The Giver: Utopia or Dystopia?

        Is The Giver movie and book by Lois Lowry about a future community a utopia or a dystopia?  Or maybe a failed utopia?  The people who live in a place called The Community have tried to create a perfect world (utopia) where there is no more choice, love, pain, suffering, sickness, war, emotions, or death.  But is this really a utopia? They still have death but they call it "release to elsewhere."   They "release" (kill) old people and unhealthy babies with an injection.  Young people take an injection every morning to control  the "stirrings" that give them natural emotions and sexual feelings. Everyone in The Community is assigned a role (job) by The Elders who control The Community.  A young man named Jonas receives the role of The Receiver of Memory. He trains with an old man called The Giver and finds out about the past, before The Community, back and back and back. Jonas decides they need to bring back all these things from the past. He escapes from The Community with a baby that is going to be "released" because it is too small and unhealthy. He ends up "saving" The Community. So maybe The Community is a failed utopia, or a dystopia, depending on your perspective. The book and movie are quite thought provoking, as we think what the world will be like in the future.

The Gift of Time

           Someone once said, "The past is history, the future is a mystery, and the present is a gift."  The only time that we can chose what we do is the present--we can't change what happened yesterday, or be certain what will happen tomorrow. So how do we spend our time; living in the moment, or thinking about the past or the future? We can chose to spend our time in an opportunistic way or a pessimistic way.

          The present moment is the only time that we are really in control of. We can chose to be pessimists and use our time negatively. We can hate our job, but not look for a new job. Most of us have a daily routine and do pretty much the same thing every day in our comfort zone. Habit drives most of what we do. Is spending several hours every day surfing the Net, texting, and checking FaceBook a good use of our time? How about watching 4-6 hours of TV every day?  Or we can be positive, live in the moment, talk to people, change our routine, try new things, go to new places, make new friends, stop doing things that waste our time, and just enjoy each moment as much as possible. 

          We all spend some time in the present thinking about the past. Many people do this, especially older people, regretting things that they did or didn't do in their lives, or remembering happy times and memories. Sometimes, we miss out on the present by always reminiscing about the "good old days." Or we can be positive and focus on the good things about the past, happy memories, the good things that we have done and enjoyed, and the accomplishments and successes that we have had. 

          What about the future? The future is mostly unpredictable, but is at least partly under our control. We often chose to think about the future in a negative way. We spend a lot of time worrying about the future. Most of what we worry about never even happens. As Winston Churchill said, "When I look back on all of my worries, I remember the story of an old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened." Or we can be optimists and look forward to the future in a positive way, focusing on our plans, goals, hopes and dreams, always expecting the best. We can make specific plans for the future and then do everything possible in the present to make those plans a reality.

          In conclusion, how we think about time is important. We can be optimists and spend our time living in the moment, thinking about the past and future in a positive way, focusing on happy memories of the past and positive hopes, plans and goals for the future. Or we can be pessimists, not taking advantage of the fleeting moments of our lives, but instead wasting time and dwelling on bad memories and regrets about the past, while worrying about the future. How do you use your time?



         

      

     

Ex Machina and the future

          Have we created a monster by making robots that have Artificial Intelligence (AI)?   Some very smart people who started the information technology revolution, like Steve Wosniak, Apple co-founder and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, are starting to have second thoughts about a future with intelligent robots.  They worry that robots of the future could become smarter than humans and decide that humans should no longer be in charge. They see two possible scenarios; either the robots decide that humans are no longer necessary and destroy them, or the robots make humans their slaves. Both of these scenarios are scary to us humans, of course. My opinion is that although robots may become smarter than humans at some time in the future, they will never have what makes us human--souls. So it's hard to see how robots will ever have qualities like emotions, feelings, creativity, courage, caring, and a conscience, or example. These are some of many human characteristics that make us human and don't seem to depend on intelligence, either human or artificial. There is a new movie coming out soon, called Ex Machina, that explores the future of robots and AI.  You can click here to watch a trailer about the movie.  It looks like an interesting movie and I'm sure it will cause much debate.  I am eager to watch the movie when it is released. The future is difficult to predict. That's why it can be both fun and scary to think about. What do you think about the future, robots and AI?