The foundation and collective psychology of crises

Most science fiction stories fall into three categories: humans versus aliens, humans versus machines, or humans versus nature. “Blade Runner“,”water world“,”Interstellar“,”crazy max“,”snow hole“,”Wall-E“- In all these films man destroyed the earth and with it destroyed his livelihood. With the new”DuneBy Denis Villeneuve and the Asimov Foundation for the Apple Series, they are now two additional works that have struck a nerve of the times in the face of man-made climate catastrophe.

what about “Dune“What was particularly impressive – although it is only alluded to in the film adaptation – is the exemplary self-discipline of the Freeman people. In Frank Herbert’s book, it is described in more detail how they do everything to preserve every drop of water so that for dozens of generations of After them there is little chance of turning the desert planet Arrakis into a green paradise.In other words, Freemen would rather die of thirst than lose hope that their great and great-great-grandchildren can live a better life.

If you compare this honorable position with our real handling of the climate crisis, you understand why.”Dune“It is considered science fiction. From today’s perspective, it is inconceivable that we would be willing to make even smaller sacrifices of ourselves in order to leave a little bit of land for people who were not even born in the future. This is exactly what Frank Herbert first expressed in 1970 Earth day In front of 30,000 listeners in Philadelphia from:I do not want to explain to my grandchildren that I am sorry that they have nothing left of the earth. We have used everything.“

From dunes to foundation

in a Foundation, which aired on Apple TV+ on Friday, is making things a bit more complicated. To be honest, parallels with the environmental disasters we live in today are more likely, especially since Isaac Asimov wrote the book about 15 years before Herbert”Dune(i.e. in the early 1950s.) In science, climate change was not taken seriously until 20 years later, which would still have been early enough to stop had the problem not been collectively suppressed over the next 50 years. Until an awakened Swede of 15 years old everyone in the summer of 2018. Just two days ago, thanks to her, the world experienced one of the biggest climate strikes of all time …