The Utopia
The first future we'll consider is also the rosiest. It presumes a steady betterment of society, culminating in a reduction of social, economic, and personal shortcomings to the point that the world is essentially perfect, at least when compared to today. The clearest manifestation of this picture of the future can be found in Star Trek, though cracks in the Utopian facade become apparent at various points in the different franchise series. Money has (mostly) ceased to exist, as have most forms of human want.
Free of the burdens of, well, reality, man is free to tap into his inner nobility. People are explorers, scholars, philosophers. Peace reigns. In short, this is the future everyone dreams of but, perhaps secretly, most people don't believe is truly possible.
The Technocracy
Next we come to a slightly different picture of the future. Like most examples of The Utopia, The Technocracy boasts large technological advances that have forever altered society. However, the Technocracy has significant dystopian characteristics. While technology has--to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke--reached a point where it is indistinguishable from magic, it has created a world that is increasingly cold, impersonal, and perverse. Human beings exist but their humanity is slowly melting away. Movies like Minority Report--in which people are preemptively jailed based on technology-provided predictions of future guilt-- and Gattaca--in which destinies are shaped by a sort of technologically-ascertained genetic determinism--give us glimpses of such a future.
In some forms of The Technocracy, technology has supplanted God as an object of devotion and worship. In the most unsettling versions of this future, man himself has, in essence, become God with technology left, ironically, to provide the humanity that man has come to lack. 2001: A Space Odyssey famously features a computer, HAL 9000, who acts in a more human manner than the two detached, emotionless human astronauts with whom he is Jupiter-bound. I'll touch on Ray Kurzweil's non-fiction picture of a future Technocracy later but for now I'll mention that he foresees a fusion of man and technology to the point where essentially a new species is born.
The Wasteland
This future inherently assumes that the hubris of man will lead to his downfall. In The Wasteland, the human race has been partially or mostly destroyed and the remnants of humanity are locked in a constant struggle for survival. In most incarnations, it is the inevitable outcome of the Technocracy. For example, in Terminator and The Matrix the creation of advanced artificial intelligence ultimately backfires and leads to the destruction of much of the human race. In 12 Monkeys, human tampering with dangerous viruses kills most of the population and drives the survivors to a primitive existence underground.
The Wasteland is invariably post-apocalyptic. Regardless of whether he retains a measure of technological prowess, man has regressed substantially. His (perhaps foolish) primary goal is to regain what has been lost, often without any clear conception of how he will prevent history from repeating itself. I would classify the future depicted in the original Planet of the Apes as The Wasteland because it contains numerous themes of rebuilding a fallen society (the astronauts' entire voyage is designed for such purposes: of the woman astronaut, Charlton Heston explains "She was to be the new Eve" and it seems clear he has similar designs on the mute future-human Nova).
The Hellhole
In this future, the excesses of humanity have run amok. Unlike in The Wasteland, however, these excesses haven't necessarily all but destroyed man: they have merely made his existence miserable. Exploding populations, dwindling resources, and growing environmental devastation combine to lower the average standard of living. Soylent Green exemplifies this future. As Charlton Heston realizes just a bit too late, "The ocean is dying, the plankton is dying… It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Soon, they'll be breeding us like cattle—for food."
This overcrowded, under-supplied future can lead to a different level of self-awareness than The Wasteland. While Wastelanders think of little else than rebuilding their pre-Fall society, Hellholers understand that their path is irreversible. Their world has a set of new--largely unpleasant--constraints on it that must simply be accepted. The environment cannot be repaired, the population can only be curbed through very unpleasant corrections (e.g. famine and war). Whether or not we take responsibility for our mistakes (or make any sort of amends), we pay for them. And it is impossible to ignore or forget this fact.
Corporatocracy
The last picture of the future might be the most disturbing because it hits so close to home. In the corporatocracy, power is concentrated largely (perhaps almost exclusively) in the hands of amoral corporations. The Alien franchise is the clearest example of this future. The sinister Weyland-Yutani corporation habitually endangers the lives of its crews and colonists in the pursuit of "the perfect organism," presumably so that they may construct the perfect weapon. The Corporation either has its own private military or it has jurisdiction over military matters (I'd have to see Aliens again to know for sure).
This is a future in which individuals do not matter. We have ceded our moral authority--indeed, ourselves--to stateless, conscience-less, profit-seeking organizations. Men and governments have given way to shareholders and corporations.
Of course, not all sci-fi movies are easily classified because many blur the lines between these categories. Blade Runner, for example, has elements of all of these archetypes (except, of course, The Utopia). It's a Technocracy but with terrible side effects of its technological advances hinting at a slow lurch toward The Wasteland. At the same time, there are hints of a corporatist society that faces many of the problems characteristic of the Hellhole. These rules are all sort of fast-and-loose but I think they generally hold. If I've forgotten any categories, let me know.
This post wouldn't be complete if I didn't throw in a reference to the predictions of inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil. I haven't read his books so my knowledge of these predictions extends no further than that wiki article. But it's clear that Kurzweil expects The Technocracy and, while he eagerly awaits it, I find his predictions deeply unsettling. In the future Kurzweil envisions, technology redefines existence far more than in even the most ambitiously Technocratic future captured on film. Here's a sample of what he believes the year 2099 will be like (notice how that final bullet point neatly sidesteps the possibility of the Technocracy giving way to The Wasteland):
● Humans and machines merge together in the physical and mental realms. Cybernetic brain implants enable humans to fuse their minds with AI's.
● In consequence, clear distinctions between humans and machines no longer exist.
● Most conscious beings lack a permanent physical form.
● The world is overwhelmingly populated by AI's that exist entirely as thinking computer programs capable of instantly moving from one computer to another across the Internet (or whatever equivalent exists in 2099). These computer-based beings are capable of manifesting themselves at will in the physical world by creating or taking over robotic bodies, with individual AI's also being capable of controlling multiple bodies at once.
● Individual beings merge and separate constantly, making it impossible to determine how many “people” there are on Earth.
● This new plasticity of consciousness and ability for beings to join minds seriously alters the nature of self-identity.
● The majority of interpersonal interactions occur in virtual environments. Actually having two people physically meet in the real world to have a conversation or transact business without any technological interference is very rare.
● Organic human beings are a small minority of the intelligent life forms on Earth. Even among the remaining Homo sapiens, the use of computerized implants that heavily augment normal abilities is ubiquitous and accepted as normal. The small fraction of humans who opt to remain "natural" and unmodified effectively exist on a different plane of consciousness from everyone else, and thus find it impossible to fully interact with AI's and highly modified humans.
● "Natural" humans are protected from extermination. In spite of their shortcomings and frailties, humans are respected by AI's for giving rise to the machines.
Scary stuff. Any thoughts on which one of these possible futures is most likely to come to pass?
Kurzweil's predictions of the future are, indeed, highly unsettling. The only future in science fiction that his thoughts seem to parallel is that of the Borg Collective in Star Trek.
ReplyDeleteI've read an interview of his before and was seriously creeped out by it. Especially his ideas of the lack of a physical self. We define ourselves by our corporeal well being, by the ideas of "I." This is part of what made the Borg so evil. Their pursuit was to destroy the self, to make everyone the same, all but one consciousness. Clearly this is unacceptable to most human beings, so I'm not exactly sure how Kurzweil thinks that this extrordinary broach of Human identity will occur.
That being said, I think it would be neat if it happened to someone else...
The Borg are exactly what I thought of when I read that wiki article (mostly because Kurzweil's "waking up the universe" concept involves spreading through the entirety of the universe and turning all matter into a computer...).
ReplyDeleteTJ and I were talking the other day about whether people would accept the kinds of changes Kurzweil envisions (particularly since they take place on such a small timescale in his picture of the future). I tend to think they might and I used the analogy of the frog in the water that's slowly brought to a boil. Technological changes--even huge ones--have a way of seeping into our lives, even if initially we're not particularly interested in--or even aware of-- them. In a sense, it sort of goes back to the discussion you two were having about competition in that SETI post. Competitive pressures will still exist among people; once a few people start getting implants that turn them into faster, smarter human beings, then you get a Gattaca-esque situation where "normals" are at a disadvantage and there's pressure to give in to technology just to keep up with the Joneses.
It's ok, though. If technology takes this road (fusing people and machines), TJ and I are going to start the NeoLuddite resistance movement. We'll spread the Gospel of Fry: "There comes a time for every man who becomes rich and deserts his friends, when he goes back how it was" (clearly this is a metaphor for technology turning people away from their humanity--at least, that's how I'll choose to read it).
Viva la resistance.
ReplyDeleteReading Kurzweil's predictions a 2nd time, I found an interesting irony. His prediction of the "merging" of consciousness through virtual interactions would theoretically make humans more connected to one another than ever. There would be no more lack of understanding or people just not "getting" you.
What I find ironic, though, is that for some reason humans need (or at least prefer) interactions in a bodily, face-to-face form. There's very little difference between an institution like eHarmony.com and singles bars (or arguably bars in general), yet even after eHarmony's proven safety and success many people still frown at the idea and prefer more "natural" (going to bars and clubs I guess?) ways of meeting significant others (I can't hyperlink the source, but on average 236 people get married each day who met each other on eHarmony). The cars, the internet, and cell phones make us more connected than ever, and yet cases of depression continue to rise, even among younger people who are more used to the increasingly technologically-connected world.
I'm not saying that people will avoid changes such as the "merging" of individuals in the future (in fact, I think most people will embrace it), but I also don't think it's anything that will make us feel more legitimately connected or necessarily improve our happiness with our lives.
I think you've defined and categorized the Hollywoodized possibilities very well; however, I think there's another path that humanity might follow that movies and literature don't address, largely because it's not very dramatic. I'll get to that in a second. The key I think is this "uh oh" line, some point of no return that writers see humanity heading towards. In the case of your Wasteland and Hellhole categories, the line has been crossed and civilization's crumbled. The Technocracies and Corporatocracies, on the other hand, are perilously close to that line--if you look hard, you might still see some benefits, but mostly, things are bad.
ReplyDeleteMaybe in the case of Terminators taking over, there is a definite point of no return, but in most other cases, I can't see the line being one that we might accidentally cross one day. With many of the current disaster candidates--global warming, exhaustion of fossil fuels, nuclear war--most rational people are aware of the threats and organizations are working towards solutions. Meanwhile, the uh oh line for these threats is still a long way away (especially considering what Kurzweil states as possible within 100 years).
I think we can all agree that there are limits to the Earth's resources, but I think naturally humanity levels off. The population is exploding in many parts of the world, but many of the places where technology suggests being more "futuristic"--US, W. Europe, Japan--growth rates are low, even negative. Instead of the uh oh line being crossed or threatened, I think the possibility is there simply for a plateaued society lasting well into the immediate future (once we reach scales of 1000s of years, most predictions are likely meaningless). Technology, populations, even problems have grown, maybe society's even taken on some characteristics of the "-ocracies" (after all, we really already show many of their traits), but natural forces and the human spirit have resisted the level of dystopia present in most movies. As I said, far more boring than movies want, but maybe boring is our fate.
I have some thoughts on Kurzweil. I'm going to post them separately.
I agree that it's possible that things (population growth, resource consumption, etc) will simply level off at some point without any large-scale--potentially catastrophic--changes occurring, but there are a few reasons that may be unlikely. It seems to me that this possibility is predicated on the assumption that we can simply extrapolate future consumption levels from current ones. In other words, it's based on a model in which the Western nations consume as much as they want and the vast majority of the world's population lives at or near the brink of starvation. But several developing nations are starting to flirt with Western-style consumption and that doesn't bode well for us--we've gotten a tiny taste recently of the effects an increased demand for cars (and thus oil) in India and China can have.
ReplyDeleteThe way we civilized capitalists have come up with to ration scarce resources is through price: the highest bidder gets the prize. But sometimes in our greed--or out of simple desperation--we allow the thin veneer of civilization to briefly slip away. We could argue without end over the question of whether the decision to launch a recent military conflict in a certain nation was influenced by the possibility of gaining access to the rivers of black gold flowing beneath said nation's deserts. But other cases are a bit less murky: it seems clear that drought and dwindling water resources helped inflame ethnic tensions in Darfur with tragic results. Regardless of the policy interventions the U.S. and the global community design in an effort to minimize the effects of climate change, it seems likely at this point that a period of continued warming is irreversible. It sounds alarmist to point out the likely effects but I'll name a few anyway: an increased range for infectious diseases that had heretofore been limited to certain equatorial regions by cold-sensitivity, shrinking reserves of fresh water in many areas (e.g. those affected by drought or the permanent melting of glaciers), and increasingly erratic weather events. The end result is that some nations/peoples are going to increasingly find themselves with inadequate supplies of food, water, and medicine for their populations. Unfortunately these are things you can't simply ration through prices; these are things you attempt to attain through violence if the need arises. Thus I tend to think this century will easily surpass the 20th century as the bloodiest in human history.
It's true that population growth has dropped off sharply in the developed nations but that's largely due to the rise of the dual-earner household (and so indirectly due to changing attitudes toward women and their place in the labor force) in those nations; with both partners working, people choose to delay having children and ultimately have fewer children than previous generations did. Of course, the whole thing sort of balances itself out: the increased prevalence of dual-earner households has led to falling population growth but, I suspect, it has pushed consumption levels in the West ever higher.
All that said, I think your scenario might actually lend itself well to several of the sci-fi futures, Andrew. A plateaued society at or near the planet's capacity for human beings could easily fit the bill for The Hellhole. Or a plateaued society in which technology has saved us from our own excesses and destructive tendencies (restoring the veneer of civilization) might rightly worship technology--figuratively, I think--as a god. Or we might consider the possible price of achieving and sustaining a plateau: control of resources becomes ever more important, providing those with the means to acquire them (say, corporations) ever more power over society. I think even a relatively tame plateaued society can lead to the sort of sci-fi nightmares we'd rather avoid, though obviously it isn't necessarily so.
But just in case: remember--Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
P.S. Good to have you aboard, Andy (er, Andrew).
ReplyDelete