this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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Tell me you know Watsonian Dune but don’t know Doylist Dune without telling me. To catch you up:
I was being satirical. And so was Frank Herbert. The Butlerian Jihad and resulting mentats and navigators, groomed from childhood by what are essentially cults and turned into things either barely resembling humans or not resembling humans at all, using endless amounts of drugs like spice and sapho juice along with other ghastly techniques because it was now morally wrong to use computers is a critique of overzealous revolutionary movements that turn into religions.
The Dune universe is a grotesque dystopian future. And the Butlerian Jihad forced humanity to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. I see the same thing happening today with the current jihad against the machines bubbling up.
Sure, but which movement are you drawing a parallel to?
The ones that promise to catapult humanity into a golden age of AI if only we turn over control to their weighted random generators, inspiring a cult of followers zealously overturning all social norms of respect and transparency, complain about attempts to protect your art from being stolen and requirements to disclose the use of AI?
Or the ones expressing their concern at the reckless fervour with which the former seek to sacrifice our future, our humanity and our lives to their silicon gods?
I haven't seen any of the sceptics equate the AI used for surveillance or to rob humans of their livelihood with other types of machines. I'm sure there are some that would eliminate all forms of automation, but I don't get the impression that the bulk of people is opposed to bots in general.
Hell, there is a significant subset of the anti-AI communities I'm in that acknowledges potential applications of LLMs. It's when humans suffer from their abuse, paying the price for other people's delusion and greed, that we take issue.
In this instance, the game gets hate because it's a product of a technology we consider harmful. We don't want to encourage use of that technology. Is that what you mean by Jihad?