Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 227 posts

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#111

Post by naasking »

lqdc13 wrote: post #90
naasking wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every affluent country's fertility rate is below replenishment levels. Their population growth rate is only positive due to immigration. In fact, global population will likely peak around 2050, and then start falling, which will be a whole new crisis. People will look back at overpopulation fears and laugh.

Sure, but why does it stop? It doesn't seem to be a specific population density, but culture + economics. Like for example, look at this Haiti plot: https://knoema.com/atlas/Haiti/Population-density It is already 1.5x more dense than Germany. 3x more dense than China. Would it stop? When? Why is Switzerland 9x more dense than Ireland? Is population of Ireland expected to eventually grow to that of Switzerland?

Yes, environmental factors largely dictate the fertility rate, particularly economic such as career opportunities, and health care related (longevity and particularly infant mortality).

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#112

Post by stephengillie »

xor1 wrote: post #41
lobster_johnson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, in William Gibson's Neuromancer, there are no cell phones, despite being set decades into the future. Gibson knows a thing or two about seeing their scifi becoming dated, of course. The famous opening line, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" no longer resonates with anyone born the last 20 years or so (although for a number of years, many digital TVs would displa…

>There's also some fun stuff about people physically carrying information (this also happens in short story "Johnny Mnemonic"). For a world where there's a highly connected, super fast worldwide computer network available, people sure travel around a lot. Sneakernet isn't an irrelevant concept in any sort of context where data transferred through a computer network can be intercepted.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#113

Post by stephengillie »

knz wrote: post #106
duaneb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not really about population -- it's about having no future, which is something a lot of people constantly worry about. One thing the movie (unintentionally) got right was how absurd this is. It really ruined the movie to me, TBH, because it was laughably implausible. Reproduction is what life does best. I'll obviously have to watch again for the world building....

And yet fertility rates are declining in many nations. Science fiction often takes current events to their extreme outcome for the sake of social commentary (Black Mirror being the latest example).

Human fertility itself isn't in decline. Fertility and human births are conflated in the US government definition, implying that we are somehow losing the physical ability to reproduce. What's actually happening is that our society is getting so complex that our agency of reproduction is impaired. It's entirely social; it's all in our heads.

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#114

Post by transitorykris »

w-ll wrote: post #76

Slightly OT but pertains to "Children of Men" The scenes where main character Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is on the really nice buses, and there is classical music playing in the background, while outside the window there is so much poverty really resonated with me. I've lived in SF going on 6 years now. My apt complex has private buses that run from here to FDi in the morning and evening. The route sometimes changes but…

Zizek's short analysis of Children of Men echoes this. "The true focus of the film is there in the background".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgrwNP_gYE

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#115

Post by skrebbel »

lacampbell wrote: post #108
w-ll wrote: post #76

Slightly OT but pertains to "Children of Men" The scenes where main character Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is on the really nice buses, and there is classical music playing in the background, while outside the window there is so much poverty really resonated with me. I've lived in SF going on 6 years now. My apt complex has private buses that run from here to FDi in the morning and evening. The route sometimes changes but…

I am curious, have you experienced poverty? I mean "first world poverty", like the kind you bus drives through? I have, and I want nothing to do with it. I certainly wouldn't choose to walk through it again. Have you stopped to consider you're being a bit of a slum tourist, or maybe you have a saviour complex?

I'm not the answer, but I'm curious. I have never experienced poverty. I can relate that you want nothing to do with it anymore, but there's a hidden connotation that the poor want nothing to do with the non-poor. That that grocery store owner wouldn't want help with picking up the heavy box, because the helper happens to be better off.

Can you explain that emotion to me? Why is walking through a relatively poor district and generally being a decent neighbour "saviour complex" just because the person doing it is richer?

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#116

Post by grondilu »

> But even as a concept, this particular one doesn’t resonate with our current anxieties, because overpopulation is more worrying than population decline.

Yet there are demographers who very much worry about it[1]. They sometimes call it the "demographic winter".

The decrease of birth rates is already observed in most developed countries, and it does not turn into population decline mostly because of immigration, so this kind of reflects to what is described in the movie, even if the movie shows an extreme version of it with a supernatural element (the sudden halt of worldwide fertility).

1. https://books.google.com/books/about/Essai_de_prospective_d%...

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#117

Post by [deleted] »

grondilu wrote: post #116

> But even as a concept, this particular one doesn’t resonate with our current anxieties, because overpopulation is more worrying than population decline. Yet there are demographers who very much worry about it[1]. They sometimes call it the "demographic winter". The decrease of birth rates is already observed in most developed countries, and it does not turn into population decline mostly because of immigration, so…

[deleted]

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#118

Post by stephengillie »

skrebbel wrote: post #115
lacampbell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious, have you experienced poverty? I mean "first world poverty", like the kind you bus drives through? I have, and I want nothing to do with it. I certainly wouldn't choose to walk through it again. Have you stopped to consider you're being a bit of a slum tourist, or maybe you have a saviour complex?

I'm not the answer, but I'm curious. I have never experienced poverty. I can relate that you want nothing to do with it anymore, but there's a hidden connotation that the poor want nothing to do with the non-poor. That that grocery store owner wouldn't want help with picking up the heavy box, because the helper happens to be better off. Can you explain that emotion to me? Why is walking through a relatively poor dist…

It's a way of teaching helplessness, while inflating your own ego. That grocery store owner wouldn't want help with picking up the heavy box, because he is an able-bodied man. Doing this for him is belittling him, saying he's not an able-bodied man. It's like receiving unrequested advice or assistance on a project.

Having grown up in poverty, been homeless for a summer, walked home past homeless people every day for years, and now a well-paid engineer in a nice city, I understand the questioning rage, wishing there was someone there to ease your burden. But I also recognize that direct charity prevents or delays people from finding a better solution, or even just having the dignity of knowing they've done the best they can for themselves.

In a sea of inequality, there is no peace, only calms between the storms. Making everyone equal is a laudable goal, but a more realistic goal is simply ensuring everyone has a rewarding and fulfilling life, and we still have a long way to go with that one.

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#119

Post by smallnamespace »

stephengillie wrote: post #113
knz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet fertility rates are declining in many nations. Science fiction often takes current events to their extreme outcome for the sake of social commentary (Black Mirror being the latest example).

Human fertility itself isn't in decline. Fertility and human births are conflated in the US government definition, implying that we are somehow losing the physical ability to reproduce. What's actually happening is that our society is getting so complex that our agency of reproduction is impaired. It's entirely social; it's all in our heads.

Jury is still out, but there's accumulating evidence that male fertility isn't doing well across the developing world:

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/121-a46/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873233945045786076...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-158463/Why-male-fe...

http://jezebel.com/finally-an-answer-to-declining-male-ferti...

Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar

#120

Post by smallnamespace »

closeparen wrote: post #29
joelmichael wrote: post #27

It says fertility isn't an issue today, but it's a little out of touch with today's anxieties; most of Europe and Japan have such low fertility that their native populations are in decline.

>most of Europe and Japan have such low fertility Their problem is not couples trying to conceive and failing, but people choosing not to have children.

This is only true of one strongly presumes that conscious decision-making is not at all influenced at all by the body's own fertility.

But a fertile body can influence the mind in all sorts of ways -- changing hormones can modify sexual desire, for example.

Post reply on HN