The movie “Soylent Green”: shows what life in an American city might be like in a future where the global overpopulation problem has gotten much worse. The movie is often talked about for its story and the surprise ending within that setting. I think the picture it paints of that possible future is much more valuable than the particular details in the plot of the story.
I originally saw this movie as a small boy. Its vision of the future still haunts me to this day. From the nonfictional things I have been exposed to I believe life in America could very much look like this someday unless we change our ways. The images from this film have always been in the back of my mind.
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Mmm…free soylent green! I can really taste the people!
PW
Never heard of spoilers, eh?
If you look at the title of the Google video post, it’s “Soylent green is people”. So I don’t really think I’m giving anything more away…
And besides, by now most people know about the “It’s People!!!!” part even if they haven’t seen the movie because it’s been parodied the hell out of in the 30 or so years after it came out…
PW
yeah… i’ve never seen it, but always heard “soylent green is people!”
my dad also said that when i first went veg and had tofu… (soy)
Watch it! It is a classic. It is a good movie and it is free! 🙂
Everybody knows it’s people. But I’ve never seen the whole movie through either. I will do so now! Thanks!
I’m older than you lot. Not only can I remember watching “Soylent Green” when it was a new film, I can remember reading “Make Room! Make Room!” not all that long after it was a new book.
Harry Harrison’s novel was set in 1999, and what actually happened in 1999 bore no more resemblance to the novel than what “happened” in George Orwell’s “1984” bore to the actual events of 1984. “Soylent Green” is set in 2022, and I venture to suggest that nothing like what it depicts will happen in 2022. I am prepared to lay considerable odds, but anyone who wants to take the bet should be warned that I may not be around to pay off – or to collect. You see, I am older than you lot.
Since person first became capable of utterance, it has predicted the end of the world if we do not amend our ways. All such predictions have proven false. This would be an encouraging trend, but for the fact that…
The human population of Earth reached 1 billion in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974 and 5 billion in late 1986 and it is now at 6.84 billion.
I don’t think it makes any difference whether or not an undesirable situation will arrive on time or happen later than predicted. It is still an undesirable situation.
The world may not end, but it will change in horrible ways. Maybe younger people who do not remember things as being better will not feel it and will still find ways to be happy. Just because people don’t appreciate what is lost doesn’t mean it is not lost.
Even a few years ago the idea that there might not be polar bears and that the oceans would be dead seemed unbelievable to me. Now I read about those things all of the time in the news. I’m sure someone born today who grows up in a world without polar bears or living oceans will not feel the same sense of tragedy that I do. However, those things are still lost. It is objective and it is measurable.
I guess what I am trying to convey is that when people say ” – and the world did not come to an end” I think they really mean ” we have happy moments and we do not spend hours a day lamenting over what is lost “. That is true, but things, good things still are lost.
Many people do not care about things beyond their own lives. Many people do and of those who do it is important that not only is there a future with living human beings, but one with a decent world passed onto them.
The reason the population is growing so much faster today than it was before 1800 is not because people today are dumber or less virtuous or less respectful than people back then, but because we’ve made it so much easier to survive to adulthood without dying of cholera or starving when the rains don’t come or being hacked to death by invading Vikings. Certainly, disease and hunger and war still affect many people’s lives, but not as badly as they used to. That we have the luxury of worrying about the extinction of the polar bears as a “horrible” development is, I’d say, evidence of just how easy we have it these days.
And certainly, the modern world has its own problems that didn’t exist a few centuries or generations or decades ago. It’s like how we don’t have to worry these days about finding enough food, but we do worry about eating too much and getting fat. I’ll take the modern worries over the ancient worries any day.
You imply that people tend to forget that good things have been lost. I say that people also tend to forget that bad things have been lost.
I think the idea of “every generation has its set of problems, so it balances out” is dangerously comforting. You can’t bring extinct species and many types of environment back. That is forever. We will be stuck without those plants, without those animals and stuck with some dead zones.