The UnScene
About this show
(NEW) Exploring the unseen themes and ideas about economics and political philosophy in popular culture, art, and entertainment.
We Ignored the Warnings. Now YOU Pay the Price
February 9, 2024
The best science fiction manages to predict the future accurately decades or even centuries in advance, which is why you’ve got a HAL-9000 in your pocket right now. It tends to happen naturally, but in the case of Soylent Green, a worldwide cohort of intelligentsia, business leaders, and politicians are working hard to force science fiction to become reality.
The debate over global population growth and the threats it may pose to the sustainability of the planet and the human race overwhelmingly skews to one side: more people, more problems. And that seems to be the case in Soylent Green, based on Harry Harrison’s excellent novel “Make Room! Make Room!” -- the horrible consequences of population growth are unavoidable. Dennis Meadows, The Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, Greta Thunberg, and even commentators like Bill Maher are convinced that a drastic reduction in population… and some are comfortable with mandating that grim future at all human costs.
Buried deep in Soylent Green -- in both its story and the life of one of its actors -- is a message of hope and belief in our capacity to solve the problems that we ourselves might create to improve the human condition.
The simple truth that the population control elites refuse to accept -- the truth that threatens their worldview and turns you into an enemy -- is that you aren’t the problem. You’re the solution.
LINKS:
Soylent Green: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison: https://www.amazon.com/Make-Room-Harry-Harrison/dp/1491582677
The Club of Rome: https://www.youtube.com/c/ClubofRome
"The Man Who Wants Us Dead," by Vsauce2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srJBLo8GR5g
