Survival is a fundamental element of our lives, if not as a species then at least as individuals, and the same can be said for countless non-human creatures.
But this existence of ours is increasingly uncertain, called into question by alarmists, yes, but also by researchers and intellectuals.
The end always seems to be around the corner: in recent years we have survived the nuclear threat, the millennium bug, the Mayan calendar and covid, and meanwhile the hand of the climate-change clock keeps ticking along with the various environmental disasters and geopolitical tensions.
So at this point, what is a futuribile future? Will we all disappear together or little by little?
The nearest future is hypothesized through various forecasting models of varying reliability, but decades ago it was also attempted by works of scientific fantasy, a.k.a. sci-fi. In the vast range of science-fiction texts and videos we might find a 2024 narrated as a plausible future for its time, and we might fantasize that in a few weeks we could really have all those wonderful colonies on Mars. Or not...
Following the last decades of the 1900s the future is no longer so rosy even in science fiction: the arrival of cyberpunk, of the post-apocalypse, and of works that warn humanity of great disasters such as climate change and overpopulation, like “Soylent Green” (1977) or “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004). Until then the most pop science fiction had not been so unkind to the future, and apart from a few exceptions like “1984”, the dream of conquering space and of phenomenal human ingenuity still ran rampant.
Nowadays we are far from untamed nature, even though it is getting closer and closer to us. Our idea of DIY is limited to building things out of paper and white glue or assembling Ikea furniture, and our hunting and gathering skills are scarce as well.
Our training ground is survival video games, which teach us how to stand up to the outbreak of a battle within and between species. Sad reflections, the reflection of a sad period in which genocides are backed and financed by the very powers that for years promised us a better future.
English translation of the Italian original. Read the original →