No 1

No 2

recommended prep

That's what we learn at the end of the 1973 movie, starring Charlton Heston, where he plays a 21st century detective in (the still overpopulated) New York City. The food supply is Soylent Green, comprised of soybean and lentilOr so the government would have you believe in this guilty pleasure of sci-fi conspiracy cinema.
Almost 20 years later, what seemed like the wildest paranoia on a lazy 70s night at the drive-in somehow doesn't seem quite as far-fetched (though, c'mon, nobody's calling it a documentary).
Source: Green Acres - Is the place to be? By Rhonda Reeves

Soylent Green. Dir. Richard Fleischer. MGM, 1973

SYNOPSIS

Set in the year 1999, this is a simple detective story set against a backdrop of overpopulation and pollution.

Andy Rusch is a detective investigating the murder of Michael O'Brien, a racketeer with friends in high places who want the murderer found. They suspect that another racketeer is trying to take over O'Brien's patch. The killer is, in fact, Billy Chung, a Chinese teenager from a Manhattan dock ghetto who has to steal to get enough food to live. He broke into O'Brien's apartment, and killed the owner when he was discovered.

Rusch's roommate is Sol Kahn, an old man who can remember the world as it was before the days of overpopulation, and he provides the link between our world and Harrison's future one.

Amazon Review by Jim van Scoyoc

It is the year 1999 and the world has become grimly, terribly overpopulated. This is the premise of Harry Harrison´s 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! and fans of his more comic work may be surprised at this bleak, foreboding novel. But Harrison´s purpose in writing this book was serious and his concerns were real. Although his fears thankfully did not become a reality for the inhabitants of New York and the rest of the United States, the novel remains a gripping, thought-provoking work about privacy, deprivation and desperation.
A teeming New York City serves as the setting for the novel´s nimble storyline, a detective´s pursuit of the killer of a nefarious racketeer. While the novel contains elements of classic detective fiction-the hard-boiled protagonist, the seductive mistress, the portraits of corruption and perfidy-Harrison´s true concern is less the story itself and more the opportunity the story offers to take the reader on a tour of a dismal, broken world. Overpopulation has altered daily life in innumerable ways and Harrison is keenly interested in detailing the effects of this catastrophic human burden on all aspects of human relationships.

Who is Harry Harrison?

Author

Soldier and Pacifist

Traveller

Esperantist

Comics Artist and Writer

Anthologist

Atheist

SF Professional

Soylent Green  (by Ralph Melton)

This deck was inspired when Eric Tilton suggested I create a deck around the theme of "Soylent Green." At first, I was tempted to pun on the name and create a Green deck that took over groups with voracious speed. I then had another idea, when the following three facts crossed my mind: France, Canada, and California are all all useful in a Liberal Green deck. France, Canada, and California are all Huge places. The movie Soylent Green was based on a premise of global overpopulation. Voila: a "Soylent Green" deck should start out looking like a normal Green deck, but then pull a surprise victory with Population Reduction.

Group Cards

Al Gore

Anti-Nuclear Activists

California

Canada

Druids

EPA

France

Green Party

Lama Ramadingdong

Rosicrucians

Science Alarmists

Plot Cards

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Back to the Salt Mines x2

Benefit Concert x2

Combined Disasters

Crop Circles

Drought x2

Flesh-Eating Bacteria

Good Polls

Hat Trick

Hoax

Hubble Trouble

Martial Law x2

Nuclear Accident

Oil spill x2

Save the Whales x3

Savings and Loan Scam

Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know

Goal: Population Reduction x2

NWO: Global Warming x3

NWO: Military-Industrial Complex

Working on the text: Extrapolating present-day problems and trend

Examples:  a) Scarce Water Supplies - Fiction and Reality (Harrison: Make Room! Make Room!)

Excerpt 1 from Make Room!

"Just bad the orders from the sergeant, all points closed for twenty-four hours. The reservoir level is low because of the drought, they gotta save water."

"That s a hell of a note," Andy said, looking at the key still in the lock. "I m going on duty now and this means I m not going to be drinking for a couple of days ...."

After a careful look around, the policeman unlocked the door and took one of the jerry cans from Andy. "One of these ought to hold you." He held it under the faucet while it filled, then lowered his voice. "Don't let it out, but the word is that there was another dynamiting job on the aqueduct upstate."

Those farmers again?"

"It must be. I was on guard duty up there before I came to this precinct and it's rough, they just as soon blow you up with the aqueduct at the same time. Claim the city's stealing their water."

  Selling Water to Texas Cities is Risky Business

Excerpt 2 from Make Room!

Excerpt 1 from Brave New World

[Foster] explained the system of labelling–a T for the males, a circle for the females and for those who were destined to become freemartins a question mark, black on a white ground.

New Birth Control

As Seen On Eyewitness News

Dec. 27, 99 -- Women, how'd you like to avoid having a period every month?

Pam Bauer: "That would be fabulous. Nobody likes to have their period. It's a pain in the neck."

 You may not have to suffer as often. Dr. Gary Hodgen of East Virginia Medical School is studying a new birth control pill it's called Seasonale. It's taken for 84 consecutive days, then stopped to allow a regular period for seven days.

 Dr. Gary Hodgen, Researcher: "If this is done as a regimen throughout a year, there would be only four times to bleed per year."

That's right, just four times a year. And wehave the hormones to do it.

Dr. Gary Hodgen: "These things are already here, but they're not in a specific product designed and approved as Seasonale will be."

Some people worry that taking the pill for so many consecutive days and then having fewer periods may be risky but Hodgen says for most women it would be safe since for them, the hormones are not dangerous.

Dr. Gary Hodgen: "That gives us confidence that it will be safe, not toxic, well tolerated and will get a good result."

Some experts say the new pill might actually provide some health benefits; less bleeding means less anemia, it means less pain from fibroids and endometriosis. More study is clearly needed.

If the FDA approves the new pill, it may be appropriate for use by thirty million women.

Excerpt 2 from Brave New World

"In the end," said Mustapha Mond, "the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower but infinitely surer methods of ectogenesis, neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopædia ..."

And round her waist she wore a silver-mounted green morocco-surrogate cartridge belt, bulging (for Lenina was not a freemartin) with the regulation supply of contraceptives.

"The discoveries of Pfitzner and Kawaguchi were at last made use of. An intensive propaganda against viviparous reproduction ..."

Character Constellation in Context:

a) Mustapha Mond and the Savage [Brave New World – Aldous Huxley]

Theoretical Considerations and Reading Lists

Utopia: The Best of All Possible Worlds?

In the 16th century, Thomas More coined the word for the title of a political work, from Greek, meaning "no place" and described an imaginary society. We'll discuss this and similar works and films set in alien worlds, by writers such as Bellamy, Morris, Orwell, Skinner, and by various movie directors. We'll argue the question whether their settings are overly optimistic, pessimistic, or whether they could and should be realized. We might also try to construct a vision of our own, for an ideal and perhaps possible world. Readings and discussion. 2 papers. No exams: this is a seminar.

Definition of "utopia" (literally: nowhere) [Gk. ou 'no' + topos 'place']

Webster's Dictionary: 1: an imaginary and indefinitely remote place 2: a place of ideal perfection esp. in laws, government, and social conditions 3: an impractical scheme for social improvement.

Novels, Stories, etc.:

Thomas More, Utopia (1516). Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044165-4

Samuel Butler, Erehwon (1872). Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-043057-1

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888). Signet Classic. 0-451-52412-8

William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890). Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-043115-2

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932). HarperPerennial. 0-06-080983-3

Isaac Azimov, I, Robot (1940-50). Bantam Books. 0-553-29438-5

George Orwell, 1984 (dystopia, 1949). Signet Classic. 0-451-52493-4

The Bill of Rights (Amendments I-X to the U.S. Constitution, 1791).

Poetry:

Some utopian and dystopian films--alphabetical by title:

SF Novel/SF Film

Arthur C. Clarke. The Lost Worlds of 2001 [1972]. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. xv + 240p.

Peter George. Dr. Strangelove [1963]. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. 176p.

Harry Harrison. Make Room! Make Room! [1966]. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. xii + 213p.

Robert A. Heinlein. Destination Moon [1950]. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. xiii + 176p.

Richard Matheson. The Shrinking Man. [1956]. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. xxvi + 192p.

W.J. Stuart. Forbidden Planet [1956]. Boston: Gregg Press, 1978. 208p.

Extrapolation