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In the last couple of years I've been intentionally cultivating a compassionate perspective. As I've been doing so, my experience is becoming more purposeful and joyful even when things are unpleasant. Lately, I've been examining where my distrust and fear of people and institutions comes from and what comes up is the dystopian fiction that I have been exposed to. 1984 Fahrenheit 451 Brazil Soylent Green Logan's Run They Live Hunger Games Lord of the Flies Minority Report A Scanner Darkly In Time (staring Justin Timberlake totally underrated movie The Walking Dead games Sleep Dealer The Matrix The Stand Cerebus X-Men the Neuromancer series Cloud Atlas With the exception of Cloud Atlas, when I look back on how these works have affected me, I think they have encouraged paranoia and distrust rather than some sort of reasonable and helpful skepticism. It is worth noting that Cloud Atlas has a hope that doesn't rely on individualism and also that I was exposed to it when I was older than the other pieces of fiction I've listed here. I'm becoming more and more confident in pacificism and empathy. I'm starting to wonder if the effects of dystopia fiction in an individualistic, capitalist society is for folks to basically exaggerate their disconnection and trust of others---while adding an attractive spectacle that we tend to want to create in reality---rather than to warn us about something that could go wrong so that we can avoid it. What are your thoughts? As you consider where you are and how you got here, how has dystopian fiction affected you?

Hello Thumbs and Thumb-Adjacent Humans! I'm not exactly a regular on the forums here, but I'm an avid fan of Idle Thumbs, Twin Peaks Rewatch, and The End of Mad Men...which brings me to my point! My good friend and I have started a podcast called "20 GOTO 10," about the AMC drama Halt And Catch Fire. We just finished scrambling through the end of Season 1 (available now on Netflix streaming), and will be releasing the first episode of Season Two, immediately following tonight's 10pm EST premiere. This is not a show with the unquestionable classic status of Twin Peaks or Mad Men, but it does some cool stuff and relates tangentially to the world of video games. So keep an eye out for the last three episodes of Season One (releasing throughout today), and join us for the first episode of Season Two, tonight at 11:01pm EST!

As someone who hadn't seen Twin Peaks before Idle Thumbs began doing the Rewatch podcast, I have been finding the podcast a useful resource to echo my thoughts on the episodes and provide details which pasted me by on my viewing. The Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller television show "The X Files" is a show held in similar regard but a podcast like the one Sean joked about on the Idle Thumbs podcast is unlikely for the large amount of episodes of the show and just the business they already have. But what if we used this thread to discuss the show, one episode every week as long as we can? Please comment your thoughts.

Twin Peaks and The X Files would be among them. I want to make a list similar to those curated by /m/ and /tv/ on 4chan.