I have a proposal - a SudoRoom dystopian science fiction night.
Background: Since the November elections [actually the past 2 years] there's been a sharp uptick in dystopian science fiction novels, especially for young adults. After the election books like
The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 have skyrocket to the top of the bestseller lists.
In this climate of fear, many artists' groups are experiencing an uptick in membership. In this time, more than ever, we need well-meaning art, science and the humanities to make sense of a dystopian world that has become reality.
Proposal: Let's gather all the people who feel overwhelmed by current events and have a Dystopian Tea Party every week. Ideally Wednesdays.
While the topics are a little negative, they'll also provide a positive springboard - if the future really can go this badly, and it looks like it might happen, what can we do to mitigate or avoid it?
If we deregulate auto emissions and return to pollution levels of the 1950s, how can we turn this around and reverse the damage?
Meeting Ideas:
- Nuclear War night
- Create art around nuclear war hitting San Francisco
- Understand the science and art behind nuclear bombs - how would this affect our environment
- What political arrangements and military mistakes would provoke a nuclear war? [political science
- What kind of clothes could we wear to protect ourselves from nuclear war?
- AntiFeminist Dystopia Night
- What are all the possible scenarios where women's rights could be trampled in the US? Could Texan abortion laws reach California?
- art and science fiction around an antifeminist dystopia
- Studies of feminist texts like Backlash and The Handmaid's Tale
- how science is used to oppress women, how science could be used to free women
- Environmental Disaster Scenario
- Predictive Futures Design topic - As the United States looks increasingly headed for environmental disaster with the assault on the EPA, will our cities look like Delhi and China?
- Predictive future illustrations of what a smoggy United States will look like
- Design of gasmasks for children in places where auto emissions are deregulated. We could make a 3D printout
- Environmental 101 - how does polluting a national park work? What are things that can go wrong when oil pipelines spill?
- How can hackers fix Flint Water supply? WHat's the science behind this?
- Health Sciences Hacking - Poor americans are probably going to live in increasingly polluted, unhealthy environments with little or no regulation. More air pollution, more cancer. In a predictive futures scenario, what kind of low-end hospitals will exist for these people? What strange new diseases will appear?
- Education Disaster Scenario
- Predictive futures: What happens when education is completely privatized and what dystopian outcomes can happen as more for-profit universities and private religious schools become the only option for US children?
- Science Fiction scenarios: we could do a writing workshop. Imagine the US became total theocracy and only conversvative Christian schools believing in creationism were allowed to exist. What kind of evolution underground would form? What if science had to be conducted in secret?
- We could design a education disaster scenario textbook. What if only mega corporations took over and presented textbooks full of "alternative facts" ????
- What kind of society would we become if all funding for the arts and humanities were entirely cut at universities, as has been suggested in Florida. What if nobody was only allowed to study a topic if it suited the needs of a mega corporation and no theory was allowed ever? What if people were only allowed to take business and commucinations degrees and had no concept of philosophy?
- This would be pretty cool, it'd be fun to have a film project where someone in this society would discover the lost book of humanities and create a secret theater group, then get jailed.
- Muslim Disaster Scenario
- What if muslims in the United States and Europe were systematically targeted in a way that the jews were by the Nazis in the 1940s?
- In a science fiction novels how could noble heroes protect an increasingly muslim minority, as some national organization moves to move them into concentration camps?
- This scenario is actually too depressing, but it would be cool to highlight great tMuslim scientists of the past and find safety check scenarios
Links
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Romy Ilano