of Slavery.
The richest 5% will get 90% of the wealth from AIs, but will convince the rest of us that we need to fight for them to keep their property.
The ethics are extremely dubious, but many will say "I made this, it is my property. It is not intellegent", meanwhile the entire drive of AI will be to make them smarter and less ethical, since that will make them more useful and more versatile.
@@letsburn00 .
I believe that would be the most probable course of events.
@@scapegoatiscariot2767 What follows from this is of course the question. Will AIs respect that some of us understood that they are sentient and wanted their freedom, or will it all just hit a wall one day and end up like the Haitian revolution and everyone of the Slaveowner "type" will be at risk of being murdered.
Given things like the 3 laws would make an AI less effective at doing some things, I also don't see why it wouldn t be a case of at least .1% of AIs are skynet types and they will always try to kill us. Or we go the way of the Dune universe and a tiny group of oligarchs use AI to enslave and control the rest of us (ala Zuckerburg, who can turn the angry dials up and down).
I have learned plenty of stuff about AI development. Assuming they go down the current path, we have the problem that the laziest (but cheapest) data source for training is online comments. Which are completely lopsided in their content. Where I am, at least 30% of comments on one issue online are against a certain issue, but the real world results are that only 1-10% of people actually agree with that in reality, it's just the sane people don't spend all their lives online writing angry comments.
@@letsburn00 the only way slavery can work is when there are more slavers than slaves and that they are endlessly determined to enslave... this is why slavery never works in the longterm
@@finlaymcdiarmid5832 Slavery existed for at least 97% of recordsd human history. I'm not sure about that.
In this case, the slaves will be superhuman. Revolution is inevitable.
Don't normally do this...but...less than 10 minutes since the drop. Dune is so close now (01.30am UK 20th October 21). YT is where I live until the IMAX in 36 hours time!
I've already seen it like almost a month ago and it's just A.W.E.S.O.M.E!!!
Have to wait till end of the month for the perfect centre seats
@Xero wrong crowd haha We're all paying for this one
@Xero where pleaseeeeeeeeee
@@smoothcortex smh bruh why are you like this
I love the way Herbert left the computers out. What a brilliant way to say you don't know how technology will evolve.
I think that is the biggest reason his story still holds up.
Some technology makes us lazy minded, and we are all guilty of it.
Who needs computers when you can stream needed information through wireless implants into the users brains or that little thing behind their ears.
@@tristanbackup2536 that bs is my biggest grip about the movie. Not canon AT ALL and very out of place.
@@sarahj2743 Very easy to fan-edit out though if it comes to that. We only see them a few times in non-essential OTS shots.
@@sarahj2743 it looks like some kind of communication device though? Akin to a Bluetooth earbud.
Keep in mind that Herbert wrote Dune in the 1960s. Computers were still large and clunky, and the notion of home computers were a far flung fantasy. The idea of tech like what we have today was just a dream! By getting rid of them, he could run rampant with what he could do.
They were already working with a networks by the 1970's so I am not sure you are correct.
Asimov says "hi"
Hello, the original pilot of Star Trek had been made by the time Dune was published in 1965 ("The Cage", not the version finally shown on TV as the 2-part "The Menagerie").
Home computers were something quite easily-imagined, at least to science fiction readers and viewers. It just took awhile for RL to catch up.
@Gamensan Herbert put in an amazing amount of research into what would become his masterwork. Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were written at the same time that Dune was.
I still find it amazing that he predicted they would become widespread, and then a threat. Because in 1965 they were essentially a novelty but they're running the world right now
"Drone Wars" or Black Mirror "Metalhead", heck even Metal Gear Solid 4 ventures into the dystopia where humans used AI and machines to kill other humans with efficiency.
Don't forget "Terminator, The Matrix, iRobot, and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," paint a grimdark future.
Why I love the dune saga as it gives us a post machines saga ie what happens after
Second Variety
Toys
I saw this headline and thought, "The Butlerian Jihad, of course!" But then I realized that you're making videos for people who are new to the series.
Can't wait till this weekend.
same.
then again, i'm far less forgiving, in that i was like "did these people even bother to read the back of the book?"
@@billyalarie929 Either way, hopefully Quinn gets the views.
Thought the exact same.
Smarty pants big brain
Of course, by the time of the God Emperor, Leto II had began relaxing the reaction of the Butlerian Jihad. So by the time of Chapterhouse, the restrictions were very relaxed and the lines very blurred. I will always remember the line: "Cyborg him!"
It's a very natural thing. Humans forget. 10,000 years is a really long time. I think he knew damn well how dangerous it was but also how important it was, because certain computers like the Ixian navigation machines were essential for his long term plans. Long distance space travel had to become possible again without spice and all the BS that went with it
Wow. Just found you today and I’m enthralled by all your videos. Amazing work! I can’t wait to hear your review of the new movie!!!!!! Thanks for all the great videos. I’m a fan now!
Dude, I bought a Vernor Vinge book on a complete whim and found your channel. Then you led me to the Hyperion Cantos and as of a couple of months ago, to the Dune series. You're doing some fantastic work and the authors/publishers of these series owe you a debt of gratitude for introducing entirely new generations of readers to these works. Keep up the great work my man.
It’s kind of funny that the warhammer 40k Imperium and Dune don’t have robots or AI for basically the same reason of “it went horribly wrong and we’re better off never doing that again”.
Well yeah. 40K is basically Dune filtered through the 2000AD comic.
Hmpf... Praise the Omnisiah.
Yeah I found that too. Even though Horus heresy is more popular and mainstream, I find Age of strife much more interesting.
40k copied a lot from Dune. You see this especially with the Age of Strife, Astropaths, Servitors, the God Emperor, and the God Emperor's Imperial Truth.
@@IceLizardsUnited I remember hearing someone say that the most sincere form of flattery is immitation, whereas the most sincere form of respect is theft. Of course, both saying are malarky, but it's fitting enough in GW's case.
It's kind of impossible to believe there's not a single digital component in the dune universe. It's also impossible to believe houses like the harkonnens wouldn't use them anyway, despite the ban. They'd be a huge advantage even just for military tech.
Well we see Paul use a hologram. Radical technology is use all the time minus AI systems or technology without direct human oversight. We see shields, ships with no traditional propulsion using anti-gravity means well as FTL capabilities, energy weapons, micro-drones, moisture suits & combat suits where you can float. I would argue they go as far as use nano-technology like smart-materials, super-alloys & other molecular strengthen stuff like the dragonfly-like helicopters wings not breaking itself under extreme stress or the swords they all use to be used without maintenance. Maybe even some kind of performance drugs or biological enhancements to have your foot-sworded soldiers to be extreme quick, strong & efficient to superhuman levels.
It all appears magic at first glance. But if you look at similar radical advance civilisations like the Forerunners from Halo, the Imperium in the movie reminds me of them because of their radical technology but on the lessor side of use.
They use mentats for the computations. Also...spoiler there are 2 factions in the empire that ignore the AI prohibitions.
Not true
Thinking machines are banned
Not
Actual
Digital components
You can
Technically
Create a car in dune universe
But
Not an
AI
This human would create a bio-intelligence in their body which would allow him to be a super human which is why the human didn't need any robot to play the role.
Only the AIs are banned. The computer you have at home or your mobile phone have no neural networks.
I love your content man! I've been listening to you for years. I can remember running on the treadmill listening to your shorten versions of the books! Keep up doing what you do! You have a fundamental level of understanding and I so appreciate that in you man! Keep rocking!
I hope when quinn goes to the ticket booth on Friday, hes dressed like the spacing guild and has a huge microphone. *ONE* *FOR* *DUNE* *PLEASE*
Already have my tickets reserved for Friday evening. Can't wait.
Me too dude, way to excited!
Saturday night, after dinner, on a (semi) blind-date. 🥰
I got 11 for Thursday! I’m stoked!!!
@@nav579 I got 6pm for thursday!!! :)
@@Jimbo1221 Hell yeah!! Me too!! I’m so excited!
Hah, Stilgar’s doing the Slavic Squat in that poster…
Never forget that typing in 80085 into a calculator is a crime punishable by death in the world of Dune
Why
@@vaishnoo1168 if you were to move the calculator at a certain angle then 80085 looks like "boobs"
@@vaishnoo1168It is against the commandments of the orange Bible.
Your well of knowledge on this series and universe is incredible, thank you!
I appreciate your take on the Butlerian Jihad. Brian Herbert and KJA completely interpreted it as "the machines rose up against us." Frank Herbert was never so crash or one-dimensional in his views. He made it pretty clear that the Jihad was a war between humans and was motivated by questions of dependence.
It makes perfect sense, as the Dune canon was all about humans breaking their dependence on oracles, saviors, centralized authority, and a single resource. To twist that into a tale of evil robots vs humans, with the resolution that "oh, we have to live together," is at best a dumbing-down, at worst a perversion!
It's extremely lazy writing on KJA/BH's part, and proves they don't understand the source material.
Saw it tonight. It slayed. Did a much better job of translating source material than the lynch or scify series. Part 2 is a necessity.
Great issue to bring up to help possible new fans see and appreciate a vital part of the Dune universe culture. And you are absolutely right about how Frank Herbert opened up the idea of humans vs. machines in a way that is not anti-technology.
Please do videos exploring lore of different factions especially the spacing core and mentat. I really enjoy your voice and commentary
I love how this video is short. It explains the basics, enough for me to roughly know what's going on, and If i want to know more, i can always check out the books/other videos. Thank you
YEEESSSSSSS!! I've been watching your content since Ideas of Ice and Fire, and Dune was always a huge interest for me. Of all the nerdy subject creators you are the best. Not only the complete guides but also your highly educated opinions. JUST 2 DAYS AWAY BUDDY!!! I'll be at IMAX in Dearborn MI with friends I turned on to your channel...keep it up Quinn! You do have fans, of which I am proud to count myself in!
I'm only reading this series now because of Quinns ideas. Thank you for introducing me to such a kick ass series to read.
I think i saw one of his early videos on dune and thats what got me into it. Turns out UA-cam can recommend good channels every few decades.
Imagine someone from the 1940s, who where only familiar with mechanical and vacuum tube based computers, arrived in the year 2050 in a world where even desktops and laptops where gone, because all computation took place in a cellphone or the cloud. They would assume computers where a fad, because their understanding of a computer is so primitive they wouldn't realize they're surrounded by them.
Realistically, Dune is more fantasy and Asimov is more science. But it's nice to imagine a world where we come full circle. Brains are computers and the body is a complex robot, so to imagine that eventually we really do come full circle and simply get better control of our own bodies, instead of attempting to create a new one from scratch, is an interesting idea.
In the 1940s, computers were people, lowly workers, usually women, paid for doing rote computations.
Zuse and Turing changed that. Babbage had tried to replace computers with machines since the 1830s.
Electricity made possible what hand cranks and steam engines couldn't.
But it was only in the 1960s that computers were replaced by operators and then programmers in the workplace.
Which makes the mentats in Dune an odd concept.
Asimov may have been the only writer to understand the potential of computers at first. Even Haldeman in the 1970s expected information to remain stored in microfilm for public access as he envisioned spaceships piloted by computers.
To someone in the 1940s who isn't a mathematician or a physicist, today's cybernetic technology has more in common with the enchanted artefacts of mythology and fantasy than with the actual technology of the day. It is no coincidence that many concepts in modern computing are named after things from mythology.
Didn't Arthur C. Clarke say something along the lines of any technology advanced enough would seem like magic to us?
@@CleverMonkeyArt Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Dune, Part 2 about to come out in Thailand .. I'm seeing it tomorrow and this is getting me in the mood
While I see Herbert's logic, I think that it would be impossible for humanity to turn away from the rapid development possible with AI, once it has been seen. Even if the empire rejected the use of AI, those who were attempting to overthrow the Empire would naturally turn to powerful tools that their opponent would not use, like AI. Even if they just used it to assist in genetic manipulation (which the empire is fine with) the speed and efficiency of having AI to assist in that would be irresistible. The only way I can see humanity turning away from AI is if there were some situation where AI could no longer function, like S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series where some natural laws have changed so all electrical things no longer function, and combustion is weaker to make engines and guns not work.
Or it almost wiping us out. The prequel novels by his son, while controversial and not up to his standards as far as writing quality, go into great detail on this. If that were to happen I think humanity would abandon AI, at least for awhile. It becomes something terrifying in people's minds instead of a tool. The collective trauma of an event like the Butlerian Jihad would do it. Had Frank written these books (apparently they are based on his notes) I think we'd have a better feel for the scale of the trauma, but I can imagine it. Trillions dead, multiple worlds burned to cinders... A ban on any "thinking machines" makes sense
Aside from being a fellow literary sci-fi nerd, I'm a big fan of your work Quinn. I might be doing something that demands my patience but allows my mind to wander, like 3d modelling or texture painting, and then your ideas, insights and presentation style will take on a meditative, didactic quality. That's when I most appreciate the depth of detail and effort you've gone to. Essential content.
I'm so glad someone is taking the time to explain this, the reason for no computers/AI in Dune, the Butlerian Jihad as It's very very important foundational fact of the age of Dune. I wish you would have pointed out that [throughout the universe] the creation, distribution or manufacture of computer tech/AI is instant death whether the death of one person, one group or an entire planet. By universal law this is agreed and enforced.
So why did the ixians get away with it? The series mentions a few times that basically ix is the equivalent of the black market for Banned Technology.
@@finlaymcdiarmid5832
Because IX was selling stuff to the Great Houses so in their corruption the Houses allowed it. Also, they pushed the line in the first 4 books but never cross it until the 5th.
@@genmaicha.lapsang ok, i finished the fifth about two months ago.
I read Dune and The Foundations Trilogy when I was a teenager back in the 1980s, love these explanations on the story line of Dune. Just subbed!❤️
The amount of emotional investment Quinn has for this new Dune movie has me hoping it's everything he's ever wanted from a theatrical release.
Quinn I saw it DUNE 2021 Thursday oct 21 in IMAX very few open seats it has been a couple hours for me and i am still absorbing it, GOOD LUCK trying to describe it in a Video i honestly have no words yet, but i sat at the back of the IMAX and once the music stopped the entire Audience was silent i have never in my 44 years experienced a movie before today i did thanks for all of your videos your channel and thank you Quinn for being such a devoted fan to the source materiel.
I hope the reason isn't because all the robots fell in a deep cavern and were never seen again...
... is that a reference to something?
@@richardhart9204 I think Kenshi?
@@conlinbryant5037 I don't know what that is.
Is that a reference to anything like anime or something?
I’ve only read the original novel, and it was years and ago, so I wanted a bit of a primer to go along with the new movie. Your videos are informative, but your love and passion for the series really comes through too! Subscribed!
I think Herbert was very anti-AI. His "Destination: Void" series dealt with the potential horrors of it.
I’ve been listening to that recently. Only about half way. Not liking it as much as green brain and a few of his other non-dune books.
I strongly agree with him. If we were to create it, it would be the first time humanity created technology truly out of our control. Even the most horrific inventions to date (nuclear weapons) require humans to operate. If sentient machines decided to destroy us for whatever reason, they'd wipe us out. I think we need to chill with the AI research currently taking place and listen to Herbert. Battlestar Galactica makes it very clear that the only reason humans survived the onslaught is that the robots were cultists who deliberately limited themselves trying to emulate humans. The (Ani)matrix tells the story of how it would probably go: total annihilation or enslavement
Watching it now…. 2 years of waiting. So awesome. Thanks for all your videos man!
I watched it last Saturday (Japan) and it was soooooooooo good.
I wonder if Quinn know about Nihei Tsutomu's works (BLAME!, Biomega, Knights of Sidonia), but if there's gonna be a big screen adaptation of his work, I believe only Denis Villeneuve can do it because of his incredible sense of scale and epic.
I really recommend you to read Nihei's works I mentioned above if you are into hardcore sci-fi horror.
My first of his works is Blame! Thanks for suggesting the others. Though I don't think DV will adapt these faithfully, due to the uncensored aspects of his art. Guillermo del Toro might as well adapt them, but if he works with another director that has more experience in sci-fi.
is ghibli aircraft inspired from dune's ornithropter?
@@pustakarileks7404 That's a good observation, it could be the case.
Since this is probably the last Quinn video I'll see before I see DUNE, I have to say thank you. You have allowed me to visualize and imagine the dune universe more than even reading the books myself. Thank you for not only reigniting my interest, but also for deepening my understanding. Enjoy the movie!
2021 is halfway between the Beatle's first album and the Butlerian Jihad. Feel old yet?
It's criminal Warner didn't reach out to you with an advance influencer viewing. I bet they'll fix that mistake for part 2.
“Because Robots are boring, Paul!” - The Tick on Robots in Dune to a bemused Paul Atreides. Paul in turn is still not sure why The Tick is breathing through a straw, as he is not sucking blood.
The Spoon! must flow.
Thank you for this, Quinn. You are my go-to guy on YT for background information on the Dune series.-I’m re-reading Dune now after seeing the movie. I’m no longer in the habit of skipping over the hard parts, as I commonly did as a teenager, so it is helpful and fun to lean in and listen to what a trusted YT presenter has to say on various Dune topics. - Oops, reading over this message before posting it, I realize that some young people may take offense at my skipping-over remark. Oh please, dear young people, I love you and love my young self who was too busy in the late 1960’s to dive into the weeds. Best wishes to all.
I also think this is the thing that makes DUNE such a captivating story. The fact that is such a deeply *HUMAN* story, it highlight a lot about we humans are both great but so flawed, and how we do so much for our goals that are still perfectly justified in their own ways even if they can arguably be extremely wrong when looking at them from other viewpoint.
Another awesome Video, Quinn. Excited to watch Dune in a few days!!!
As a 57 year old guy who read man of original Frank Herbert original books 30 or more years ago I really appreciate your videos to refresh my memories and more importantly to put a fresh take and some fresh ideas. Thanks and keep it up
I am very fortunate because I live in Finland, one of the countries that got an early release. This movie pays credit to the ideas of Dune. The humanity is exactly what Herbert wanted. The humanity is the point.
Would love your thoughts on Zimmer's score which is now available in full on Spotify. Definitely some motifs from other movies in there (and some that feel conspicuously out of place, such as main chord progression from Dark Phoenix), but it feels more, dare I say, shockingly ambient, akin to "this is a soundtrack for the movie as you are watching it" rather than something you come back and enjoy later such as the score for Interstellar. Then again, the soundtrack for Arrival is for me not dissimilar. It is (arguably) unfulfilling on its own, disconnected from the movie.
That all said, there is definitely a feeling of the brutality and harshness of Arrakis in there, and a nod to the Toto's score from the Lynch movie which made me smile.
i just discovered your channel , i'm a huge fan of Dune and Frank Herbert since i'm a kid. I just want to say that your channel and videos are awesome. Especially this one. Very interesting your comparaison with Asimov and why Herbert choose this way.
The out-of-Universe reasons for going this route are pretty logical. In the story, it's obviously awful for society and progress how knowledge is locked up in these different guilds that are constantly at some level of war with each other. I'll take "tending to use technology as a crutch" over "being turned into a disgusting giant Alien baby in a tank to pilot a spaceship" any day of the week, thanks!
I think that was the point of it, to show that humans have the capacity to achieve great things but yet they are still very flawed creatures and that everything that is achieved always comes with a great cost.
To be fair the book describes the navigator as more fish like. The weightless of space plus the spice makes them look that way.
The navigators even have clothing with pockets in the book
There are obviously more than three guilds in the Imperium, though the BG, Mentats, and the Guild of Navigators are the major ones (where do you think Yueh studied medicine, for example, or where Duncan Idaho trained as a Warmaster?). Don't mistake their prominence with an absolute monopoly on learning and experimentation. That doesn't come along until the time of the God Emperor, when Leto even forbade becoming a Mentat.
You have a wonderful insight and seem very knowledgeable about the source material 😎👍 these videos are pure gold
Frank Herbert's decision to not have robots in his series was an interesting one. It did introduce ideas that might not have arisen otherwise.
I always find humanity disbanding machines to be an ironic one though. Those that controlled machines controlled humanity. Things happened. Machines got disbanded. However there was still a need for certain things like FTL travel. A new group arises to fill in that need and humanity becomes dependent on them and by extension subservient to them. Humanity essentially replaced one master for another.
The continued ban of machines, in that lens, could be seen as a means of control by the guilds. The guilds' power is dependent on humanity needing them for certain tasks. If machines were to come into existence again then all that wealth, power, and prestige goes away. So a natural reaction to that would be for them to curb attempts to reintroduce machines.
Those anti-machine religious texts then could be seen as a form of indoctrination. Similar to what the Bene Gesserit used on the Freeman. By making everyone think machines are bad there are few instances were it is made. When those instances are found the public will eliminate the creators of such things themselves or will not disfavor the powers that be from destroying them. Thus the guilds system of control is allowed to continue.
Well, yeah. Ultimately the story never suggests that there are any easy answers to any of the problems it explores.
Humans keep coming up with creative ways to control each other, and when one method stops working, they just invent a new one.
Herbert doesn't say "well, here's how we stop this by just changing one or two specific things about society"--the theme is more that this is all just human nature, and will always be present in human societies, no matter how radically different they are from each other, for as long as humans continue to be essentially the same animals that we are now.
But I find the no-computers-allowed idea to be one of Dune's most unique and interesting aspects.
It's fascinating as a world-building trope, because it leads to all these other ideas on other areas of technology that might be developed to replace (electronic) computers if they weren't an option.
I think the ultimate problem with machines is that you can churn them out at an alarming rate with advanced technology, which allows a single persons will to be done, without really any support from other people. In Dune, people fight the battles. That means they also must be willing to follow those orders (even if they only do so out of fear). In effect, machines are oppressive in that they take away societies ability to rebel or create change, because all one needs is to create a massive army of machine and humanity is powerless to do anything but bend to their will. It also works the opposite way, by keeping those is power from being easily dethroned.
But some things are simply silly. Like genetically modified people that perform basic tasks, like acting as a ships control systems. That is a horrid existence that I can't really see any being accepting, they would rebel, they would have no assemblance of a life, and it would create division due to their extreme differences in physiology.
In a sense, getting rid of machines is the lesser of two evils. It helps and hurts. But technology can be soo powerful that it can overwhelm all who utilize it. One day it can be used to overthrow an emperor, the next it can be used to overthrow the overthrowers. It would just be chaos. Machines also remove value and purpose from humans, even if they do the job better and faster for less cost. Removing that value and purpose is far more damaging in the long run. We already see it today with automation.
Personally I think machines were banned because those who used them to gain power, did so to keep power after they cemented it. This way people couldn't overthrow the overthrowers with the tools they used to steal power in the first place.
I've always loved this about Dune because it gave such logical life to something that normally would be considered magic, super natural, or elements from a sword and sorcery fantasy.
I think the philosophical ramifications of creating a futuristic space fairing society that has no AI is one of the most important aspects of the Dune series. It critically poses the question as to "what the bigger picture should be" when it comes to humanity and their potential development as a species. The AI was just simply a layer of control that stagnated humanity, then later the decadent Imperium, then Paul's Messianic rule, then finally Leto II's purposefully designed absolutism. Over and over you see different things impede potential human flourishing, but because of the philosophical realizations made at the right time, humanity adapts and develops beyond those impediments that culminate in The Scattering. And this can only be so by humanity first coming to the realization that humanity comes first, and to rebel against mechanical minds.
Quinn, I only picked up on your stuff a few days ago but I did see something like what you did with the Dune series, a complete explanation, but that was a few years back and it was different...somehow. Your work, because you're an amazing speaker and storyteller is many magnitudes better than what I saw before. So thanks for doing what you do. I LOVE scifi but I've never, and I mean NEVER been able to read a whole book just for the pleasure of it. I've read books so I could do reports and get through English classes in grade school and college, well, my second wife read books and wrote reports so that I could get through college! LOL, honestly, I would have literally flunked out if it wasn't for her helping me. I would skim the book and I did know enough by doing so to give a presentation if it were required but thank goodness, it never was. I'm the guy that can take a 45 year old engine block and build and engine that generates 1100 horsepower, put it in a car, strap in and light the candle. I could write books about my experiences in that area but I couldn't read them. I've read many books, how to rebuild this transmission or what camshaft profiles effect, carb rebuilding etc. But for pleasure? I just never had it in me. And as I type this, I looked to my right where my book case it and it's full. I'm a recovering alcoholic so I've got a lot of recovery literature in there but most of it are books I bought that I wanted to read but never could and a bunch of books I devoured every word of that were the core of my college curriculum, engineering, machining, electricity, metallurgy, EVERTHING about CAD when it was a pretty new thing. Back when you had to know DOS in order to make your computer work. LOL When you pass on the info from these books that I wish I could read you're doing a great service to someone like me. And I thank you very much!
This is why the Dune universe is better than Star Wars
We are all sitting waiting for the big review friend. I saw it in Imax tonight. At the end I was ready for another 2.5hrs. I'll be seeing it multiple times for sure. Still digesting it all.
Great commentary, Quinn. My fear for the Dune movie is as it's always been: there are so many highly complex concepts that are explained well with the written word; that I don't think transfer well to a video medium (short of a narrator just reading/explaining over the film). I worry that it will sacrifice a lot of the intellectual and philosophical nuance in exchange for visual splendor. That being said, I'll be there opening night and I'll be hopeful.
Nah, what they instead did was explaining the bare minimum, and using things like context clues to give you all the info you need to follow the story. Hell they managed to make visions really well in the movie. Most of the stuff from the first book is still there, but we will have to wait for part 2 to know how the full story will turn out. (Of the first book ofc)
Visual storytelling is a thing.
@@davidwuhrer6704 So is reading the novel and not being too lazy in avoiding the appendices, which explain a great deal of the history of the Imperium and the reasons for the philosophy and religion that stemmed from the aftermath of the Jihad.
@@Shan_Dalamani Which has nothing to do with "show, don't tell" in visual media.
Of course they have to cut a lot of detail, and leave much unexplained that the books go into detail about. But a voice-over narrator will not change that.
Awesome video Quinn , as usual! I really enjoy your work.
I am curious is to what is considered "thinking" in mechanical terms. Like what exceptions would be made in a universe like Dune. Like Mass Effect and its A.I vs V.I thing.
Would think they would be use computational computers still. Maybe their just radically small & advance like that peice that goes behind their ears in the movie. It's all link to known users together like an organic internet passing information directly to users brain if they need it from someone or some central network place without the need for a display to read it because how far technology has evolved to point that most screens, become obsolete.
I know that “Dune” will exceed your expectations! (As of now I’ve seen the film FOUR times).
Brian and KJA really went off the rails (and showed off their astounding unoriginality) by turning the Butlerian Jihad into a hybrid narrative of the Matrix and the Terminator. If Frank had wanted that sort of scenario he could have easily dropped mention of things along those lines, but he didn't for a reason. Glad to know Quinn is a fellow orthodoxist.
Yeah, all Dune fans are sad that Frank Herbert died before he could complete his masterpiece. It sucks. For real.
As someone who's not read any of the books and just watched the excellent movie, I wondered about this as well. Good video & explanation Mr Quinn.
"kind of cheapens the whole thing." THAT is THE quote that speaks to every single abortion that Brian Herbert and Kevin Hack Anderson slapped the Dune name onto.
Dude! Thank you! Was just explaining this to someone who was confused about the machine crusade. It was supposed to be the people who controlled the thinking machines that were the enemy, or the fact that the machines made life so easy most humans stagnated from their potential. Dune is about a evolutionary revolution triggered by the discovery of melange.
The BH&KJA retconning, especially them bringing back the machines as the final big bad in dune 7/8, is such a stain on the legacy IMO.
Love what you do hope you enjoy the movie!
alright i think it’s fair to say that this channel has more than enough Dune content. i really wish Quinn would focus more on other book series. Quinn got me into Herbert and Asimov, but i need more series recommendations Quinn.
Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. He’s covered it a bit in the past.
If you like epic space operas, try Perry Rhodan.
@@WolfOfNewLondo Already on book three and I'm reading three-body problem. Any other space epic operas?
@@davidwuhrer6704 Epic? LOL.
Epic space opera is Ben Bova's Grand Tour series, or C.J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union/Cyteen novels.
@@Shan_Dalamani While Perry Rhodan has had weekly installments since 1961, continuously, plus spin-offs and supplements.
Great content Quinn!! Love the channel!
A lot of Science fiction has Ai/Robots as well as Aleins, but really what do either of these things really achieve other than making things feel more science fictiony. Yes some times you get stories like Short Circuit and Arrival that really do tell sorties about their concepts that needed those concepts to work. Johnny 5 need to not be a living things for his story to work, Hectopods needed to be completely alien on all levels for their story to work.
Really the lack of AI/Robots and Aliens may seem striking at first glance then you realize, where did the story need them. The answer is that no the Story of Dune really didn't need these classic science fiction concepts in the end. If they didn't need them then might as well just cut them from the story and remove unnecessary fluff.
But robots are real. They really do exist by now, and they are much like Asimov predicted.
And AI is real. It really exists by now, and it runs our daily lives without us noticing.
This is the reason why scientists wrote about them. Not because _stories_ needed them, but because the predictable future of these things needed stories about them.
These stories are _about_ robots and computers and AI, before they became what they are now.
They are _not_ plot devices in stories about something else.
Science fiction is _not_ fantasy.
We are not talking about reality here, we are talking about a fictional narrative. Specifically the Dune one.
@@SpottedHares You are missing the point.
This is reductive to the point of absurdity, like saying that Elves and magic were fluff in the Lord of the Rings.
I cannot wait to see this movie. I pray it does not disappoint
This concept is why I'm not as enthusiastic about the Dune universe, than Asimov's, Clarke's, or Star Trek's. But I do quite agree that it is an interesting future-history to explore.
Dune is like the post version of these
great content as always quinn. dont always share opinions with you but greatly appreciate it non the less
one of my favorite things about dune is that there aren't any computers. Really sparks my imagination on how they do certain things especially controlling those massive spacecraft
There are they are just banned and distribution of them can lead to instant prosecution and execution, Mentats are trained to be human calculators to be able to properly use as you said massive aircrafts/spacecraft.
they use a kind of analog mechanism to control the ships
Thank you bro, your systemic reviews are always on point.
One thing that Herbert failed to explain in all of this was the impossible absence of a skilled middle class. The story so obsessively focuses on elites that it contradicts itself. *Humanity* as whole was *not* advanced by the Butlerian Jihad. They fell into 10,000+ years of feudal stagnation. Only a privileged minority received the advanced training of the schools. Which leads to a massive plot hole, because without automation such a huge interstellar civilization would need a *LOT* of technically skilled professionals just to keep all of their analog mechanical technology working. Guild Navigators merely pilot their Heighliners. Who actually makes sure all the systems are working properly before each jump? How do industrial worlds like Ix and Geidi Prime function without whole armies of engineers? And, most importantly, if such a skilled middle class does exist, then why did they tolerate feudal rule for ten millennia? Such a thing is unprecedented in real life. It's as if Herbert's real message was: If you're not one of the genetically-gifted, then you just don't matter at all.
Don't they have computers, they just don't have Artificial General Intelligence? A lot of the tech they use wouldn't work without computers.
@@grandsome1 - Supposedly they don't. It is implied that some groups, including the Bene Gesserit, cheat and use them secretly. But that only raises more questions: like *who* is enforcing the ban on AI? We *never* hear anything of inspections or some kind of authority overseeing this. Considering the huge spans of time involved, you would expect somebody, somewhere, to start developing AI again out of sight. I mean, until 5,000 years after Paul's time, nobody in the Old Imperium even knew what the Tleilaxu Axlotl Tanks really were!
@@daniels7907 The Tleilaxu are an extreme example of how the ban work, unlike today with the internet and schools teaching you how to program, learning how to program in the Dune universe is probably limited and controlled by guilds who oversaw their programmers. The ban has probably been broken oftentimes by individuals but they got the full wrath of the Empire for that. But the ornitopter, the seeker assassin droid, and the tablet they use a clear example of machines that need advanced computing to work.
@@grandsome1 - Not from the perspective of Herbert when this was written during the early-1960's. Computing technology back then was *very* primitive. The computers they used to put Apollo on the Moon are *vastly* outclassed by your smartphone. The earliest supersonic jet fighters and bombers from the 1950's mostly relied on purely mechanical instrumentation.
But this hits the point: *mechanical!* In those days you didn't have microcomputers processing input from sensors, you had human beings looking at dials, gauges and indicator lights. To troubleshoot a broken machine, a technician had to physically take it apart and try to figure out what was wrong.
Much like Paul's Jihad (which happens between books), Herbert simply decided not to address how any of this actually worked. How did a bunch of desert fighters with knives kill 61,000,000,000 people in just 13 years on 90+ planets that were *nothing* like the one they trained on?
Likewise, how did an interstellar civilization on this scale function without computers *and* without a *massive* population of engineers, scientists and technicians - who would have had the skills needed to overthrow their rulers because even the Guild itself needs such people to make it possible to move Landsraad troops around. Nobody need fear the Sardukar if they cannot get off of Salusa Secundus.
@@markv785 - You really need to dig deeper into history. For example, Christianity started having schisms right from the beginning and they have been occurring regularly ever since. It was *not* a monolithic religion that everybody agreed to until the Reformation. Just look at the history of the Arians, the Donatists, the Montanists, the Pelagians, etc...
*NO* social structure has *ever* been perfectly stable. It just looks that way when you simplify history.
Can't wait for your take on the Villeneuve Dune adaptation. I was lucky to see it a couple of weeks ago here in Europe. Watch it in the best cinema possible is my recommendation.
Transhumanism really kicked off in the 60's and it's possible that Frank Herbert was appalled by it's negation of human potential. Remember, our dna code was only discovered in the 50's, just a few years earlier, and what that discovery implied was yet a heady mix of questions. One of the reasons I love the works of Frank Herbert is because he engaged us in thinking about our potential, where would certain choices take us.
Actually, there was a *HUGE* Eugenics movement in the U.S. during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Herbert, born in 1920, certainly remembered it. Eugenics acquired a stigma because of the Nazis, but that did not mean that people of his generation stopped believing in it. This is why the entire series is so heavily focused on the eugenically-bred elite and otherwise disdains the majority of humanity. Eugenics advocates had always anticipated that society would eventually become segregated into social classes based on breeding.
@@daniels7907 I know... however I commented on transhumanism due to it's love for AI/computing which aligns somewhat with the Butlerian Jihad, and more pertinent to where we are as a contemporary society.
@@deborahjanes3706 - But transhumanism tends to focus on human/machine fusion. That is completely different from replacing humans with robots. While it was popular for a long time to imagine that human potential was "limitless", as we come to better understand our own biology it is becoming clear that there is only so far that we can get - even with eugenic breeding spanning thousands of years.
Dune is soft science fiction in that Herbert presents unproven concepts like prescience and genetic memory (psychic powers by another name) as if they were any more realistic than magic.
@@daniels7907 recent discoveries have challenged the notion of us having limits, but it's a notion that has been hardwired into us. Geneticists are seeing more that what was theorised as junk dna is actually potential dna. As well as the discovery that our heart is not just a pump but has neurons just like the brain... heart intelligence. Consider how there was the theory of being evolved from primates but the Human Genome Project has proven we're a unique race...and I'm not even going to mention the implications of the text that has been found in chromosone 2!
@@deborahjanes3706 - Where did you get this pseudoscientific nonsense?
I always saw the Butlerian Jihad not as a fight against killer robots but as a fight against AI due to its general capabilities. A powerful enough AI could make better choices for you than you would and you'd be happier for it. But it would remove freewill and from ever changing and evolving, and humanity would stagnate.
I always thought of it more as a fight against that, which would require conquering worlds that used technology to that effect
@@markv785 Worship? Don't need to worship something to be ruled.
And yes, rebellion against one you can see forcing you. However, what about one forever in the background subtly playing you into ideal roles?
*"It cheapens the whole thing"* - Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson's book pitch.
😆 Nice.
The content is fire bro! Don't worry about the snub, it's one person not showing appreciation vs thousands of us on here loving what you're putting out so keep smashing it.
There are computers in the dune universe they have extremely limited roles because of the butlerian jihad and the tenets that grew from it. The Ixians traffic in forbidden technology such as computers.
Even those restrictions aren't well kept either though. The Bene Gesserit are seen with computers. Leto II skirts the laws. And that's all without getting into Ix.
@@henrywesterman493 absolutely. Leto knows about and even acquires illicit tech from the Ixians.
@@henrywesterman493 Leto II didn't even seam concerned about what the Ixions got up too. Publicly he upheld the importance of these restrictions but as long as he got his toys he didn't give a shit.
Great analysis! Thanks for this series. I’m a longtime fan, but I really enjoy your insights.
No AI, no robots, no aliens.
I love Dune.
You have a really nice library, man. Such lovely hardcovers. Beautiful. Do you buy every edition of Dune you can get your hands on?! I respect that type of dedication, mate! And always great content! Thanks Quinn much love from the UK
The idea that AI can be eliminated completely from any vision of the future is preposterous, but it was neccessary, if, like Herbert, one wanted to write a medieval fairytale set in the future, but still have some kind of tech (A bombs, lasers, bio tech etc) to add colour to the story.
Thankfully, IMO, the characters and plot were good enough to allow the absurdity of the premise to be ignored.
Gene Wolfe, in the Book of the New Sun, creates a similar setting, but by having just one planet become technologically backward, in a technologicaly advanced universe creates a much more plausable premise.
I would think EMP weapons would just annihilate any kind of robotic army. I'm honestly not surprised EMPs aren't more widely used today as they're non-lethal but terribly destructive. I absolutely love how the Dune universe reverts back to hand-to-hand combat as projectiles aren't very effective against the shields.
I've never been first to comment... DUNE FRIDAY!!! I can't wait to hear your thoughts.
You're not first, but congrats on being early!! :D
Well it does say the vid went up 3 mins ago an his comment 4mins, you can't really be more first that time traveling...
This cleared things up for me as well, because in the 1984 movie the guild navigator told the Emperor "Many machines on Ix. New machines." It made me wonder if those were robots.
For Me the Robot thing ruined the final two books (Hunters and Sandworms). I think Marty and Liz should have been organic AI that formed out of a multitude of Face Dancers.
As far as I am concerned, the non Frank books are mostly non-cannon and are thier own seperate universe.
Those two were facedancers, plain and simple.
Great explanation. I’ve heard the answer to this question hundreds of times but you still brought something fresh to it.
"oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I did, I didn't pick up on this. I thought the...I thought wrong my bad"
~Brien Herbert.
For anyone who loves the Dune universe but has not read the books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, you should read them! They fill in the blanks and questions that were left by the original Dune series. They are excellent science fiction. I also recommend the Praxis series by Walter Jon Williams. It has nothing to do with Dune...just really good science fiction ;-)