I'd say "v for vendetta" is the closest.
“Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
201–210 of 227 posts
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#202Slightly 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 think that you should really assess your own inner self. Your thoughts, your feelings and why you react this way to someone helping others out. Do you at all refer to yourself as cynical? You probably do, and it's usually rooted in something in your past. Hoping for something that never came to fruition. We all have to deal with that but some is way more traumatic and permanent (without even realizing it is at the time) than one might think. This is a good video about it:
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#203Earlier 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?
Shame on you. I've experienced "first-world poverty", and it sucks. The solution isn't to plug our privileged tech worker ears and pretend "the poors" don't exist. The solution is to get involved with our communities, by helping the old man at the convenience store, helping the wheelchair man up the curb, and talking to the homeless who spend their entire day on the sidewalk getting ignored by everyone caught up in t…
Keep being yourself! :) These times we can use all the help, connection, community building we can get.
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#204Earlier 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?
Shame on you. I've experienced "first-world poverty", and it sucks. The solution isn't to plug our privileged tech worker ears and pretend "the poors" don't exist. The solution is to get involved with our communities, by helping the old man at the convenience store, helping the wheelchair man up the curb, and talking to the homeless who spend their entire day on the sidewalk getting ignored by everyone caught up in t…
I find this comment extremely distasteful. Who are you to "shame" another person? He's justified to his own opinion and even if his opinion is damaging, he wasn't trying to force it on anyone else. He asked two questions that are fair and thought-provoking.
Starting and ending your comment in the way you did is almost guaranteed to invoke a negative, defensive reaction from the commenter which will only further drive divisiveness (which you presumably espouse).
Also, instead of just stating the solution, try explaining WHY the solution works.
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#205Whatever 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. Boo…
What about the book, is it good?
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#206Earlier 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 would love to be in a position where I could have nothing to do with (western) poor areas and poor people. Why would I want to be in areas with high incidences of domestic violence, crystal meth abuse, alcohol abuse, muggings, sexual assault, dog-baiting, and low education?
I can't change anything. I can't help them. It's not my responsibility. I'm out and I want to put as much distance between myself and that as possible.
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#207Whatever 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. Boo…
What about the book, is it good?
It's alright. Quite short, just a novella, and a good deal less realistic. The ending was a bit contrived. I was disappointed by it overall
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 home…
On Nextdoor this week, I saw that people are raising funds to pay for dental surgery for a woman who was mugged while walking in Mission Terrace, San Francisco. And that’s not an especially bad neighborhood.
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> direct charity prevents or delays people from finding a better solution What about something like this instead? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08...
somewhat related, I live un Budapest which is quite full of homeless people. There is a program by which they distribute a magazine[0], mainly about the homeless life, and in theory with articles written by them. It's still a begging of sort, so not as good as a proper job, but I've always felt it was much more dignified than panhandling. And from the other side, it gives you the idea that people handing out the news…
Yeah, lots of places have newspapers for the homeless to sell. Of course, this doesn't work very well because most people are not very interested in actually read it. I frequently just give people money and tell them to keep the paper, because I've never learned anything useful from reading these papers. I already know what it's like to be poor and they don't provide me with any useful or interesting information beyond that. I'm not sure how useful it is to teach people how to sell something nobody actually wants, other than in some vague hope that they'll spin it into a sales job at a later date.
Re: “Children of Men”'s vision of the future is now disturbingly familiar
#210Earlier 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…
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…
There's a whole lot of projection going in your post - you're far too sure of people's guiding motivations based on a throwaway description of a momentary incident, to the point that you're now accusing another poster of weakening people in their community through willingness to lend a hand.
I also recognize that direct charity prevents or delays people from finding a better solution
You may claim that, but don't try to pass your opinion off as some universal truth that you 'recognize' while other people can't.