this episode and others like it are made possible by the generous support of my patrons on patreon if you'd like to help support my channel and get early access to every video consider becoming a patron at patreon.com second thought Once Upon a Time the human race had a dream a vision of the future where we had evolved beyond our petty military conflicts where every human was guaranteed equal rights where we had time to spend with friends and family to pursue hobbies and trades and to do meaningful work that we enjoyed not because we had to but because tedious unpleasant labor had been handed off to automated system as we approached the year 2022 I think it's safe to say that vision is no closer today than it was a hundred years ago in fact the consensus seems to have shifted away from this utopian vision of the future and towards something much less Pleasant in this episode we're going to attempt to analyze some Trends in the United States as we creep ever closer to techno dystopia there's a trend in modern entertainment we used to see a lot of optimistic movies and TV shows where the future was depicted as bright happy and peaceful there were exceptions of course but the general feeling towards the far future was one of hope these days that's no longer the case I'd completely disagree I think it was fairly well balanced always has been so scroll through any list of movies and TV and you'll notice a pattern just about every bit of media dealing with the future now has a decidedly pessimistic tone The Hunger Games The Maze Runner not necessarily I can think of Plenty that had a positive tone you know Avatar too people say oh anti-human but people seem to not take away from that movie that humanity is now a space-faring civilization that's that's awesome how's that not somewhat positive Divergent Oblivion altered carbon snow piercer the expansion um some of these ones I I would argue with you know altered carbon sure we're dealing with one like he's sort of using he's he's taking bias here because you know subjectively you know you can cherry pick things in those universes but you could also look at those universes as being glorious right like altered carp and where people are almost Immortal there's lots of good things there so I I think he's he's being very biased and not realizing it ants even kid-friendly movies like Wally have a deeply dystopian undertone what speed all right that one was very random stuff find this trend well if you take a look around it shouldn't be hard to find the catalyst is that really so this guy's gonna blame it on you know we're generally heading in that direction I think not I think it has much more to do with humans being drawn to drama okay and what's more dramatic than our whole brand species just you know trying to kill itself movies and stories just and even people exploit that to uh get you engaged uh pay for the tickets and make money right people today are more unsure about the future than at perhaps any point in modern history every day we wake up and there's a new catastrophe massive wildfires record-breaking heat waves disappearing glaciers most definitely this is definitely happening but there's definitely a lot more media nowadays shoving you in your face and they're they're talking about it in a very different way of course and some of it is right you know great um but you can a good way to look at it probably if you don't know too much science which acts as like a good [ __ ] detector it's like you know what's happening on the left on the right you know the far ends somewhere in the middle might be what's really going on so when people are shouting Doom and Gloom and then people in the opposite side saying this doesn't even exist you know somewhere in the middle is a safe bet um but look currently with the climate it's not looking great but we've still got a while and we've got a lot of smart people who probably uh be able to come up with some you know cheeky tack that'll save everyone else's ass so you know don't don't stress but like let's also not be complacent it's melting permafrost political instability new diseases people are afraid and one way we like to cope with our fear and uncertainty is by turning off and watching a movie dystopian fiction is increasingly common these days for a couple of reasons first it's weirdly comforting we can watch Snow piercer and say well at least my life isn't that bad film and television offer us a way to engage with modern problems in a way that feels less traumatic we can watch altered carbon recognize the problems that mirror those in our own time and come away thinking yeah rapidly increasing inequality is a problem we need to address it's a more pleasant experience than watching a documentary about collapsing ecosystems and runaway climate change but it brings those same issues to mind people like to relate to what they're watching even if the subject matter is unpleasant in a way dystopian fiction performs a useful service in this regard maybe people watching movies and having very different experience right like maybe some people actually like let letting go of themselves and embracing the character whilst some people actually watch it and just look for a relatability sort of thing right I think maybe there's some truth that I've done I'm just throwing ideas out here like maybe some people watch a movie and they're like they only care if they can relate to it and if they relate to it they're they're like oh this is great like yes power to us or whatever and whereas some people the way I tend to watch movies is like just be fully immersed to the point where I forget myself and my being for a while and then I like the movie and then I come back and I'm me again I you know what I mean I thought kind of everyone I've been assuming everyone watches like that but maybe not maybe everyone's sort of just like oh I'm relating we often feel powerless in the face of monstrous crises like climate change and inequality that exceeds that of the Gilded Age but we're not as helpless as we might feel we'll get to that a bit later but first we need to take like dreams we remember which is in that favor woman's movie take a look at where to watch it the new Spielberg movie but the US stands on the dystopia timeline okay picture a generic near future dystopia what do you see grimy cities pollution crushing poverty juxtaposed against glistening neon towers and usually a handful of massive all-powerful corporations running the show that description may already be ringing alarm bells in your head but let's break it down a bit good dystopian fiction usually relies on a handful of tropes some kind of environmental collapse absurd levels of wealth inequality and Powerful technocrats ruining lives and often but not always open the planet to fund their empire and their megalomania let's evaluate the United States based on these three factors we'll start with environmental issues unless you've been living under a rock you know by now that climate change is happening and it's not looking good The Fallout from the rapid warming caused mainly by human activity will be severe and it's already begun at as of writing this script Greece has been burning for over a week and is showing no signs of stopping thousands of people have had to evacuate under Red Skies blistering heat and suffocating smoke other countries face similar conditions as we saw in Australia not too long ago coastal regions face unprecedented flooding as I saw firsthand while shooting a documentary in the Marshall Islands we're beginning to see the first climate refugees as entire regions become uninhabitable the ipcc an International Group at the Forefront of climate research has just put out their most recent paper and it's shocking you may be thinking yeah yeah I've heard this before it's true the entire scientific Community has been begging policy makers to listen for decades but guess what it's looking like it's too late the new report is full of data that even the experts didn't expect at least not so soon Glaciers are melting let's slow down here for a second hey like uh turbo this isn't looking that bad right it's it's looking bad but there's lots of ways we could innovate to definitely turn things around so people should not be so Doom and Gloom right look at what we've created right we've turned literal magic into reality we why couldn't we do that and save this place there's lots of smart people on this planet who actually care about having a future for humans and then there's a lot of people who just want to piss and moan on YouTube and don't really understand much but I'm just trying to say look it's not it's not so Doom and Gloom right even if our Advanced Society was to collapse humans will stick around it doesn't matter if the world heats up a little bit or cools down yeah no Society or advanced technology for sure but like humans will still be there so that's a positive right and then you know if that was to happen I have no doubt then eventually humans will probably kick on and survive and then rise up again one day right so it's not all doom and gloom some rates that should be happening at higher levels unfortunately if we don't get our [ __ ] together before about a billion years you know when the oceans are predicted to evaporate off this planet because the sun is getting bigger and hotter that would be a slow yep that would that would probably do it maybe we uh skip a little bit um but yeah we'll keep watching bottom line is that what's effects of climate change in fact here in the U.S the current Administration is don't get me wrong this is super important right I just didn't expect that from this video um so he's going to tie that into I think the broader political International political environment with Nations um because it is very related to what's going on for sure everyone seems to be using the climate as scapegoat for a lot of strange political Maneuvers okay so uh yeah I think it is for you to bring it up in this video actually you should come check out calvpn post Quantum VPN I've created you can get a free little trial come check it out it's got the best encryption on the internet can literally protect you from chronic computers carrying on with business as usual while Republicans will openly deny climate change to muddy the waters and keep their corporate donors happy plenty of well-meaning Americans believe the Democrats actually care they do not while they pay lip service to long-established science the Democrats are beholden to the same corporate interests as their more repugnant colleagues for example Biden recently said we can't wait to tackle the climate crisis the signs are unmistakable the science is undeniable and the cost of inaction keeps melting that's nice and yet approvals for oil drilling are on track to reach their highest level since George W Bush was president okay but anyone knows that has you know more than three brain cells that we can't just stop fossil fuel burning it's really you know driving our world currently we need the infrastructure in place before we can just sort of get rid of it they're working on it so I think you know this is a simplified view yeah take this but then also show how much an increase we are how fast we're increasing infrastructure and renewable Tech renewable energy stuff okay because that is really important we still need to increase this otherwise we risk Society collapsing this is important for people to realize people want to who have you know realized this is a problem and they want to help the climate you know movements I kind of yelling too loud without realizing we still need to increase this stuff because our populations are increasing and you know we need the world to sort of keep improving the only way to do what this guy is suggesting is completely change the system from the ground up does anyone really think that's going to happen no the only way that's going to happen is if this plays out and collapses and then from the ground up we're like all right let's do it better this time which again I don't think humans really operate it with such reason so I don't I wishful thinking but um anyway let's continue on just keep in mind this is a very simplified take because we are improving infrastructure rapidly so that's very good okay so this is a doom and gloom and it's not really a fair tank a politician's words don't mean anything if they constantly act in a way that contradicts their flowery language the situation is pretty Grim politicians understand this but they are invested often literally in the preservation of the status quo which benefits them and the rest of the Rich and Powerful read the ipcc report for yourself I've left a link in the description voting for the less awful presidential candidate isn't enough anymore while climate change is definitely the most pressing issue facing our species and many other species staring up my emotions exactly on smaller scale human-centric problems one of the most quintessential of these is the issue of rampant inequality the wealthy looking down on the unwashed masses from their glittering Towers in Altered carbon the rich have found a way to essentially become immortal the final hurdle for the elite why while the poor are left to suffer and die I love that he focused on altered carbon which is the exact one I decided to sort of think about before that's fun so the cloud top Utopias of society's Upper Crust the Quest for immortality is something that our own billionaires are absolutely pursuing there's one startup which offers plasma transfusions from the blood of young people in an effort to slow the aging process some of the more dedicated Elite like PayPal founder Peter Thiel routinely spend forty thousand dollars per quarter for blood transfusions from 18 year olds we also have the absurdly wealthy going on little Joyrides to space just because they feel like it Jeff Bezos spent 5.5 billion dollars to spend 11 minutes as far above the poor people as he could possibly get meanwhile so this is a billionaire Heading Video I guess because um you know if you've got the means to do so why not right like you've got to allow people to dream we need people trailblazing I don't get this guy is not making any sense right you know if he wants his movies to come true we need Trailblazers like Jeff and people piss and moan about this song much but it's like someone's got to do it okay like oh man people are like but he could be spending his money over here but people don't understand how money works his money is tied up in his companies and yes these people can always do more and we can we can you know force him to do more for sure but we don't need to sort of make it out as if you know this is bad just going to space like come on while his workers who do the actual labor that produces Amazon's profits face some of the most inhumane conditions in the country to get a sense of just how absurdly rich these people are consider this there was one open seat on the flight the person who had the winning bid nearly 28 million dollars canceled because of a scheduling conflict can you imagine that sorry can't make it to my 28 million dollar space flight something came up Bezos has long been the subject of intense criticism from the left but he's really done it now even older more oh man this drives me insane right I come from very I still am very poor but like you know he he's created Amazon AWS Powers a lot of the internet people have no idea how important it is uh and the way our system is set up like someone that means someone's gonna benefit greatly right do we want to just turn off the internet like do or you know maybe we can come up with better systems and when something's so important to civilization like it you know is no longer a business and become some kind of government controlled thing for sure but um ah don't attack the people attack you know the system while it's easy to point at the richest handful of people on Earth and say bad there is still tremendous inequality several rungs below them for example Jamel Brown a hospital janitor in Missouri was awarded employee of the month after Contracting kovid trying to keep other people safe for his efforts he was given a six dollar voucher to the hospital cafeteria meanwhile the CEO who has likely never set foot on the premises got a 13 raise to 30 and a half million dollars this executive receives 1 000 times the compensation of workers society called essential for six months so let's change the Health Care system okay you know like this is I I get that he's bringing attention to this which is good there's definitely a lot of silly things going on to society like you know and surgeons who are so important to everyone make so little in comparison to someone somehow just profiting off that whole industry it doesn't make a lot of sense does it and then cast aside Jamel Brown once considered an essential worker can't afford his own apartment and hasn't gotten a raise in two years absurd offensive stories like these really help to drive the point home for average Americans Our Lives continue to get worse while the already rich continue to get richer this video was taken in Venice Beach here you can see a few people in a makeshift shelter not bothering anyone with nowhere else to go being forcibly evicted by police armed with assault rifles as the country faces a wave of it's kind of strange to just bring up some video without any context like what he just said is great but you know you know how do we know these people here went I don't know doing something very dodgy right so evictions unlike anything we've ever seen remember this video this is how the homeless are treated inequality in the United States now exceeds even that of the Gilded Age The Most Extreme Verity in the country's history with every crisis the rich get richer those who consider themselves middle class lose everything and the poor but hey you know we want to complain so much to us in these Ivory Towers in western civilization and and you know we're like you know these people but if if we were to suddenly change our system and it collapses and you know are we really going to be happy about making those changes when you know we're trying to start fires with rocks again or something or uh you know they're people at the front with guns trying to steal our family to do horrific thing you know what I mean like people don't think much about how fortunate you are to find yourself in a western country that look at the history man that was brutal so much Bloodshed just to get where we are right now that could become a reality again if we just change some simple things in in society so we need to be careful about what we change um people are taking for granted how long it took to get to this thing which still clearly is not great but it is way greater than what we've previously had it has taken human history okay and people just want to make these fundamental changes without knowing what that could mean without even considering all this all the perspective uh and without really taking a good look around the rest of the world and at how much harder life could be uh it's like that quote I've always loved the word the most dangerous world view is that of someone who has not viewed the world and people like Hassan and all his you know supporters and people like him they tend to clearly not have much of a world view I don't think you really can have a good world for you if you don't even understand the world so I don't understand how we put people in power who don't have basic understanding of the way the world works that means you've got to know some Physics guys uh and you know do yourself a favor if you want to be able to comment on just about anything that means you probably need to know some Physics right physics is just learning about nature uh and people if you think that sounds arrogant you know just try it just try go learn some physics and if you don't know any and you'll be like [ __ ] right like there's so much about this simple this world that I thought and you realize how simple like the way I was looking at everything and like how everything is actually not what it seems and it's like wow if I don't understand a lot of these things it means like it's very easy to draw wrong conclusions I could go on for days but anyway I think that's enough of this video
2023-01-06