Without going into too much depth with social theory, I felt it was appropriately to lightly explore why I think dystopias are important. For context, my final year dissertation was a Diachronic Study of Dystopian Science Fiction (in cinema), so I believe deeply in the role of dystopias in our current societal climate.
For me, dystopias are crucial because they can bring to the forefront atrocities that have happened in the past and remind us of atrocities that could happen again.
Just as it is important to study history and learn from our mistakes as a species, I feel that studying dystopias of the past can help us accomplish the same goal. Equally, I feel that projecting our minds forward into dystopian science fiction can help us assess what could go wrong with our current world affairs. Nuclear weapons are a good example of this.