For those unfamiliar the Dune series, the Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against “thinking machines”. Ultimately computers, and intelligent or thinking machines, even down to calculators are destroyed and banned. Humans who are trained in complex mental maths become known as Mentats, a sort of human computer. Just, uhh, leave all that shit on Bene Tleilax, with their Axalotl Tanks out of it.

Edit: had wrong planet name. IX -> Bene Tleilax

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 57 points 7 months ago (7 children)

It’s kind of crazy how prescient the original novels were about AI, and how much that was undone by Brian Herbert - the Butlerian Jihad was such a consequential event that even ten thousand years later, the theocratic feudal oligarchy that runs the universe still refuses the break the taboo that it set across countless religions and capital interests, and the best reasoning Brian Herbert could come up with for why this was such a huge taboo was “a giant robot enslaved humanity ten thousand years ago.”

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 27 points 7 months ago (3 children)