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

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

#141

Post by s_kilk »

the_duke wrote: post #3

Children of Men is one of my all-time favorite movies. Top 3 I think. If you haven't seen it, find some time over Christmas to do so. Won't exactly get you into a holiday spirit though...

Same, easily in the top 3.

It's also my favourite opening lines of any film:

> Newsreader: Day 1,000 of the Siege of Seattle.

> Newsreader: The Muslim community demands an end to the Army's occupation of mosques.

> Newsreader: The Homeland Security bill is ratified. After eight years, British borders will remain closed. The deportation of illegal immigrants will continue. Good morning. Our lead story.

What a way to set the scene

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

#142

Post by ozmbie »

duaneb wrote: post #65
iiiggglll wrote: post #59

> The one aspect of the film that doesn’t seem to be coming true is its central premise. The idea is that no human beings have been born in the last 18 years, so when Theo meets Kee, an African woman who is miraculously pregnant, he has to protect her from the various groups who want to exploit her condition. Obviously, we know that this infertility pandemic hasn’t happened: in Children of Men, the youngest person on…

> 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....

It's really just a plot device. Suspend your belief for that one part of the movie, and enjoy the rest of the social and political commentary.

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

#143

Post by roryisok »

Whatever you might argue about it's prescience, Children of Men is one of the best films of the last decade. The writing, directing and acting are all stellar. It has some of the best single take shots ever filmed. There's a 20 minute running street battle at the end with tanks and explosions that is shot in a single take.

It's also one of those rare occasions where the movie is far better than the original book. Book is ok, film is outstanding.

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

#144

Post by sheepmullet »

fredsir wrote: post #128
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?

It would be dangerous if everybody not poor wanted nothing to do with poor areas and poor people. All kinds of poverty counted. That is the direct route to segregated communities and cultures of poor and rich, as seen already many places, except that right now, in 2016, most know that there is "lesser" communities and cultures next to theirs, having experienced them themself. If the fortunate communities would shield…

I don't think that's a natural outcome at all.

I think wealthy "first worlders" tend to be very "aware" of poverty and want to make a difference despite being quite far removed from it.

On the other hand in countries with serious poverty where the middle class live in the same communities as those in desperate poverty there is a lot less focus and sympathy.

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

#145

Post by JonnieCache »

vecter wrote: post #24
user837387 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? I've watched it several times and not sure how it relates?

The baby (or the fact that it exists and will be born) is purported to be the savior of humanity. Sound familiar?

And the scene in the barn with the animals all around, c'mon.

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

#146

Post by BjoernKW »

jodrellblank wrote: post #110
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…

From Maciej Ceglowski Second, treating the world as a software project gives us a rationale for being selfish. The old adage has it that if you are given ten minutes to cut down a tree, you should spend the first five sharpening your axe. We are used to the idea of bootstrapping ourselves into a position of maximum leverage before tackling a problem. In the real world, this has led to a pathology where the tech secto…

> It's not that the city's social problems are invisible to the programming class. But in some way, they're not important enough to bother with.

I'm quite sure they are. It's convenient to paint Silicon Valley tech workers as generally self-absorbed, complacent and pampered. The thing is people criticising this behaviour, activists and politicians are often as much - or even all the more so - to blame.

Maciej mentions a city bureaucracy where everything is still done on paper. This is just one symptom of the issues underlying both poverty and other social problems: Societal change moves at a glacial pace, especially when compared with the technological progress of recent decades. Agents and stakeholders often are not just not susceptive to change, they're more often than not actively fighting it because change might endanger their position or job.

Many of the issues mentioned - while not solvable immediately and completely - could indeed be alleviated to quite some extent today. However, it's not because of the ignorance of tech workers who couldn't care less that these problems remain unsolved. It's due to the inertia, incompetence and ignorance of politicians and civil servants. It's also due to the indifference of the electorate at large.

Effecting significant political change is incredibly hard, especially in the congealed, largely adversarial two-party political system of the US. It's no wonder young, intelligent and skilled people much rather turn to solving technological problems or try to solve every problem with technology than go into politics in order to solve problems the old-fashioned way: With technology you stand a much larger chance to change the world in a positive manner.

People keep saying that these issues can't be solved by technology. It seems however that the current political system is incapable of solving them as well. Perhaps technology is the key to forcing political systems to adapt more quickly. Liquid democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy ), devolution of power to the local level, decentralisation, a basic income. Those are promising approaches enabled by technology that could play a large part in solving eminent social problems.

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

#148

Post by Lio »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #86
cwp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the worst (best) bit of future-past in Neuromancer is that it starts with the main character trying to fence "three megabytes of hot RAM". That seemed like a ludicrously large amount when it was written.

I think we can give Gibson the benefit of the doubt here and say the point was not the size, but the fact that it was hot RAM -- the contents was valuable. The price of 3MB, even as early as in 1984, was not so high as to make it that impressive even by the standards of the day.

I always thought it was a prototype of some very, very fast cache RAM.

I think I like your idea of hot RAM containing data better now.

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

#149

Post by m_fayer »

lacampbell wrote: post #124
skrebbel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well I would never think of refusing a nice comfortable company bus to walk to work through a shitty neighbourhood. That's just insane to me. I think only someone who hadn't lived that reality would do it for some kind of 'experience'. I could be horribly wrong, but I am curious anyway.

I grew up poor/working class and spent a lot of my youth in the nastier parts of Queens and the Bronx in the mid 90s. And I absolutely would!

One reason is that my background gives me a realistic (as opposed to hysterical) view of the suffering and danger in these areas. I'm not deathly afraid to get mugged, and if it happens to me yet again it's not the end of the world. And I can see past the grimy streets and homelessness to the camaraderie and warmth. I chat with random people on the bus and in the shops, and enjoy a simple friendliness which stands in marked contrast to the chilly self-conscious distance which seems to be the norm in the gentrified areas where I usually find myself.

Also, given my upbringing, I need to spend some time in such areas to maintain some feeling of rootedness. The more time I spend in gentrified areas (and I do enjoy the style and amenities!), the more I feel some drive to be surrounded by simpler, less self-conscious people and things. It feels nourishing. And I know it's probably not rational, but what's the harm?

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

#150

Post by james-watson »

jodrellblank wrote: post #110
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…

From Maciej Ceglowski Second, treating the world as a software project gives us a rationale for being selfish. The old adage has it that if you are given ten minutes to cut down a tree, you should spend the first five sharpening your axe. We are used to the idea of bootstrapping ourselves into a position of maximum leverage before tackling a problem. In the real world, this has led to a pathology where the tech secto…

Sounds like a pretty accurate implementation of a Randian Utopia.

Pure self interest isn't a difficult vector to map. The results are predictable and repeatable.

"Taxation is theft!"

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