Image Credit: David Moyer, Behance
During high school, I was a fan of Soylent-based feeding. It saved me time to focus on my projects and experiments. As long as I could financially afford to supply Soylent, I continued to feed in that way. So, as a person fed by Soylent for years, watching a dystopia about a Soylent-based community was an interesting intersection.
In the movie, Soylent was not an alternative method but a mandatory way to feed the skyrocketing population. As we know, many dystopias, unequal wealth distribution, and the rich and poor live different lives.
The movie was an attention catcher in two aspects: the actors’ performance and the core message. It was one of the first publicized productions linked with a climate change concept. Classical Malthus perspective didn’t know about climate change and didn’t presume climate migration. A movie that connects the climate and population is noteworthy for the 70s.
So, I wanted to continue over by deriving the story here;
1. Pessimistic but Valid Assumptions
The story is based on a classic estimation of the world population. According to the development of the economy and scientific discoveries, the population growth rate started to rise until the 60s and 70s. So, any forecast before the 70s was pessimistic about the population, its needs, and a world with less peace and more conflict.
Image Credit: Our World in Data
But after a while, the growth rate started to decelerate. The reasons might vary, but the increased complexity of lives, increased cost of living, lack of space, etc, directed people to make fewer children.
Pessimistic approaches just considered some data points, extrapolated them, and saw an existential problem.
Pessimistic Approach:
Population growth > Increased Demand > Insufficient Supply > Conflicted World
Reality:
Increased urbanization > Increased Demand > Less Supply > Higher cost of living > Reduced Population Growth
It’s hard to predict the future like Hari Seldon. In our case, the markets have regulated the growth. Or the pessimistic forecasts make governors have a plan for population control practices. Nobody can calculate the effects of the practices.
As Eisenhower said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” Actions to prevent pessimistic forecasts are everything, but plans to prevent things are nothing valuable. As non-valuable things are easy to change, plans could be easy to change.
Humanity has almost cleared the risk of a “Soylent Green” future, but climate migration causes a “Something Green” future. I wish to have a plan for a “Green Green” future.
2. No Need for an Adventure for knowledge but Need for action
There was a group of people called “exchange” who were interested in books in a world where no new books were pressed. They were cross-referencing the sources, and they were kind of aware of the situation. They were not folks who would kickstart a revolution, but the main character wanted to pass the actual evidence to them.
There were no social media to share, there was a centralized source of knowledge from the society. We don’t know much about whether they’re a hobbyist group or a group of wise people who have been consulted by society. But a clear thing: truths cannot make a revolution; alternatives can create it. The exchange group doesn’t know what to do with this information. Knowing for learning is not a pursuit society can benefit from, accordingly, for businesses.
3. Hidden or Abstracted Cannibalism
Masses don’t know they’re cannibal because there is an abstraction layer of supplying food. (I don’t want to define whether it’s ethical or morally acceptable; I’m just using their worldview as a premise.) Abstraction is a company, in this case, which is linked with the government.
As Jason Fried shared an inspiring analogy, digital, abstracted businesses, and concepts are removing the control layer. So, analog processes make things manageable on small scales.
Today’s societies are managed by abstract layers of government (digitalized and complicated), so it’s easy to find instances of unethical applications because nobody is aware of them. Analog governance means visible, transparent, and working causalities.
4. Cannibalism might Become the New Ethical
I foresee a potential development in this story from today; the government can allow discussions around how soylents are produced. Gradually, the government can increase the adoption of the cannibalism idea. At the same time, it’s not classical cannibalism; there is a processing, like soil transforms the dead into food. Soylent Green is the revolutionary and accelerated way of how soil produces food.
In the past, governments were worried about what would happen if their hidden operations were uncovered. At present, governments are not worried about the application but about how they can make that operation ethical and provide an adaptation.
Each of us believes in the premise that governing is dirty, so it’s unavoidable to do unethical things; the question is why we’re doing what we’re doing for the sake of what? That will make the society evolve or change its ethical points. So, the paradox is that if there is a set of universal ethics, the governance cannot end up with hidden operations. If they do that, because of the impossibility of matching the theory with practice, practice requires a higher purpose where you don’t need 100% obey the ethics for a higher purpose. … The paradox ends up with the rationality of the human.
5. Humans are not purely ethical nor rational but might be more ethical and rational
While paradoxes are chaining, society cannot develop direct ethical and rational governance and planning. But humankind can approach it every day.
A few days ago, I watched Trevor Paglen’s Seeing The Secret State: Six Landscapes presentation at Chaos Computer Club. The presentation included lots of amusing examples of how covert operations spread breadcrumbs, such as military patches for secret operations (like below). It’s interesting to know that hidden things are not actually hidden or covered.
Image Credit: Paglen’s presentation linked above
Secrets catches attention. Revealing secrets has become one of the commercial exploitation practices so far; for instance, many Apple employees accidentally dropped/left prototypes at some bars. So, breadcrumbs of secrecies might be another practice like Apple’s. This is the main reason why I’m not interested in conspiracy theories.
As Paglen’s intentions drove this topic, the power of unveiling the hidden and having the intention to audit governors is a fundamental and existential right of society. So, researchers should be appreciated.
To achieve a greener (not Soylent greener), cleaner, more analog, and more ethical future, audits and investigations play crucial roles in empowering the people. Unless investigations are used as a part of throne games.