Logan’s Run is about a future society where people live perfectly, with all the pleasures available, enough food & toys & fun for everyone until age 30 when they’re “renewed”. Although they believe renewal means transference to a newborn body, it’s actually just plain death. But aside from that, everyone is blissfully happy.
I first saw the movie when I was a kid, loved it, but I didn’t understand any of the social statements being made. Now that I’m past my “renewal” date, I totally get it.
All the world’s problems are caused by people over the age of 30. To be specific, all our politicians, lawmakers, judges and dictators, not to mention all the billionaires, are old men with their outdated and usually corrupt, self-serving agendas. There isn’t enough food & fun for everyone because the rich (old men) are hoarding it. I do see hope in the younger generation, the generation that asks questions and isn’t content with the old system, but the young don’t stand a chance against an establishment that’s been cemented into place by old people. By the time the young have earned any power or voice of their own, they’re already the old ones themselves, most likely with views as outdated as the generation before. In short, welcome to the world kid, your life is run by rich old people.
Logan’s Run presents a society that has no old people and doesn’t seem to have any government, no one telling anyone what to do except for that deadline at age 30. Population is controlled so there’s plenty of resources and food for everyone, harvested from the sea by machines. Nobody has to work, and there is no division of classes, since work (money) is what divides people. Sure it’s implied that people are kinda on the stupid side, or at least clueless, but maybe stupid is a prerequisite to happiness and peace (another subtle theme of the film).
Well, one way or another, sign me up for that renewal machine. I’ve long overstayed my use in this world.
19 comments
I doubt that’s likely to happen. Some people will want more at the expense of others, others will be jealous at others, and eventually everyone becomes a “shittier” person. The premise is that productivity can come exclusively from growing the collective pie larger and larger and smooth over inequality and social issues, but this is nowhere guaranteed.
Agreed that it’ll never happen naturally, meaning by any sudden collective awakening, because the culture of “I want more” is too engrained. In the movie it’s implied that there was some apocalypse, a war or plague that wiped out most of the human race, and society was rebuilt with this new structure. So in other words, the human race was completely reinvented from scratch (from young kids who weren’t yet corrupted by the greed of prior generations). That might be the only way it could ever happen. All fiction of course.
Not familiar with this movie but if everyone dies at age 30, there’s still be assholes at 20 controlling the lives of the younger and less powerful. As long as there are humans, and as long as SOME humans are greedy and don’t care about others (of which there will ALWAYS be) there will never be an equal society.
I would love there to be a world where everyone is equal and everyone is happy and everyone has enough resources. But that is just not reality. It has never ever happened in the history of Homo sapiens. Nor in any other species of plant/animal life on Earth.
Your premise is that all our ills is bc of old ppl who don’t relinquish power. But no. It’s all the assholes who won’t relinquish power. Yes, the boomer generation is uniquely a horrible selfish entitled generation who have, and continue to, screw over everyone else, especially the younger generation. But that’s not to say there aren’t shitty selfish power hungry young assholes either.
Eliminating the old won’t get rid of all the problems.
And who’s to say that someone won’t come along and change the system so they and their families get more of the pie than everyone else? That is almost guaranteed to happen. Many of us are happy to have everything disputed equally. But we all know that that there’s also a large percentage of ppl who want way more and will take everything and leave crumbs for everyone else.
There has NEVER been any government in any continent in any time period where “everyone was equal.”
As long as there are greedy humans, no matter the age, life will be unfair and the poor will sheets be screwed.
To your point, age DOES have an impact. Limiting age limits how much greed and control a single person can amass. But it by no means eliminates the problem at all.
Remember jhs? Imagine a society of only jhs’ers? That’s be a pretty shit society too. No adults but there’s always a pecking order and some ppl get bullied while others take ppls lunch money. Figuratively and literally.
Humans are the problem. We are hard encoded with selfish greedy and ruthless genes. Get rid of the old, and we’ll just have younger monsters.
There is no way to ensure that someone won’t come along and reprogram things to their benefit. Given humans, that’s ? going to occur.
Who controls the algorithm/technology? Whoever controls that controls life.
I say just obliterate Earth :p
There was also this anime (forget title) where all the adults suddenly disappeared one day and only children remained.
I forget the story line, but there has been stories of the old just poof* gone.
@dying- you think humanity has a chance even in that scenario?
Take a look at this and tell me after you still have hope for Americans…
@dying- you think humanity has a chance even in that scenario?
https :// www. facebook. com/share/p/1AXrdN4ZkK/?mibextid=K35XfP
Yea don’t get me wrong, asshole is a part of the human genome. There are 5 year old kids who would nuke the world if given the chance. But I think the point of the scenario is essentially what you said: “Limiting age limits how much greed and control a single person can amass.”
So in other words there will be assholes, but they won’t live long enough to develop huge corporate empires, much less any political power. In the movie iirc there are a few notable assholes, there’s one character who’s a surgeon and he has the typical doctor’s arrogance because he’s “better” than everyone else. But it’s kinda muted because he’s just the king of his own little castle, his clinic, with no real impact on society at large.
I’m thinking mainly of the policy makers, the kings, senators, presidents, tyrants and criminal kingpins who built “the system” and keep it running. If, like in the movie, we first tear down the system so everyone is equal, then before anyone has a chance to corrupt it, have computers take over production, then kill off all the fucking old people, then human society is basically kept “harmless” because it’s in a state of adolescence.
I haven’t read the book, but I think the book is even more realistic because it limits the age to something like 18 or 21. Children can still be enormous assholes, but they won’t have time to organize and build power.
I think it could work. Of course the level of human achievement would also be stunted. But if you consider Milton was 27 when he wrote Paradise Lost, Beethoven was 30 when he wrote “Moonlight Sonata” and Mary Shelley was frickin 18(!!!) when she wrote Frankenstein, then maybe there would be hope that humans can be productive while being more or less harmless.
“Children can still be enormous assholes, but they won’t have time to organize and build power“
>>oh yes they can. Do you not remember the pecking order in jhs?
>>also, did you forget we used to have very young kings? Some ascend the crown at like age 5. By the time they’re 30, they’ve been ruling for ages. And also kings didn’t live to 80 back then. They died much much younger. King Henry V lived to 35. King Richard II and III lived till 33 and 32.
You remember Malfoy in LOTR? He was an evil little shit. He could totally amass enough power to boss and rule everyone around. If there weren’t the teachers and adults keeping the kids in line.
“So in other words there will be assholes, but they won’t live long enough to develop huge corporate empires, much less any political power.“
>>yes they still can, how naive. You do realize current laws allow rich ppl to pass everything onto they’re children, and tax free at that. Whether the parent lives to 30 or 80, the children of the wealthy will ALWAYS have a massive advantage, and it magnifies with every successive generation.
Well, you’d have to change ALL of the current laws and rules of practice. But even then, there will always be someone who’s smart and sneaky who will bypass the system.
I don’t share such a rosy view that evil, corruption, and inequality will be eliminated simply by getting rid of old ppl.
Ppl back in the day didn’t live very long and yet there were monarchies and serfs/peasants.
Have you seen serial killer documentaries where kids as young as 5 or 7 going on a murder spree? There have been several very famous ones. Just bc someone is “young” doesn’t mean they can’t be evil or cause a ton of damage. Ah yes, studies have shown that kids at a very early age engage in “groupism” and terrorize “the others”
Any system that allows even an iota of free will will eventually evolve to what we have today.
Even if a system was designed to make things fair, how can you be so certain that NO ONE will be able to bypass whatever system that was programmed?
Given human nature, any system will eventually be hacked or bypassed.
“ , then human society is basically kept “harmless” because it’s in a state of adolescence.”
>>adolescents are not harmless. Have you never been bullied in elementary or jhs? Kids are just as rotten as adults.
Also, you’d trust computers/ AI to police and run this system? You Of all ppl would know how dangerous AI can be. And it would have to be AI bc systems break, systems need to be repaired, and one cannot be prepared and program in every single scenario bc you won’t know every kind of scenarios can pop up.
Anyway, not trying to rain on your parade but I always see the pitfalls of ideas, systems, policies etc.
Hell, ppl like me make the best testers bc I always caught every mistake at work when it came time to test our programs and products. The technical team hated me bc I always found a tons of errors that no one else found, meaning more work for the techies to fix.
The knack for finding flaws and errors in every system or program or product or rule or policy is kind of why I am depressed. If I didn’t see fundamental flaws in things, I would be much happier. Be Blissfully ignorant.
But that is not something I can control. I may not be an engineer and be able to build anything, but I am a master at tearing everything apart.
As long as humans are innately selfish and greedy and lack a moral conscience to not do things, And as long as humans have any speck of free will, there will be corruption, injustice, imbalance, dominance, subjugation, etc.
I don’t think you understand the depths of human depravity and lack of conscience.
Have you met sociopaths and psychopaths? I have. And they are not as rare as you think they are. Even conservative figures put them at 4% of the population which given the population of the United States or the world or heck just a college campus that is a TON of people. And no, psychopaths and sociopaths not the only evil people out there. There’s enough “Regular” ppl who are shitty and do a lot of terrible things.
As long as humans have an ounce of free will, bad things will happen. And you cannot prevent it because you cannot override human nature. And any system put in place will not last very long without it breaking or being breached or bypassed.
I mean the movie itself takes place in a vault, essentially, a utopian/dystopian vault where all the mechanisms are there and enforced because the resources are also there. I don’t remember the movie ever answering the question of where they are getting all that food for example, they’re all just living in this mall underground having lots of sex and dying young.
Logan, meanwhile was one of the people reinforcing the rules in this vault, decides to run for the surface and finds out that humans can live longer, and decides that he wants to live longer because murder is wrong. It’s a classic sci fi young person discovers their society is patently corrupt story, if memory serves.
It’s all post apocalyptic, and the ethics in that scenario are much different.
We meanwhile live in a time when the rich haven’t managed to destroy the climate yet. What you are discussing is pre-emptive.
The issue however IS that many of the elderly, the vast majority are very very poor, relative to their needs. I mean I’m just entering the demographic myself, and I’m a little well off, and I don’t anticipate that I’ll be able to overshoot the needs of my golden years. I anticipate that I’ll have to work until I die, like my parents, and many in our class.
If you’d rather kill us than offer us that….. I’m not sure which is ethically worse. Neither is ethically very good. I don’t think it works, as a concept.
Economically, the buck always gets passed downward, and the poor always gets the shaft, so the poor always end up dying more than the rich. Look at war, the poor get drafted at a much higher rate, and end up cannon fodder while children of the middle class and rich end up benefiting from war.
It would be the same if you tried this kind of social experiment, rich assholes would find the loopholes, would escape it. I’m not even excluding myself, I wouldn’t want to die young so that society would be better, you kidding me?!
Self interest, fear, ego, these are the central features of the human psyche. You’d have to strip humanity of memory of the past, the past with elderly people, middle aged people, to allow them to enjoy a short romp making babies and having lots of sex. Who’s signing up for that?!
Meanwhile somewhere there’s a cabal of very rich people who have escaped the cleansing, who have moved on with their lives. There are some very poor people somewhere being forced to perform menial jobs, because that food has to come from somewhere, and someone is repairing things.
You scratch deeper than the idealized society presented in Logan’s Run and you have a nightmare of logistics and a real world that needs more answers than the movie at least was willing to answer. What really happened in the last days? Who put this nutjob society together?!
You can try to crush corruption, but it gets a lot more complicated when you hide the population from the people really running the show is my point.
Right, that lead to MORE corruption if we hide the ppl running the show from the populace. There is no accountability. There is no way to enforce or guarantee any sort of untampering of this “utopia.”
As long as humans exist, as long as humans have greed, there will always be those who take from the poor and subjugate them. Slavery existed on every continent, not just the Americas. Always has and always will. This will not change bc human nature does not change. I mean, since recorded history, there’s been slaves (Egyptians etc). Don’t know the “oldest” civilization but I bet they had a giant peasant class, if not outright slaves.
Life is fucking depressing.