The Uglies #3

" 'But it's a trick, Tally. You've only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.'

'It's not programming, it's just a natural reaction. And more important that that, it's fair. In the old days it was all random - some people kind of pretty, most people ugly all their lives. Now everyone's ugly...until they're pretty. No losers.' "

Pg 131

Reaction: I think it's interesting how topic of human competition comes up again. Tally says that there are 'no losers' since 'everyone's ugly until they're pretty'. I think the thought of making society happy by having no one be better than anyone else is one of the major reoccurring themes in dystopian literature. This makes me stop and think if we really do have a problem with society today with people not being happy based on the differences of others around them. Is all of us becoming grey blobs really the only way to settle our differences in order for us all to be happy with one another?

Analysis: I think the author in a way is trying to show that society brought this on themselves much like Ray Bradbury did. Shay describes how people in the world state are almost conditioned to whats pretty and whats ugly. This shows that individual thought on beauty is completely out the window since everyone is born into 'this is what is pretty and everything else is ugly'. The 'no losers' line that the author decides to use really shows how it was society's own unhappiness with the differences in appearances that brought on a world state where everyone is pretty so therefor everybody wins. The world can only look up at the lucky few for so long before they decide to do something about it.

The Uglies #2

" 'What do you mean? Outside the city completely?'

'Yeah'

'That's crazy. There's nothing out there.'

'There's plenty out there. Real trees, hundreds of years old. Mountains. And the ruins. Ever been there?' "

Pg 71

Reaction: It's kind of interesting how many similarities dystopian novels have. When first reading Fahrenheit 451 all I could think about was how many thing reminded me of Brave New World. Now, reading this book I find myself making connections to Fahrenheit 451 instead. Shay's connection to nature reminds me of Clarrise's  connection to nature. The same way that Clarrise placed great importance in observing the little things out in nature and tried to get Montag to notice these things, Shay also seems to be getting Tally to appreciate nature the way she does. I feel like nature is repetitively used in dystopian novels as a symbol to the 'real world' in contrast to the highly technological and brain-washing characteristics of the world state.

Analysis: This passage shows an element of a dystopian society - the outside or natural world is banished or discouraged. Tally knows nothing outside of the city, and is shocked and confused when Shay asks her to come out into the wilderness with her. You can see that the normal person in this world state would place no importance in nature since Tally describes it as being 'nothing out there.' But Tally once again shows her dystopian protagonists characteristics by going against the norm in society and describing whats beyond the city as 'Real trees...Mountains. And the ruins.' Shay's connection with nature gives her a deeper connection with life and a better sense of living than she would get if she spent her time constantly anticipating the day that she'll finally become 'pretty' like Tally usually does. We can see that Shay is slowly trying to bring her friend from out from the brain-wash that society has put on Tally in order for her to appreciate other things other than just being 'pretty' or 'ugly'.

The Uglies #1

" Shay scowled. 'Why, can't you stand me? Do you need to get some picture into your head so you can imagine it instead of my face?'

'Shay! Come on. It's just for fun.'

'Making ourselves feel ugly is not fun.'

'We are ugly!'

'This whole game is just designed to make us hate ourselves.' "

Pg 65

Reaction: I thought this part was interesting because it shows the beginning of a dystopian protagonist. Shay is totally not into everything this society does while Tally is totally turned off by ugliness and can't wait to turn 'pretty'. I think the point the Shay brings up is really important - the fact that they condition people to hate themselves. I couldn't really understand at first how a society full of 'pretty' people would make a difference if everyone looked the same but the fact that they make people go through this ugly phase before turning 'pretty' shows how they control people in this society. I predict some conflicts between these 2 if they have such completely different opinions on something that's so important in this society.

Analysis: Shay talks about a main idea and important detail to know about this society. They essentially 'design people to hate themselves' so that they're completely against being ugly and look forward to turning 'pretty' at the age of 16 their whole life up until then. This society wouldn't work out if everyone was just born pretty because no would know life any other way. The fact that they condition people to hate being ugly for 16 years creates their mindset for only caring about pretty and completely hating themselves and anyone else when they're ugly. This part of the book also shows the differences between these 2 friends who share a birthday and should eventually 'turn pretty' together but might end up being teared apart due to the differences of their views in 'turning pretty'.

A War We Unleashed On Ourselves

Primary Focus: War

I'm sure we should all be very familiar with this movie - The Terminator. The fourth and most recent movie focuses on the war that happens after the machines take over in the third movie (Judgement day). The scariest part of the story of terminator is how probable it all really is. Technology is evolving fast beyond our control, it shouldn't be long before we start creating machines that surpass our own intelligence. Once we have machines that can think for themselves it'll all be downhill from there. The movie really shows how the machines (our very own creation) become much more powerful than us and seeks to destroy the human race. This is essentially 'A war we unleashed on ourselves' because we created these things to help us, and in the end it may very well be the end of us. The Terminator series definitely criticizes our use and advances in technology, and it also acts as a warning to us. If we continue to seek things more powerful than ourselves then that very own thing might be powerful enough to turn against us. Our impending doom will be from a war against the very monster we created, because in technology we could never have enough - we always want more, and eventually we may end up paying the ultimate price for that.

Dear Mr. President

Song: Dear Mr. President by P!nk

Primary Focus: Inequality/Government (how inequality is brought on by the government)


P!nk's song 'Dear Mr. President' was a message out to George Bush when he was still in office. In the song she criticizes Bush for not doing anything to help the people in need in our country. She sings "How do you sleep while the rest of us cry? How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?" She's asking how he can live with himself while so many people are suffering. She touches on inequality of rights when she sings "What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away? And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?" She's talking about how he denies gay rights so if one of his daughter turned out to be gay how could he possibly hate her and take her rights away for that? She also criticizes how his job is not 'hard work' and how the people who are suffering to star alive are the ones actually going through 'hard work' when she sings the lines "Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box"
The whole song is very powerful and critical. It really says a lot about how so much of inequality is brought on by government disapproval, prohibition, or lack of effort. Prejudice is brought on by the people, but inequality is essentially brought on by what the government allows. The future of how long inequality will persist depends a lot on how much our government can evolve, and mature beyond the prejudice of it's citizens. They have to set the example for its citizens to follow, rather than waiting for the people to learn for themselves.

IDIOCRACY!

Primary Focus: Government

Idiocracy is this crazy hilarious movie where literally everybody is stupid beyond belief.  The background story is that the main character (Joe) is put in a freezing chamber for what was supposed to be 1 year and is forgotten there for 500 years. He wakes up in a time where the human race has taken on every aspect of the definition of "dumb as a doorknob." He ends up taking some incredibly easy test in prison and is named the smartest person on the planet. We letter learn that the whole government is also run by idiots. I feel like this shows the impact of government in society. With the government run by idiots there was no possible way that anyone could get an education so everyone essentially followed in the path of the government and of society as a whole. This makes me see how much of the future is actually really dependent on our government. Having our government end up like the government in Idiocracy is an exaggeration for comical purpose but it fair to say that in the future if our government goes down then society will most likely go down with it. In a sense government is to society as a parent would be to their child. Government is very influential and if they fail to keep civilization on track or if they end sacrificing everything for stability like in "Brave New World" then we'll be facing a bleak future that will most likely contain society in a dehumanized state.

Future of Inequality

Article:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/issue_future_inequality.html

Primary Focus: Inequality

This is a short article but it did a raise an interesting question that left me thinking. "Are new technologies (e.g., internet, mobile phones, medical advances) generating new inequalities in access to information, goods, and services?" When you see the word inequality you think of race, gender, and sexual orientation as some of the main ones. But what about technology based inequalities? We live in a world run by technology but a lot of developing countries do not have the benefits (or the curse depending on how you look at it.) Another thing is that technology requires money, and for a lot of people even in the U.S. that is a major problem. The whole blog assignment is technology based - would it be considered inequality for those kids who do not own a computer at home? Sure, there's technology available to them at school or at the library but is it fair for some kids to have the comfort of being able to do their homework on their own time at home, when other kids might always have to worry to find time at the library for any computer related homework assignment based on financial stability alone? I think money definitely creates a division of inequality between people who can and cannot afford technology. It should be obvious that technology makes out everyday lives easier but, also that in more advanced countries technology may actually be REQUIRED so if you can't afford it you'll be left behind the others. The worst part is most people that can afford technology are only worried about the latest phones, while those who can't afford it miss out on the benefits of a basic computer which can contribute greatly to their education.

20 New Biotech Breakthroughs

Article:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/breakthroughs/4303407

Primary Focus: Biotechnology

This is a pretty neat article on 20 different biotechnology advances. I thought it was pretty amazing at first and that all these advances would be really helpful in medicine which in turn would help people live longer, but as I kept going down the list things started to get kind of a science fiction vibe. Things like "2.Artificial Nymph Nodes, 7.Smart Contact Lenses, 8. Speech Restorer, 14.Autonomous Wheelchair, and 20.Rocket-Powered Arms." left me wondering if this is almost TOO much advances in biotechnology for medicine. Sure, its great to be able to help people with the technology we have today but these things literally seem like they would make the person almost robotic. If someone needed to have even half of those things on that list to stay alive their body would be running more on technology than by themselves. If we need to keep adding these things to people then their physical body will literally be more robotic than human, which seems kind of counter productive. This makes me feel like there should be a limit to how much we use our medical advances, we shouldn't be using technology for people to live forever, and we shouldn't be using our technology if people basically can't live unless their whole existence depends on the machines. If we start turning humans into machines in order to live longer than we'll be literally and physical losing our humanity. Death is natural and if its not meant to be then its just not meant to be - we should not be pushing these boundaries too far.

Highway (governmental) Robbery

Primary Focus: Government

I picked these 2 images for their humor, but they really do say a lot of the government. The second one is basically saying that the government is really just a form of organised crime - in other words, they steal from the public. The first one is kind of saying the same thing except focusing more specifically on Obama and his campaign. The picture is claiming that Obama has not gone through his promises of hope and change and even though some people have lost it all you should still be sending whatever you have left to support Obama. I never thought that Obama was doing a bad job at being president but this does show how powerful images are at manipulating people's minds because even though its supposed to be funny I kind of want to drive Obama out of office now and speak up against the governments crimes on the people. Political cartoons have been criticizing the government for years and years now so I feel like the future of the government will pretty much remain the same way it has always been - quietly screwing over the people for their own benefits.

Our home - The Earth

Primary Focus: The Environment 

This picture shows a beautiful future with what seems like the perfect balance in advanced technology and environmental friendliness. On the sides we see amazing futuristic buildings and in a middle we see a long beautiful park-like strip of land field with grass and trees and small ponds, separated from the buildings by 2 long rivers. This would seem like the ideal future; and I agree it is. But this future will never happen if we keep on the path we're going. A depiction of an environmental future like this would indicate that we're actually doing things right current, which is very far from the truth. As much as I'd love a future like the picture shows, it isn't going to happen by magic. It's going to take a lot of handwork over the years and we're going to have to completely change the way we're treating the earth. Global warming is an increasing problem that most people choose to ignore. We overuse our resources that cannot regenerate fast enough and soon, we're going to run the earth dry for all that it has. The defined megacities of the world are producing way too much pollution than the earth can handle for much longer. It is important to have artists depictions like these to show what we COULD have but it is also necessarily to show what we WILL have if we continue to mistreat the earth like we're currently doing.

Did you know?

Primary Focus: Technology

This video lists a lot of really shocking facts that has to do with today's society and technology. The things shown in this video really opens your eyes to how exponential technology REALLY is. The video says that "the amount of technical information is doubling every year 2 years" which in turn means that "for students starting a 4 year technical degree will have half of what they learned in their first year of study be outdated by their third year of study." Its so scary to know that technology is actually evolving faster than we ourselves can learn it. Knowing that going for a technical degree will leave your knowledge outdated before you can even finish college really gives you something to think about, and makes it kind of seem like a waste of time. Another scary fact stated was "By 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain. Predictions are that by 2049 a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human species." The fact that in less than 40 years we'll probably have a computer that exceeds the capabilities of the entire human race really makes me feel like the movie 'Terminator' might not be as science fiction as we'd all like to think. The freakiest part of all is that this video isn't really a "depiction" of the future; it is what is bound to happen based on the exponential trends we've observed thus far. Our calculated future that this video shows really makes it seem like the times we live in now is nothing to compare to the times in 5, 10, or 20 years. What we live is now is just the very beginning of the exponential graph that very soon is going to shoot straight up beyond our control.

The Book of Eli

Primary Focus: Religion

Above is a trailer for the 2010 film 'The Book of Eli'

The Book of Eli is set in a post apocalyptic world where very few people are left and resources are scarce. The main character, Eli, is on a journey going west to deliver his book to a destination he does not even know of. We later find out that the book he is to deliver is a bible; the last remaining copy of the bible in the world. The reason that it is the last copy being that all other copies were destroyed after the nuclear apocalypse because people blamed its teachings for the war. Eli says that a voice led him to the bible and also that the same voice told him to keep heading west to deliver the bible. Eli faces many challenges and fight scenes throughout the movie which brings to the big plot twist at the end when we find out that he's actually blind, and that is he also able to recite the whole bible by memory. This plot twist brings up the theme of faith. Eli had to have enough faith in the voice of God who told him to find the bible and go west even though he was blind. In the movie religion is what is said to have driven the world to the apocalypse but it also shows that for Eli at least, religion is what kept his faith. You don't need to be religious to have faith but the movie does question if having faith is what it means to be human. Faith does not necessarily need to mean to have faith in God - it could mean having hope, having trust, being sure of your goals and dreams, or any other personal definition one might have. For a lot of people though, faith does come from and for their religion. I believe having faith is one of the things that makes us humans and in the movie that is actually well portrayed. The people in movie are essentially dehumanized and live in a very animalistic society. When the world is in ruins and only their survival instincts are at work the people lost all their humanity but by Eli was able to stand out from the rest of society with the little humanity he had left by having faith in the mission he sought to complete throughout the movie.

Retro-Futurism

Primary Focus: Technology

Retro-Futurism is very a popular way to depict visions of the future. It mixes both the past and the future to reach its unique style. It reaches towards the past and uses a "retro" style in order to make depictions of the future more interesting and different. Retro-Futuristic works of art are almost always those over the top images that we see full of things we couldn't even dream of. It usually focuses mainly on super advanced technologies filled with space travels, robots and huge metal cities with flying cars. Though the phrase "never in a million years" comes to mind when we think of these things, the retro style in the artwork makes it slightly believable that one day we will be this advanced. When looking at the 2 Retro-Futuristic images above it makes it feel like people who can actually come up with those kinds of out of this world scenery aren't really happy with the current world we live in - they want so much more. As amazing as the pictures makes a society like that look, would we ACTUALLY want to live in a place like that? Where everything is so metallic and there would be more robots around than humans? Do we REALLY need people living on the moon with TV watches? Its fair that we should all have our visions of a better future, but at the same time we should not be taking the things that we have today for granted. I sure wouldn't want a future as exaggerated as the pictures at any point, but the problem is that its almost inevitable. At this point its not up to us because we depend so much on technology that we can't control it anymore. Technology will continue to evolve into things like those in the pictures whether we like it our not. It seems as if the more technology advanced the less of our humanity we actually get to keep. We created all of technology to better our lives, but by these depictions it is clear that we actually created a monster that we have no hopes of stopping and that is going to slowly but surely take over us all as humans.

Human Extinction

Primary Focus: War

http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

 

"Killed by an extraterrestrial civilization

The probability of running into aliens any time soon appears to be very small (see section on evaluating probabilities below, and also [66,67]).
If things go well, however, and we develop into an intergalactic civilization, we may one day in the distant future encounter aliens. If they were hostile and if (for some unknown reason) they had significantly better technology than we will have by then, they may begin the process of conquering us. Alternatively, if they trigger a phase transition of the vacuum through their high-energy physics experiments (see the Bangs section) we may one day face the consequences. Because the spatial extent of our civilization at that stage would likely be very large, the conquest or destruction would take relatively long to complete, making this scenario a whimper rather than a bang."




Analysis:
The extinction of man kind is possibly one of the biggest topics in depictions of the future. Will we last or not is the main question which leads to questions like: If so, for how long? Will we be our own imminent demise?What will the human extinction look like? Many people dream of intergalactic relations but with it obviously comes the possibility of intergalactic wars. Astronomers are said to be sending out radio waves into space in hopes of having extraterrestrial life picking up the radio waves in order to find us. But the biggest concern with is, how can we know whatever we may contact our there will be friendly? The popular Tom Cruise movie War of the Worlds shows what might happen if alien life forms plot our demise - the movie shows that the humans were completely powerless to the invader's super advanced technology and our only chance of survival was when the aliens could not resist the threat of Earth's bacteria. But what if aliens DO in fact decide to attack us after picking up these radio waves being sent out into space and we stand no chance against them and the human species gets wiped out? This would be another common example of how human curiosity and technology would be our own downfall in the future. The possibility of contacting other lifeforms who we could have good relations with sounds great, but the threat that also comes with it seems to not make it worth it at all. But also whats to say that if there are aliens out there with advanced enough technology to get to us, that they don't already know about us without even needing the radio waves being sent out to space? That would be a problem completely out of our hands.

Futurama

Futurama is a comedy cartoon show similar to Family Guy or South Park. Futurama takes place in the year 3000, nearly 1000 years in to the future from present day. The video is the intro to the show which gives a good idea of the setting for anyone who has never watched it. The intro shows a number of iconic future scenes which includes spaceships flying around in the air in the city, cars that hover above the ground as they’re driving around, and people flying through giant glass tubes that takes them all around the city instead of them having to walk. Technological advances such as these are common in most people’s perception of the future but one of the things that Futurama has that is uncommon in robots and aliens walking among humans which shows a vision that in 1000 years time our civilization will be so advanced that we will be able to create robots that can act just like humans, make contact with others life forms, and even have the technology to travel to different planets. The world of Futurama is such a fun and magical world that it would seem that the creator’s perception society is that we’re on the right track, and that we’ll only continue to advance in technology that’ll better our world. While that is mostly true, there are episodes that show the downsides of having a society like Futurama. One episode touched on environmental damage which shows that they believe the environmental problems we have today will continue even in 1000 years. Another touched on the risks of being in contact with other dangerous life forms. Even though he show is mainly for comedy, it can also be interpreted as a way of saying let the cards fall where they may. The world will continue to amaze us each day, but at the same time our problems will never go away. We may never reach a utopian status but the earth may not be completely doomed like other artists may say.