Crappy Hollywood Movies And The Future Of Humanity
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 3:25PM I got to read Anatoly Karlin's suggestions on how to survive in future of dwindling resources. I have also been treated to a trailer of yet another stupid Hollywood production suggesting we may be invaded by aliens. When I read Anatoly's predictions, I pretty much agree with them, although I think that there is a way to alleviate the possible hardships resulting from the depletion of resources here. If you are a long time reader, you probably know what my thoughts on the film Independence day are. The producers of this latest Hollywood crap are not going to see my money, that is unless I find a DVD of their flick for 4 pounds on Heathrow Airport. At present I am waiting for Shogun II to download.
Frankly speaking I have not seen Avatar either. But from what I heard about the plot, it makes more sense. In it the blue creatures actually have a fictional resource which the humans need. In the new flick the resource the aliens want apparently is water. Indeed, the script writers were unable to come up with anything of value on this planet. But there is plenty of water on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. That is if the script writers ever heard about such a thing. Not to mention water scattered in one form or another across the Solar System. We now also suspect some planets outside the Solar System having water on their surface. Any spacefaring civilisation with the ability to travel between stellar systems, and perhaps even galaxies, has no need for our planet's meagre resourcees.
If we ever got to colonise several stellar systems and perhaps even reach other galaxies, then we might contemplate coming into conflict with another such civilisation. Meanwhile we can't even get out of Earth's orbit. But getting beyond the ISS is what we must do if we are to have any bright future on Earth. At present, only our robotic explorers are doing anything as such. Think of them as our modern day Christopher Columbuses or Vasco da Gamas. We however need conquerors and exploiters, Corteses and Pizarros, be they robots or humans, as long as they do the job it does not matter. They will not be conquering the Incas and taking their gold, they will be conquering gravity and taking whatever the riches are found out there. And believe me, there are many.
Reader Comments (13)
I think the "resource depletion" scenario advocates are a bit myopic. They seem to have no conflidence in humanity being able to harness new technologies to overcome the inherent restrictions in our planet's ability to feed us, as well as weaning ourselves off our unsustainable and dangerous dependence on fossil fuels. Also, they only seem to concentrate on the resources available here on earth, while ignoring that not that far out in our own solar system, there is enough resources to sustain human civilisation in its current form for literally billons of years.
I just read Anatoly Karlin's blog post and had a good laugh! He advocates learning computer programming in preparation for an "end of civilisation" scenario. I mean; seriously? Also, being buff and fit or even a Krav Maga expert won't help you much against the government remnants, biker gangs and churches-come-mafia-brotherhoods of the future. I think this guy has a much more realistic appreciation of what a full or partial breakdown of our current society would look like:
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-apocalypse-never/
Films and video games I am bored to death of are:
1) Zombies
2) Modern war
We still have the comedy the Georgia war movie will likely be and there is the pointless Red Dawn remake that has now changed the villain from China to Koreans which people are complaining about if China either has the capacity or reason to invade the US.
It would have been more interesting if the US invaded China after a false flag attack.
I would like to see an Islamic Dawn movie where Russia is engulfed in civil war and the US, Britain and other countries backed by NATO support the jihadists against Russia and bring about the NWO.
“In the new flick, the resource the aliens want apparently is water. Indeed, the script writers were unable to come up with anything of value on this planet.”
Have you seen the Mel Gibson movie Signs?
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/dw/topten/19028-top-ten-worst-moments-in-signs
Great movie plots Jack! But seriously; did they really change the villain in the Red Dawn remake from China to Korea?? That doesn't make sense at all! Do you have a link?
The original Red Dawn was a dog of a movie anyway.
@YouKnowWho
http://www.filmjunk.com/2011/03/17/red-dawn-remake-changes-enemy-from-china-to-north-korea/
How about this for a byline >Islamic Dawn: Jihad is coming!
Here is some of the possible cast:
Danny DeVito - Boris Berezovsky
Andy Garcia - Mihail Shakashvilli
I will have to think of who would play President Palin, Doku Umarov, Brzezinski, Putin and Medvedev.
I have forgotten the former Mayor of Moscow’s name but if he was still in power he would have been played by Bob Hoskins.
@ YouKnowWho
I am also optimistic that humanity will develop lots of alternatives. But this is not what need. We need more stuff to put it simply. Perpetual growth...
Re - Comments
On the matter of being buffed to be effective during difficult times, it has been advocated that weights should be removed from prisons, in conjunction with a diet of potato salad, macaroni and cheese and chocolate chip cookies.
Predicting the future seems to often involve back to the future notions. One current back to the future fad is the caveman diet:
http://www.cavemanpower.com/food/caveman_power_diet.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet
That diet is also associated with a way of fitness:
http://www.cavemanpower.com/
Makes sense. It involves physical movement from different angles, as opposed to lifts and moves that tend to be more straight forward.
Concerning the politics behind on screen imagery:
US Vision of Villains Versus Heroes Not Just on Screen
http://en.huanqiu.com/opinion/observer/2011-03/634541.html
Such changes occur elsewhere. I understand that when aired in Germany, the movie "Die hard: With a Vengeance," changes the ethnicity of the bad guys from Germans to Russians:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112864/
Good action movie.
A follow-up:
The matter of dwindling resources concerns a proper gauging, which includes different possibilities.
On the surface, some might conclude that an aspect of the caveman diet (eating land and water animals) isn't as easily likely in the future. Keep in mind the technology behind farms which scientifically manage the number of land and water animals for food consumption. The projected overall global population increase also includes a population decline in some parts of the world - in some areas which have the more advanced of living conditions. Some species of animals are currently experiencing a rapid population increase in the wild. Among them is the wild boar. In North America, this animal has also grown in size.
I think simple skills for survival could be quite usefull during a full or partial breakdown of civilisation. Primary among these would be knowledge of how to get drinkable water, or growing your own food. There are many examples from war and other adverse contitions which illustrate this point. In Nazi-occupied Europe during WWII for example, city parks were plowed up to set potatoes, people picked berries and mushrooms in the forest, and kept rabbits on their balconies for meat. Also, in many republics of the former USSR (and especially after the Soviet collapse) even urban and educated people had to fall back on various forms of subsistence farming to make ends meet.
Getting buff in prison makes sense, because it's a close quarters environment where the access to sophisticated weapons is very limited. Most fighting will therefore be hand-to-hand where personal strength, agility and skills in unarmed combat will matter. Still, no amount of strength or skills will help you if you don't have organisation, i.e. a lot of fellow prison inmates to back you up. That's why gangs are so important in prison.
As for the rest of society, when some of these prisoners get released, the prison experience of no weights and a diet of potato salad, macaroni and cheese and chocolate chip cookies makes sense - in addition to a prison structure that would severely limit if not eliminate altogether gangs and violence among inmates. The current prison structure seems to often encourage greater criminality, upon the release of prisoners.
On another point, as someone said to me: during WW II, every Soviet citizen was a soldier, regardless of age and sex.
Thanks for the mention, Leos.
@YKW,
"They seem to have no conflidence in humanity being able to harness new technologies..."
Not "no confidence", but *qualified* skepticism. There are scenarios in which growth is maintained and scenarios in which collapse becomes inevitable.
"He advocates learning computer programming in preparation for an "end of civilisation" scenario"
I didn't say it was an end of civilization scenario. Collapses come in different forms, from an economic collapse like the Soviet Union or Argentina in 2002 (when black markets and barter become important and poverty and crime increase); to major degradation in civilizational complexity (like the collapse of the Roman Empire); to complete extinction (like Norse Greenland).
I certainly see no end-of-civilization collapse in the next decade. However, I do think there is a non-negligible chance of defaults, high inflation and prolonged recessions in most parts of the developed world. My suggestions were largely geared for the latter scenario.