Really concerned about upvoted comments in the "Who really are the bad guys" threads.

I don't know how most of you feel about it, but I found upvoted comments in some recent threads questionning the righteousness and legitimacy of the Silo's institutions and political system frankly concerning to say the least. Reading these opinions felt like people don't know how to interpret the dystopian genra anymore, or why authors even write it in the first place. It feels like our governments and media really won the war against us, to the point where even satire isn't enough to make us think critically.

Recent threads includes Is ‘The Pact’ really that evil?, are the Silo folks the bad guys? and l feel Bernard is not that evil.

Highly upvoted opinions generally falls into two categories:

1. There is no bad guys or good guys. It's all relative, people just fight for what they feel is right. Therefore, Bernard isn't a bad guy.

That first opinion is just absurd. The very concept of rightfullness requires an ethic framework to be evaluated against. You don't judge wether someone or their actions are good or bad based on wether that person felt like they were doing the right thing. The most horrible things that happened throughout history have been commited by people who were convinced they did it for the greater good.

2. The founders are the good guys. Tyranny is mandatory to maintain order, and the survival of humanity is worth every sacrifice.

That second opinion is the one that concerns me the most, because it goes against mostly everything that makes our world fair, and arguably against what makes us human.

First of all, it contains the assumption that totalitarian regimes are the only stable political systems, or to the very least the more failsafe one. Now not only is extremely concerning that anyone living in a democracy would be having this opinion to begin with... because they might wish, push, or even fight for such system to replace theirs, therefore mine and yours too. But also because it's verifiably false. Conceptually, historically, and even fictionally within the Silo's context. The fact that dictatorships have to spend more in repression than any other type of government, and goes into such tyrannical treatments to their population to maintain order is in itself a testament to the fact that they are not stable: they are a literal breeding ground for revolutions.

That opinion also goes against the very concept of self-determination. It implies the paternalist, anti-democratic opinion that people cannot know what is good for them even if you were to teach them, and therefore justifies every treatment to be forced upon any society by an (obviously self-profclaimed) enlightened and wise elite - no matter how horrible and unfair these treatments were, or how vividly they were fought against by said population.

Now that I explained why I believe this opinion to be bad, according to my (and arguably our democratic societies') moral framework, in order to provide a little more food for thoughts, I'd like to ask y'all a few questions:

• What kind of knowledge would justify a government lying, spying, oppressing, drugging, killing, and even forcing contraction on its population to prevent it from learning ?
• What kind of truth would be so disruptive, controversial and infuriating that it might cause a revolution, making people ready to bet their life fighting armed police or going out ?
• What if the survival of manking really depended on abandonning every single human rights: who's choice would it be to make ?

The first two questions should in themselves make you realise why the founders cannot be the "good guys". Regarding the last question: I personally do not wish to live under a totalitarian state. I do not wish to let go privacy, education, freedom of association, of thoughts and conscience, of opinions and expression, of having a family, rights against torture and arbitrary condemnation, and that of all of my peers under any circumstances. And if humanity's survival were to be traded for these: I would not let a selected few take that decision for us, and prevent us from ever withdrawing consent. I hope most of you would too.