Apocalypse Movie
This movie may be one of the best ever made, partly because it is so realistic. It is more about fear of the apocalypse and doubts about sanity. The young man is happily married and has a daughter who has health problems. His mother suffers from clinical paranoia. His visions begin to tear up his family.
Lately the idea of financial apocalypse seems more frightening. The famines in Ethiopia of the mid 1980's, and the devastating famines of 1959-1961 in China all had economic reasons. The possibility of a billion people dying because of worthless currency, distribution problems, corruption, and misplaced economic efforts looking for stable fiat money seems more real.
I think one of the most famous lines in Julius Ceasar is:
Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
But it is the vision of a population too tired to care anymore that always strikes me as more frightening.
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd {cut in pieces} with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell {fierce} deeds
I agree there is far too much on this zombie/vampire stuff now. Heck, Zombie Dances are now popular at music festivals. Absurd!!
Of course, I tend to think of the Dog Fight in Brooklyn stuff rather than Civil War in China. Famine in China, Tsunami in Indonesia, ... I won't be turning the channel for something like that. I just don't think the World matters.
Quote: pacomartinThe possibility of a billion people dying because of worthless currency, distribution problems, corruption, and misplaced economic efforts looking for stable fiat money seems more real.
Corruption is so wide spread now, and everybody has their
hand out for what they think governments owe them, its
hard to think anything good will come out of this. Look at
the Solyndra scandal, it was a blatant ripoff of half a billion
dollars, and people are acting like 'so what', they expect
that kind of thing, quit making a big deal out of it. Its
like people in a casino don't want to understand how the
games work, people in this country don't want to know
where the money comes from. They just take for granted
it will always be there.
Quote: FleaStiffI just don't think the World matters.
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds
fell== fierce
custom==grown accustomed to
Now if you want to make a movie about famine so as to make a profit for yourself, that is fine.
Or if you want to stockpile grain so as get rich selling it to the starving masses, that is fine.
If you want to profit from world-wide currency collapse that is fine.
But if you truly want World Peace that is very, very fell indeed, particularly to the Arms Merchants.
Not to me. I don't even think there are a billion people or anywhere near that number. Economic collapse? I wonder what the ordinary Dutchman felt about the collapse of the Tulip Mania?Quote: pacomartinThe possibility of a billion people dying because of worthless currency, distribution problems, corruption, and misplaced economic efforts looking for stable fiat money seems more real.
Quote: FleaStiffNot to me. I don't even think there are a billion people or anywhere near that number.
I am not sure what this statement means. We will celebrate 7 billion people on the planet late this year or early next. In another 14 years there will be 8 billion and in another 16 year there will be 9 billion.
The Western Hemisphere (Northern and Latin America combined) remain relatively empty, and are not predicted to break one billion before the year 2018, but both the countries of China and India are well over a billion people, as well as the continent of Africa.
The great plagues of yesteryear, 100 million in the Black Death of 1375, or possibly 100 million in the influenza pandemic of 1917-1918 will barely slow down the population growth today. Births outnumber deaths by roughly 78 million babies this year.
Quote: pacomartinI am not sure what this statement means. We will celebrate 7 billion people on the planet late this year or early next. In another 14 years there will be 8 billion and in another 16 year there will be 9 billion.
Interesting. In his 50s-era novel "The Caves of Steel," Isaac Asimov poses an "overpopulated" Earth of 8 billion people. The population "problem" is so bad that it forces people to live entirely in underground cities for energy economy, and most people survive on a diet of yeast-derived food; naturally everything's rationed to hell and gone.
I think that was Asimov's combination liberal-claustrophiliac wet dream.
Quote: Nareed
Interesting. In his 50s-era novel "The Caves of Steel," Isaac Asimov poses an "overpopulated" Earth of 8 billion people. The population "problem" is so bad that it forces people to live entirely in underground cities for energy economy, and most people survive on a diet of yeast-derived food; naturally everything's rationed to hell and gone.
I think that was Asimov's combination liberal-claustrophiliac wet dream.
I remember reading that book as a kid. Strangely, if the population had kept on growing at the rate it was in 1954 when the book was published, the population would already be at 8 billion.
Perhaps Isaac will be more correct than we hope in 15 years when we do reach 8 billion.
It appears it is almost as much as dumb luck as anything.
Quote: rxwineHey, predicting the future accurately decades from now is no easy job.
It appears it is almost as much as dumb luck as anything.
What seems intriguing about this film is the sense of grim foreboding that reaches an ordinary man with a family that he loves. When we seemingly averted a nuclear apocalypse and became the world's only superpower, you would have thought that we would feel more secure. The prospect of anarchy and collapse seems more real now, then it ever did 20 years ago.
Quote: rxwineHey, predicting the future accurately decades from now is no easy job.
"I'm not trying to predict the future. I'm trying to prevent it." Attributed to Ray Bradbury
"The future isn't what it used to be." I forget whom.
Quote: pacomartinPerhaps Isaac will be more correct than we hope in 15 years when we do reach 8 billion.
Oh, we'll reach 8 billion, no question. What strikes me as alarmist, looking back on it, is the casual assumption that sucha population level would reduce humanity to extreme measures, strict population control, and rationing of everything from food to the use of water.
Asimov also dreamt up the planet Trantor as capital world of a galactic empire. It also builds underground, but it's a hig-tech world with 40 billion people in it. Still, he used it as the setting for the launch of the FOundation Saga, which is about the fall of the empire to begin with.
I think I should start seriously developing my Dyson Sphere idea...
Quote: NareedOh, we'll reach 8 billion, no question. What strikes me as alarmist, looking back on it, is the casual assumption that sucha population level would reduce humanity to extreme measures, strict population control, and rationing of everything from food to the use of water.
Have you tried having two kids in China, or watering your lawn in Las Vegas? Controls are already in place at 5 billion, 8 is really going to hurt.
Quote: AyecarumbaHave you tried having two kids in China, or watering your lawn in Las Vegas? Controls are already in place at 5 billion, 8 is really going to hurt.
Last I heard we passed 6 billions a while ago.
But ahve you tried to have two kids in India? Or watering your lawn in Florida?
Quote: NareedBut ahve you tried to have two kids in India? Or watering your lawn in Florida?
Regarding India:
Quote: NOVA "Population Campaigns"
In the 1970s, the government declared a population "state of emergency," began implementing forced sterilizations in the nation's poorest regions, and even rewarded medical workers who performed the most operations.
As for watering your lawn in Florida:
Quote: South Florida Water Management DistrictWith regional water levels falling and no significant rainfall forecast in the coming weeks, South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) Executive Director Carol Ann Wehle signed orders declaring a water shortage in South Florida....
The water shortage orders, which are effective on Saturday, March 26, include:
• A two-day-a-week schedule for residential landscape irrigation throughout the
District. Helping to relieve impacts on surface and groundwater sources, the
order provides consistency for the District’s 7.7 million residents. It is also
consistent with Florida’s neighboring water management districts and
municipalities that are currently following a two-day watering schedule.
Landscape irrigation accounts for half of all potable (drinking) water use in
South Florida.
Quote: AyecarumbaRegarding India:
When you grant the governmetn the power to things for you, you've also granted it the power to do things to you. Yet people favor granting such power.
Quote:As for watering your lawn in Florida:
That's a temporary drought. Most of Florida has a surplus of water. Vegas, in contrast, is in the middle of a desert with limited water supplies, even counting Lake Mead (and there's a drought, too). The situations are not comparable.
So let's get back to it: what authoritarian and totalitarian governments do is not indicative of the state of the planet, nor are temporary rainfall conditions.
