“Let’s imagine: if you glimpsed the future, and were frightened by what you saw, what would you do with that information?
Would you go to the politicians? The captains of industry? And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck. The only facts they won’t challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in. But what if … what if there was a way of skipping the middleman, putting the critical news directly into everyone’s head: the probability of widespread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it. To scare people straight.
What reasonable human being wouldn’t be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they’ve ever even known or loved. To save civilization I would show its collapse. How do you think this vision was received, how do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up! They didn’t fear their demise, they repackaged it — to be enjoyed as video games, as TV shows, books, movies, the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse, and sprinted toward it with gleeful abandon.
Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you. You’ve got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation, explain that one. Bees butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, the algae blooms. All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and you won’t take the hint! In every moment there’s a possibility of a better future, but you people won’t believe it. And because you won’t believe it you won’t do what is necessary to make it a reality.
“So you dwell on this oh terrible future. You resign yourselves to it. For one reason — because that future doesn’t ask anything of you, today. So, yes, you saw the iceberg, warned the Titanic, but you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you want to sink, you gave up. That’s not the monitor’s fault. That’s yours.” – Governor David Nix (Tomorrowland 2015)