#194259 by Kramerguy
Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:23 pm
Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:23 pm
I watched this movie last night and thought it was extremely thought provoking, although I don't know if the writer meant for it to be anything more than a sci-fi thriller.
The premise of the movie is that the human race in the future has been genetically altered, everyone is programmed genetically to have a countdown clock on their arm from birth. They stop aging at age 25, but the clock "kicks in" and they only have 1 year that starts counting down, and when it hits zero, the person drops dead.
The crazy aspect is that there is no more paper currency, everything in life costs TIME. A cup of coffee costs 4 minutes, a bus ride costs an hour, etc. People work and at the end of the day are paid in time. Time can be traded, given, etc, simply by a handshake or scanner. It can also be stolen while you sleep, giving more depth to the idea of it not only being currency, but your LIFE.
Much of the story is based on a poor guy living in the ghetto where everyone is literally living day to day and struggling not to hit zero and die.
It would take forever to get through the whole story line so I will try to keep it on my point- As it turns out, there's "rich" parts of town, where the tolls alone to cross into those areas cost more than a year, so the poor can never really afford to go there. The rich, as it turns out, have more than enough time to literally be immortal, millions of years in time-banks, etc.. and they have more than they would ever need just banked away while others struggle and die.
Later in the movie, this guy becomes a robin-hood of sorts, stealing time from the rich and giving it to the poor, which you would think would solve everyone's problems, but the rich base all their markets off keeping the poor, well.. poor, struggling, and subservient.
What happens in the movie is that after giving away millions of years to the poor, the rich simply make it all moot by raising the prices of everything, draining all the time right back to themselves.
It occurred to me that it unintentionally but effectively mirrored our own society in a way that I never quite looked at before.
The rich- not the upper class rich, but the mega powerful rich in this country have done exactly that- They figuratively stole trillions from the public trust, and then raised the costs of literally everything to keep us from gaining any wealth. Salaries have steadily declined and we are becoming more dependent and indebted to them. It's no secret that the top 1% wealthiest people in the country have more than the bottom 50% combined. More wealth disparity than ever before in the history of this country.
So as I was pondering this, I wondered.. why won't they pay us a livable wage? Why won't they allow us to live in relative comfort or have decent health care, or anything? Because they NEED us to be fragile, desperate, and indebted to them. If we weren't, then we would be more free to fight their influence over government, and have free choice to NOT use their products or services. We wouldn't need their banks, their high interest credit cards and payday loans. We would be secure to build our own personal infrastructures.
This is about class war. We're in one whether you want to believe it or not. We didn't start it, but we are victimized daily by it.
I don't propose any action, this is not my intent. I think we need awareness that we ALL have a common enemy who is determined to enslave us, and if our apathy and infighting continues, we will end up with exactly that.
The premise of the movie is that the human race in the future has been genetically altered, everyone is programmed genetically to have a countdown clock on their arm from birth. They stop aging at age 25, but the clock "kicks in" and they only have 1 year that starts counting down, and when it hits zero, the person drops dead.
The crazy aspect is that there is no more paper currency, everything in life costs TIME. A cup of coffee costs 4 minutes, a bus ride costs an hour, etc. People work and at the end of the day are paid in time. Time can be traded, given, etc, simply by a handshake or scanner. It can also be stolen while you sleep, giving more depth to the idea of it not only being currency, but your LIFE.
Much of the story is based on a poor guy living in the ghetto where everyone is literally living day to day and struggling not to hit zero and die.
It would take forever to get through the whole story line so I will try to keep it on my point- As it turns out, there's "rich" parts of town, where the tolls alone to cross into those areas cost more than a year, so the poor can never really afford to go there. The rich, as it turns out, have more than enough time to literally be immortal, millions of years in time-banks, etc.. and they have more than they would ever need just banked away while others struggle and die.
Later in the movie, this guy becomes a robin-hood of sorts, stealing time from the rich and giving it to the poor, which you would think would solve everyone's problems, but the rich base all their markets off keeping the poor, well.. poor, struggling, and subservient.
What happens in the movie is that after giving away millions of years to the poor, the rich simply make it all moot by raising the prices of everything, draining all the time right back to themselves.
It occurred to me that it unintentionally but effectively mirrored our own society in a way that I never quite looked at before.
The rich- not the upper class rich, but the mega powerful rich in this country have done exactly that- They figuratively stole trillions from the public trust, and then raised the costs of literally everything to keep us from gaining any wealth. Salaries have steadily declined and we are becoming more dependent and indebted to them. It's no secret that the top 1% wealthiest people in the country have more than the bottom 50% combined. More wealth disparity than ever before in the history of this country.
So as I was pondering this, I wondered.. why won't they pay us a livable wage? Why won't they allow us to live in relative comfort or have decent health care, or anything? Because they NEED us to be fragile, desperate, and indebted to them. If we weren't, then we would be more free to fight their influence over government, and have free choice to NOT use their products or services. We wouldn't need their banks, their high interest credit cards and payday loans. We would be secure to build our own personal infrastructures.
This is about class war. We're in one whether you want to believe it or not. We didn't start it, but we are victimized daily by it.
I don't propose any action, this is not my intent. I think we need awareness that we ALL have a common enemy who is determined to enslave us, and if our apathy and infighting continues, we will end up with exactly that.
All these kids confuse me!
