On Rollerball and Brave New World
In response to a post about Bill Gates’ prediction about the future of American education, a reader writes:
I didn’t see “Rollerball” when the film was released in 1975. It is a dystopian film about the distant future in 2018. It is not so distant anymore.
Dystopian films and novels are warnings, not predictions.
I just finished re-reading Brave New World, which I must have read fifty years ago. There is so much about the novel I didn’t remember. It bears re-reading. I was struck by the planned rank-ordering of people. No need to test them to put them in their status as Alpha or Beta or Gamma or Epsilon. The rankings were selected at the time
“Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it’s ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions.” – Rollerball (1975) |
Dystopian films and novels are warnings, not predictions.
I just finished re-reading Brave New World, which I must have read fifty years ago. There is so much about the novel I didn’t remember. It bears re-reading. I was struck by the planned rank-ordering of people. No need to test them to put them in their status as Alpha or Beta or Gamma or Epsilon. The rankings were selected at the time