The Butlerian Jihad
by Kevin J. Anderson, Brian Herbert · first published 2002
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10HN commenters
2010–2026first – last mentioned
10% recommend20% neutral70% critical
Legends of Dune
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…from the Dune books. And that post correctly credits Dune/Herbert. But the post is not about Dune, it's about Spam bots so it's more related to what the original author's post is about. Speaking of the Butlerian Jihad, Frank Herbert's son (Brian) and another author named Kevin J Anderson co-wrote a few books in the Dune universe and one of them was about the Butlerian Jihad. I read it. It was good, not as good at Frank…
on “Ban me at the IP level if you don't like me” ↗Every time I see "Butlerian Jihad", I know the person is more familiar with Brian Herbert's atrocious books than Frank's.
on “The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun” ↗"...great reading on dystopian robotics include Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson's Dune prequel trilogy on the Butlerian Jihad" Clearly you didn't read the same books I did? "Great"? REALLY?
on “Six scientists tell us about the most accurate science fiction in their fields” ↗…writing is horrific. He's an absolute hack. Brian Herbert should be ashamed at what he's doing to his father's good name, allowing this incompetent fuckwit to befoul his legacy. I bought the first of the Butlerian Jihad books, even knowing how horrible a writer KJA is, because the topic interested me so. I couldn't make it more than about 15 pages. It's a minor literary tragedy.
on “Six scientists tell us about the most accurate science fiction in their fields” ↗Oh man, I am going to be a huge nerd now. Pre-Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, the Butlerian Jihad came about because people became lazy under AI, lazy of mind, and were eventually enslaved by those who controlled the AI. Not much more was said about it. One could have, yes, militant robots, Exterminate!…
on “We need to tell people ChatGPT will lie to them, not debate linguistics” ↗> Pre-Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, the Butlerian Jihad came about because people became lazy under AI, lazy of mind, and were eventually enslaved by those who controlled the AI. Oh I love this, basically Wall-E is a better Dune than the latest books? Genius!…
on “We need to tell people ChatGPT will lie to them, not debate linguistics” ↗I don't recall anything indicating that in Frank Herbert's original series. And Brian Herbert's "Omnius" nonsense seems to have very little to do with what Frank actually had in mind wrt Butlerian Jihad etc, so I don't consider it canonical.
on “We need to tell people ChatGPT will lie to them, not debate linguistics” ↗…“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.” Sadly, Brian Herbert seems to have turned the Butlerian Jihad (the ancient war against all thinking machines) into a struggle between mankind and AI rather than between mankind and itself.
on “The greatest risk of AI is from the people who control it, not the tech itself” ↗>We got a lot of movies, TV shows and a famous video game from it! We also got Brian Herbert's terrible Butlerian Jihad books
on “Self-Funding Harberger Taxes” ↗You are not talking about Frank Herbert's Dune, you are talking about Kevin J Anderson's Dune if you mention those Butlerian Jihad details. I doubt Frank Herbert would have come up with such a simple story. The reason no one discusses this is because it's not worth discussing.
on “We are all living inside of an obscure sci-fi film from 1970” ↗