A map of some of the major thinkers, filmmakers, and theorists who extended, opposed, or transformed the Wellsian conviction that society can be rationally designed — a living document, updated as the conversation develops.
Russell, Shaw, Asimov, Clarke, Haldane — thinkers who shared Wells’s conviction that rational design could improve civilization indefinitely.
Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Zamyatin — writers who begin from Wellsian premises and arrive at horror rather than hope.
Hayek, Popper, Chesterton, Arendt, Oakeshott, Lewis — thinkers who argue rational planning of human beings is wrong in principle.
Wiener, McLuhan, Foucault, Zuboff — thinkers who dissolve Wells rather than opposing him. Control is never where it appears to be.
Lang, Kubrick, Scott, Brooker, Abrams — the Wellsian argument translated into visual form, from Metropolis to Lost.
Dick, Gibson, Sterling — writers who find the Wellsian world already built and controlled by corporations rather than enlightened planners.
Lovecraft, Ligotti, Miéville — the most radical rejection: the universe itself does not have the rational structure Wells assumed.