How do we cope with a world we were never evolutionarily designed for? Stand on Zanzibar is prophetic, chaotic, and at times, profound. Don't forget to check out the Extra Sci Fi Reading list: bit.ly/ESF_List
Governor Santini is brought to you today by Soylent Red, and Soylent Yellow. And, new, delicious, Soylent Green: The "miracle food" of high energy plankton, gathered from the oceans of the world. Due to its enormous popularity, Soylent Green is in short supply, so remember-Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
I can kind of understand that, a company kills itself if it makes something that will last too long, because at that point they have a maximum limit they can sell before they stop breaking even on the cost of production. Or to put it another way I had one of those cube TVs, it lasted years without failing once, I eventually replaced it with a tv that didn't last a year, the cube tv was too effective, and while consumers will enjoy it there is no real money to be made.
@@oktheneggscape5759 6 episodes on Frankenstein but only a couple of minutes of "Stand on Zanzibar" and "I have no mouth but I must scream" and ZERO on "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" doesn't seem right.
@@jchase1524 I wouldn't say that, but school definitely focuses on the classics a bit too much. The classics are important, don't get me wrong, but they're definitely not alone to matter.
For me it's this book and A Canticle For Lebowitz. I guess it's not mandatory in school because it doesn't have the same widespread renown as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 45 or 1984 and the likes.
Beat me to it. I'm honestly a bit surprised they didn't at least mention it in the video, Sheep has even more weirdly accurate predictions, a similar tone, and is arguably a better (or at least slightly easier) read.
@NO NAME Found: Zanzibar was a major hub for the slave trade back in the day, and also a center of piracy on and off for several parts of its history. So no, it's not just known for that brief bombardment by the Royal Navy that's somewhat dubiously called a war.
Weirdly enough "How do we cope in a world we didn't evolve fast enough for?" is something I've been thinking about recently. By all manner of things I have a pretty cushy job that pays well (fully remote Software Engineer where I manage my own schedule) but I find myself being a little jealous of people who do physical labour all day and at the same time not wanting to commit to a 9-5 job with a large amount of travel time. Very much a 1st world blues and in contradiction to each other. I find myself more and more wanting to be outside, enjoying nature, playing airsoft or just sitting in the garden. Adopting my dog has been a really nice boon for me, seeing how simply she sees the world and being able to share that with her on walks. It's a weird state we're living in, where I don't worry directly about food but more about numbers in my bank account so I can pay my council tax and shop for supplies etc. Whereas a few centuries ago I could plonk myself down in a forest, build a hut and (if I'm out of the way enough) not worry so much about the tax man but instead concentrate on feeding myself and my family. As much as the modern world seems to bring convenience, it separates us from the physical act of producing our own food, housing, clothing etc. Not sure what my point was. I guess I yearn for a simpler time but I'm aware of how much harder that would be and that at the same time I'm grateful that modern life saves me from dying of starvation or disease so easily. It's a realisation that I'm not really built to cope properly with this lifestyle, but that the alternative is a MUCH shorter and harder life.
Watching this helped me remember someone's quote on 1984, I don't remember who said it, but he said: "1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual"
This book just stands alone for me. The Innis Mode form (jumping between Context, Continuity, Tracking with Closeups and The Happening world) is worth it's own whole conversation. The plot is amazing, it just keeps unspooling and I remember thinking "he's waited too long, he can't land it, no one could land this", then just like that he does. Add that to all the things you covered here, his speculative prowess, the tone, it's an astounding work.
It truly is everything you describe. It’s like putting the entire surface of the planet in a colossal blender, pushing purée, and then dropping you in the middle as it spins. One of the phenomena he foresees is “information overload”, and he does an incredible job of getting a 1968 reader to feel what it will be like, using nothing but text.
I might actually _read_ this one! Amazing that this author not only predicted our society so well, but also went against the grain of his 1960's hippy-surroundings. This guy recognized the future he saw for what it is: A dystopia.
Was definitely a real shocker when I read it in 69. And one of the books who defined my upcoming sci fi writer and translator career. And later, in the early 70s, I had the great luck and honour of meeting JB at the Metz sci fi festival in France...!
@@randomxnp What planet are you from, Rich? Before Whitman went up the Texas Tower in '66, mass shootings were unheard of. The frequency has been on the climb ever since.
@@randomxnp >both write irrelevant facts he literally just stated a major mass shooting that occurred prior to their growth after columbine, the spike of mass shootings **has** grown in the united states of america, and there is no denying that. you clearly know nothing about the topic if you didn't understand what that meant.
John Brunner was amazing. From 1968 to 1975, he wrote, in addition to "Zanzibar": "The Jagged Orbit", about racial violence and the overproliferation of weapons in America; "The Sheep Look Up", about overpollution and "The Shockwave Rider", pretty much the originator of cyberpunk as a genre. All great reads.
Of all the dystopias, this one has the most developed setting. Brunner’s world doesn’t feel like a dystopia with 60s characters in the future, but instead a 2010 that looks a lot like ours, but everyone is meaner and more cynical. At least in other dystopias you’d get arrested or exiled for being different, but if you were dropped in this world you’d have a tough time because you’d want to try and have a normal life, but you’re surrounded by potentially dangerous people.
The fact that the book is so accurate in depicting today’s world, and the ridiculous nature of how mental everyone is written and how everyone else today seems to be the mirror image of the book, proves there is no hope for humanity. We all laughed at the ridiculous back then calling it science fiction, but now it’s our reality. We brought this Hell upon our selves.
This is my favourite book. I re-read it every few years and always catch something new. Or at least get a new understanding of something I previously read.
In all the stories I heard I hope this type of thing never happens, I hope in the future people don’t be so terrible towards each other I hope the future will be better and loving I hope in the future people will be kind and loving also in peace ☮️ ❤🌿🌈🌼
Just wanted to share my favorite quote from the book: "The word is EPTIFY. Don't look in the dictionary. It's too new for the dictionary. But you'd better learn what it implies. EPTIFY. We do it to you." The internet is a buzzword inventing machine, take a week or even a day off and suddenly everyone is using a new adjective.
You do realise they already had systems in place for battery swops, so you could just change the batteries and away you go again. New ideas? Think again.
"A hope that we'll create a world better than the one in Stand on Zanzibar," oh boy was Brunner wrong but so right in his depiction of his "fictional future" society.
Poetic. Our own success has turned into our greatest challenge.
5 років тому+4
People thinking that fiction is predicting the future don't seem to realize how predictable humanity is. That being said, this book is one of the most ironic yet accurate books I've ever seen. Unfortunately... it's one of the most ironic and accurate books I've ever seen. The trend it describes is pinpoint, and nothing in the real world seems to deviant from it. Here in the States, racial and identity politics is turning everyone against each other. I personally don't feel safe leaving the house, and I live in a decent part of town, because the only logical step to frustrating the population is to weaponize it, or correct it, and if you've seen the seen how Orwellian our media has become, well, the Ministries would be proud. Makes you wonder hoe many crackpot theories have truth to them now. Zanzibar might very well be the work of a time traveler, or a master psychologist. Either way, he hasn't been very wrong yet.
Looks like we hit the ultraviolence threshold long before overpopulation. We have tons of space and resource capability in this world, we just need to upgrade and manage them better. But the social, psychological, and financial pressures are definitely here.
The format was like television, a main story then commercials then main story. The story is strangely close to how things are now, I did not think about it when I was reading but now it blows me away.
PLEASE do a video on The Dispossessed, it's so impactful and influential and important, just as the other dystopias described here, but it's so different!
Eesh. I'm with you, there. This book is a little too real. I, uh. . . I need something a little more philosophically light. A little pickled ginger or coffee beans to wash my brain out.
Perhaps I'm wrong on this one, but it feels like Watchman by Alan Moore, uses a very similar 4 chapter structure. I still remember the headlines, the story of the kid and the comic book, and of course the imagery that makes the book so memorable.
While the population here in the US may not be physically overcrowded? It is as though our economy disagrees. Then again, our economy, for lack of even a micro-dose of Socialism (or even relevant Regulation) has turned Sociopathic.
Liz Rathburn Well. Actually that is a problem. They are being forced out of their homes by a totalitarian government and forced to work on farms to feed the populace....
@@murrax7639 In india or China? Because China is not doing that it just imports a bunch of grain and mechanizes its farms and most of the Chinese communist party is made up of people who were farmers or from rural areas so its not like they're going to fuck over farmers.
So, this is basically the source of every futuristic sci-fi action movie for the past few decades? If this gave us Robocop, then thanks! In that case, someone make a faithful adaptation of this book.
I think Gonzo was just trying to hype up the moment and build some adrenaline (as well as some laughs). Or perhaps he was merely hiding his underlying fears of the voyage.
There's a reality most people don't wanna address: despite our tech we are currently cornered on Earth. We've explored and colonized nearly every surface. We've been in the depths of seas and realized it wouldn't be practical to expand there. We've attempted to explore the underground world and realised how hard it is to dig any meter of it. We went to space, walked on the Moon, and concluded we weren't ready for space colonization. It's too hazardous, too expensive, with little to gain in the first phases, and so much to spend to get the tiniest things in and out. We can't keep expanding, because there's nowhere to expand right now. That's the reason for our problems. We used a logic that was doomed to fail due to frontiers that are too hard to breach for humanity to thrive beyond those. And by concentrating people on 30% of Earth's surface, we're only destroying the habitat of other living creatures in the process, plus setting up huge territorial conflicts for rare resources and simply, more space. Both on the national and individual level.
After Zanzibar, I was taken from the battle neither truly alive nor truly dead; an undying shadow in a world of lights. But soon... soon, it will finally... end
Why don't you switch off all your electronics, move out to a small village to live and work there, reading only a single newspaper once a week? That would slow things down. It's your choice.
Just finished listening to the audiobook version of this. It's a fantastic book. Thanks for showing me something o probably wouldn't have otherwise found. Also, Chad C. Mulligan is a badass
Looking at the audible page... Stand on Zanzibar has 159 star ratings averaging out to a 4/5 I am guessing that in 1 month that number will have tripled, entirely because of this episode. I will check back here at the end of July to see. I mean... I plan to check it out.
We at the Dickheads (Philip K Dick) podcast have recorded an episode on this awesome book as well. It is a part of out series on the Hugo winners of the 60's. This is a great video. One of the best Sci-fi novels ever!
Definitely going to track down a copy of this book. Though i do wonder if it was a guide for those who actually shape the world or if it was someone who was far sighted enough to know that humans will always be short-sighted. Though in the wake of our corporate overlords current stances I'm sure they would rather people forget this kind of story.
I feel population pressure is the weakest point made. Many countries are struggling with the opposite problem, too few people (Japan, South Korea, China) and as countries advance population growth rates shrink.
Yeah sure ...but no. China sure doesn't lack people. Japan and Korea may have a shrinking population, but their main cities are still very much overcrowded.
China's population is heavily skewed towards an older population, meaning there will be fewer people to replace and pay for those retiring. In Japan every province is experiencing decreasing populations except Tokyo, which is due to internal migration. How does a shrinking younger and middle age group care for an ever growing elderly population?
@@br8745 Sounds like the Future of the US, the way the economy is leaving out the folks under 40. They're not having kids at nearly the same rate, for lack of economic stability. Our only hope to pay for older people as they retire? Immigrant workers. You know, the people we're putting in Concentration Camps right now.
The countries are not struggling with too few people. They are struggling with ageing populations. Its a proportion thing not an absolute numbers thing
The history of the actual futurists is really interesting, but also very concerning. The idealism was born as a modernist one but not a traditionalist one, in that they sought to advance through the breaking from traditional ideals like religion, while adhering to modernist ideals like mastery of nature and the other. It is another of the ideals that stemmed out of the results of the industrial revolution and as such it looks upon that era of the rise of mass production and mass consumption very favorably, because a lot of the ideas were formed prior to WWI and WWII, where those methods of mass production also led into methods of mass killing and death on scales never before seen. I think they serve as another warning about the dangers of hubris in a lot of ways.
How do we cope with a world we were never evolutionarily designed for? Stand on Zanzibar is prophetic, chaotic, and at times, profound.
Don't forget to check out the Extra Sci Fi Reading list: bit.ly/ESF_List
Please make review video about Ghost Recon Breakpoint?!
Hey! I have another recomendation for a book, Scythe by Neal Shusterman.
Pls make a video about fallout
do a episode about the book/movie, children of men
Governor Santini is brought to you today by Soylent Red, and Soylent Yellow. And, new, delicious, Soylent Green: The "miracle food" of high energy plankton, gathered from the oceans of the world. Due to its enormous popularity, Soylent Green is in short supply, so remember-Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
They left out planned obsolescence in consumer goods. There's an amazing rant by one character about that.
I can kind of understand that, a company kills itself if it makes something that will last too long, because at that point they have a maximum limit they can sell before they stop breaking even on the cost of production.
Or to put it another way I had one of those cube TVs, it lasted years without failing once, I eventually replaced it with a tv that didn't last a year, the cube tv was too effective, and while consumers will enjoy it there is no real money to be made.
Cube tv? You mean a CRT TV? /facepalm
@@Em3rgency2 Wats a CRITTERV, Grandad?
@@Em3rgency2 holy shit a crt tv is forgotten now? damn we are old
@@Em3rgency2 I didn't know the actual name of them, they were still a damn good tv though.
You didn't mention that one of the book's major figures is an African named 'President Obomi'
Holy shit is this true?
Alorand
Okay, that is spooky!
thats scary as hell
Bruh
Reminds me of how in Werner Von Brauns Mars colonization plans the leader of the Mars colony was called "The Elon"...
*Detroit abandoned? You’re sure it’s Sci-Fi?*
You take a sip of your trusty vault 13 canteen. Funniest thing I’ve seen today 😂
Well... it was in 1965.
It's Sci-Fi because the author was a time traveler!
Oof
Stand on Zanzibar sounds more like a blue print for 2019 than a novel.
Productive programming is what we call it.
Hey bro 2020 here... hey yeah listen, some stuff happened..
We are coming from 2020 to let you know that a bunch of other novels aren't novels anymore. :^)
Wait till you hear about 2020...
9:06pm EST 9/6/21
This video felt way too short. D: I was just getting into the groove and thinking we'd passed the intro when the outro music started to fade in. T.T
I think they want you to read the book:)
@@oktheneggscape5759 6 episodes on Frankenstein but only a couple of minutes of "Stand on Zanzibar" and "I have no mouth but I must scream" and ZERO on "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" doesn't seem right.
Stand on Zanzibar is a textbook example of world building at ground level. You just get thrown in deep with no explanation whatsoever.
Okay this book is almost spooky accurate to our world
"a dystopia that looks just a little too much like the modern day"
me: yeah right.
*hears his predictions which came true*
me: HOLY SHIT!
Tbh, that’s probably THE BOOK, that you guys made me want to read...
*Why the hell isn’t this book mandatory in school...*
Because school hasn't changed since Shakespeare's time
also too meta and depression endusing for some
at least it's a wakeup call for most
lmao
@@jchase1524 I wouldn't say that, but school definitely focuses on the classics a bit too much. The classics are important, don't get me wrong, but they're definitely not alone to matter.
For me it's this book and A Canticle For Lebowitz. I guess it's not mandatory in school because it doesn't have the same widespread renown as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 45 or 1984 and the likes.
Because English teachers would rather have us try and deduce the meaning doesn't exist rather than actual applicable things
"...deciding to run in a public place and simply starting to kill as many strangers as they can."
Thank God that hasn't happened yet. Oh, wait...
wErE nOt rAcEs yOuR rAcEs *proceeds to beat people up and try to kill them because there wearing mega hat
Steph Vanquaethem *All the other kids with the pumped up kicks*
@@starfirejordan9875 Sounds more like all those schoolshootings in America than anything else
starfirejordan
Can you name a single credible source on that ever happening?
starfirejordan And vice versa
Theory: He was literally a time traveler
i mean... yeah
Reality: He was incredibly intelligent and informed.
Agreed
nah these were just trends in development people could track with time
Claim to fame: I have one of the electric typewriters Zanzibar was written on. Doesn’t work anymore though...
Do you plan on fixing it or just letting it be?
What a cool conversation piece!
Wow. Small world.
Soooo The simpsons writers arent the only time travelers. Hmmm intersting
Its almost like if you make enough educated guesses some of them will sort of work and then confirmation bias kicks in.
I had never heard of this novel before. This sounds like something I need to read now.
Read The Sheep Look Up , also by John Brunner and even more weird in it's predictive strength
Beat me to it. I'm honestly a bit surprised they didn't at least mention it in the video, Sheep has even more weirdly accurate predictions, a similar tone, and is arguably a better (or at least slightly easier) read.
@@kendallmoore4826 Brunner has a pretty reasonable claim as at least a co-founder of cyberpunk.
@@crunchbuttsteak8741 Yes!! 'The Sheep Look Up' is excellent. Still got my copy buried somewhere.
@@johnjesberger5676William Gibson acknowledges as much in Neuromancer, when he name-drops “yonderboys”, a clear reference to SOZ.
Zanzibar, the site of the world's shortest war. The Anglo-Zanzibar War, lasted less than 45 minutes
and that is the only think that people know of it
Metal gear solid had a reference to zanzibar
NO NAME Found the sultan of Oman lives there now
That’s just where he lives
Still lasted longer than I do, about 45 times as long... ¿Or are we talking about something else?
@NO NAME Found: Zanzibar was a major hub for the slave trade back in the day, and also a center of piracy on and off for several parts of its history. So no, it's not just known for that brief bombardment by the Royal Navy that's somewhat dubiously called a war.
Weirdly enough "How do we cope in a world we didn't evolve fast enough for?" is something I've been thinking about recently.
By all manner of things I have a pretty cushy job that pays well (fully remote Software Engineer where I manage my own schedule) but I find myself being a little jealous of people who do physical labour all day and at the same time not wanting to commit to a 9-5 job with a large amount of travel time. Very much a 1st world blues and in contradiction to each other.
I find myself more and more wanting to be outside, enjoying nature, playing airsoft or just sitting in the garden. Adopting my dog has been a really nice boon for me, seeing how simply she sees the world and being able to share that with her on walks.
It's a weird state we're living in, where I don't worry directly about food but more about numbers in my bank account so I can pay my council tax and shop for supplies etc. Whereas a few centuries ago I could plonk myself down in a forest, build a hut and (if I'm out of the way enough) not worry so much about the tax man but instead concentrate on feeding myself and my family.
As much as the modern world seems to bring convenience, it separates us from the physical act of producing our own food, housing, clothing etc.
Not sure what my point was. I guess I yearn for a simpler time but I'm aware of how much harder that would be and that at the same time I'm grateful that modern life saves me from dying of starvation or disease so easily.
It's a realisation that I'm not really built to cope properly with this lifestyle, but that the alternative is a MUCH shorter and harder life.
Watching this helped me remember someone's quote on 1984, I don't remember who said it, but he said: "1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual"
Was this actually written in 1968? Dear god.
...... um my paranoia is now 5 times worse
This book just stands alone for me. The Innis Mode form (jumping between Context, Continuity, Tracking with Closeups and The Happening world) is worth it's own whole conversation. The plot is amazing, it just keeps unspooling and I remember thinking "he's waited too long, he can't land it, no one could land this", then just like that he does. Add that to all the things you covered here, his speculative prowess, the tone, it's an astounding work.
It truly is everything you describe. It’s like putting the entire surface of the planet in a colossal blender, pushing purée, and then dropping you in the middle as it spins. One of the phenomena he foresees is “information overload”, and he does an incredible job of getting a 1968 reader to feel what it will be like, using nothing but text.
I might actually _read_ this one! Amazing that this author not only predicted our society so well, but also went against the grain of his 1960's hippy-surroundings. This guy recognized the future he saw for what it is: A dystopia.
Was definitely a real shocker when I read it in 69. And one of the books who defined my upcoming sci fi writer and translator career. And later, in the early 70s, I had the great luck and honour of meeting JB at the Metz sci fi festival in France...!
At 3:33 my mind was immediately drawn to the shootings in recent years...
Obviously that was the videos intent.
@@randomxnp What planet are you from, Rich? Before Whitman went up the Texas Tower in '66, mass shootings were unheard of. The frequency has been on the climb ever since.
@@randomxnp let's hope you witness and experience one.
SantomPh I disagree with him to but he doesn’t deserve that no matter how much of a idiot he is
@@randomxnp >both write irrelevant facts
he literally just stated a major mass shooting that occurred prior to their growth after columbine, the spike of mass shootings **has** grown in the united states of america, and there is no denying that. you clearly know nothing about the topic if you didn't understand what that meant.
This may be the first book in a long time to scare me if not only because how accurate it was
No one:
Extra credits:
Here are some of the best pieces of literature to ever walk the earth.
i should read this
4 kinds of chapters, 3 of which don't advance the plot?
Beautifully written?
Long?
Sounds like Les Misérables.
The Man Who Laughs (also written by Hugo) was like that too. Weird chapters of pseudo-history with some plot-related chapters here and there.
Rayuela by Cortazar too
welp, that's the part, where, story != message of the novel
This book sounds like a perfect gen-z read
John Brunner was amazing. From 1968 to 1975, he wrote, in addition to "Zanzibar": "The Jagged Orbit", about racial violence and the overproliferation of weapons in America; "The Sheep Look Up", about overpollution and "The Shockwave Rider", pretty much the originator of cyberpunk as a genre. All great reads.
Of all the dystopias, this one has the most developed setting. Brunner’s world doesn’t feel like a dystopia with 60s characters in the future, but instead a 2010 that looks a lot like ours, but everyone is meaner and more cynical. At least in other dystopias you’d get arrested or exiled for being different, but if you were dropped in this world you’d have a tough time because you’d want to try and have a normal life, but you’re surrounded by potentially dangerous people.
The fact that the book is so accurate in depicting today’s world, and the ridiculous nature of how mental everyone is written and how everyone else today seems to be the mirror image of the book, proves there is no hope for humanity. We all laughed at the ridiculous back then calling it science fiction, but now it’s our reality. We brought this Hell upon our selves.
And yet I've never even heard of this book. Sounds downright scary how much it got right.
Zanzibar land...outer heaven!!!
I feel asleep!
Both controlled by big boss
Kojima knows his sources
This is my favourite book. I re-read it every few years and always catch something new. Or at least get a new understanding of something I previously read.
16 views
16 likes
THIS IS PERFECT
Perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
“Perfection”
Perfection: our opinion of what is correct, despite others misgivings
Tyler McDaniel I’m referring that old/semi old meme
this aged like wine, espec the image of someone with a gas mask looking out their window because thats been the west coast in september
I love this series so much. I've never realized how much I missed a book review channel in my life.
In all the stories I heard I hope this type of thing never happens, I hope in the future people don’t be so terrible towards each other I hope the future will be better and loving I hope in the future people will be kind and loving also in peace ☮️ ❤🌿🌈🌼
Just wanted to share my favorite quote from the book:
"The word is EPTIFY. Don't look in the dictionary. It's too new for the dictionary. But you'd better learn what it implies. EPTIFY. We do it to you."
The internet is a buzzword inventing machine, take a week or even a day off and suddenly everyone is using a new adjective.
I've been saying for years that cities are not natural for us and we're not adapted to living in them. I need to read this book!
I am just wondering how the grim darkness of the far future will be shown when it's time comes.
Sometimes it's serious and even thought-provoking, while other times it's so pants-on-head stupid that it's hilarious.
UuUuUm
0:22
Wow
The man even predicted EA.
What a visionary
Five years on this is ever more scarily accurate. Zanzibar stands.
Just as a heads up, we've had electric cars since the 1910s.
@@Feroce If memory serves, New York City had a decent setup. Granted that was probably it!
You do realise they already had systems in place for battery swops, so you could just change the batteries and away you go again. New ideas? Think again.
Yes but until recently they didn't become (somewhat) common thanks to the auto and oil industries being invested in the internal combustion engine
This book has always been one of my favorites. I'm glad to see it get some coverage.
That book predicted EVERYTHING in our modern world! O_O
The level of accuracy by those predictions is unreal
Amazing predictions, this really speaks to me, I live in a bedsit in London and I love the freedom it gives me.
Finished this recently in audio book format, i deeply enjoyed how the ending frames the rest of the story.
The Simpsons: Makes pretty accurate predictions about the future.
Brunner: I see you copied my style.
Guys I really love the episode but you got one thing wrong, they're not called loot boxes they're called surprise mechanics.
"A hope that we'll create a world better than the one in Stand on Zanzibar," oh boy was Brunner wrong but so right in his depiction of his "fictional future" society.
I decided to read more thanks to this series, starting with Verne's Around the world in 80 days.
Thanks Extra Credits.
Poetic. Our own success has turned into our greatest challenge.
People thinking that fiction is predicting the future don't seem to realize how predictable humanity is.
That being said, this book is one of the most ironic yet accurate books I've ever seen. Unfortunately... it's one of the most ironic and accurate books I've ever seen. The trend it describes is pinpoint, and nothing in the real world seems to deviant from it. Here in the States, racial and identity politics is turning everyone against each other. I personally don't feel safe leaving the house, and I live in a decent part of town, because the only logical step to frustrating the population is to weaponize it, or correct it, and if you've seen the seen how Orwellian our media has become, well, the Ministries would be proud. Makes you wonder hoe many crackpot theories have truth to them now.
Zanzibar might very well be the work of a time traveler, or a master psychologist. Either way, he hasn't been very wrong yet.
Looks like we hit the ultraviolence threshold long before overpopulation. We have tons of space and resource capability in this world, we just need to upgrade and manage them better. But the social, psychological, and financial pressures are definitely here.
I wish you all would do one of these over metro 2033
The format was like television, a main story then commercials then main story. The story is strangely close to how things are now, I did not think about it when I was reading but now it blows me away.
PLEASE do a video on The Dispossessed, it's so impactful and influential and important, just as the other dystopias described here, but it's so different!
We need more extra sci fi
That definition of Leadership, though... 🙃
Eesh. I'm with you, there. This book is a little too real. I, uh. . . I need something a little more philosophically light. A little pickled ginger or coffee beans to wash my brain out.
Watch door monster
I mean, compared to this 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' is lighter.
i am now officaly rattled
I saw "zanzibar" and Iim sorry but all I can imagine is Big Boss voicing this episode
Perhaps I'm wrong on this one, but it feels like Watchman by Alan Moore, uses a very similar 4 chapter structure. I still remember the headlines, the story of the kid and the comic book, and of course the imagery that makes the book so memorable.
Wow! 😮
_"Someone pinch me, I'm think I'm dreaming."_
Sounds like what's happening now, very eerie.
How about a video on Brunner's "The Sheep look up?" That's another brilliantly prescient work by this author.
Welp, time to add this to my reading list. I have to know how scarily accurate it is.
I don't think the overpopulation thing is really how things are now but the little things the book gets really correct.
While the population here in the US may not be physically overcrowded? It is as though our economy disagrees.
Then again, our economy, for lack of even a micro-dose of Socialism (or even relevant Regulation) has turned Sociopathic.
@@Feroce Even there its not like they can't live or don't have enough food for everyone.
Liz Rathburn Well. Actually that is a problem. They are being forced out of their homes by a totalitarian government and forced to work on farms to feed the populace....
@@murrax7639 In india or China? Because China is not doing that it just imports a bunch of grain and mechanizes its farms and most of the Chinese communist party is made up of people who were farmers or from rural areas so its not like they're going to fuck over farmers.
@@murrax7639 you don't know what you're talking about
So, this is basically the source of every futuristic sci-fi action movie for the past few decades? If this gave us Robocop, then thanks! In that case, someone make a faithful adaptation of this book.
I’m only commenting to see if anyone gets the reference.
Anyone remember the Zanzibarbarians in Muppet Treasure Island?
I think Gonzo was just trying to hype up the moment and build some adrenaline (as well as some laughs). Or perhaps he was merely hiding his underlying fears of the voyage.
"To the north west dirty dishes!"
......"How does she do that?!"
@@luckydavis84 Thank you.
There's a reality most people don't wanna address: despite our tech we are currently cornered on Earth. We've explored and colonized nearly every surface. We've been in the depths of seas and realized it wouldn't be practical to expand there. We've attempted to explore the underground world and realised how hard it is to dig any meter of it. We went to space, walked on the Moon, and concluded we weren't ready for space colonization. It's too hazardous, too expensive, with little to gain in the first phases, and so much to spend to get the tiniest things in and out. We can't keep expanding, because there's nowhere to expand right now. That's the reason for our problems. We used a logic that was doomed to fail due to frontiers that are too hard to breach for humanity to thrive beyond those. And by concentrating people on 30% of Earth's surface, we're only destroying the habitat of other living creatures in the process, plus setting up huge territorial conflicts for rare resources and simply, more space. Both on the national and individual level.
From this author I prefer The Sheep Look Up. Also feels uncannily accurate .
You guys should just expand this to extra literature
glad it has hope. I like when writers break from the norm and add hope to a story.
I have passed this book up several times. I have a few days off next week, I should go read this.
I miss this series and revisit the Extra Sci-fi as a whole.
I haven't read this one yet, but the accuracy of Brunner's "And the Sheep Look Up" still haunts me.
Accurate predictions? It must be the work of an enemy stand...on Zanzibar!
Jojo is everywhere i look
After Zanzibar, I was taken from the battle neither truly alive nor truly dead; an undying shadow in a world of lights. But soon... soon, it will finally... end
Dude, this is what I've been saying about our modern world. Not enough space and time
Why don't you switch off all your electronics, move out to a small village to live and work there, reading only a single newspaper once a week? That would slow things down. It's your choice.
There is never enough time, but space we can do. The solar system is open to us and we can fit trillions this way.
Never heard about this book, but now I'll read it. Thank you!
Just finished listening to the audiobook version of this. It's a fantastic book. Thanks for showing me something o probably wouldn't have otherwise found.
Also, Chad C. Mulligan is a badass
Man, I love this series. You guys are bringing so many awesome books to my attention! Thanks!
Read this as a teenager in the 80's loved this book.
John Brunner was more accurate in his predictions than Nostradamus, Baba Vanga and Edgar Cayce combined! (0_0)
Amazing book. Brenner is the most likely to have been a time traveler since Wells.
Looking at the audible page...
Stand on Zanzibar has 159 star ratings averaging out to a 4/5
I am guessing that in 1 month that number will have tripled, entirely because of this episode.
I will check back here at the end of July to see.
I mean... I plan to check it out.
You forgot, didn't you?
I love how this episode so far is just Matt voice acting
These videos should be series like in extra history, a series per book.
We at the Dickheads (Philip K Dick) podcast have recorded an episode on this awesome book as well. It is a part of out series on the Hugo winners of the 60's. This is a great video. One of the best Sci-fi novels ever!
I just bought this book because of your channel...yup, it's GREAAAAAAAAAT!
The recommendations from this channel tho. I'll be finishing Canticle for Leibowitz tomorrow morning. Guess I'll be ordering this.
This video is why I got the book in the first place, thanks😊
Definitely going to track down a copy of this book. Though i do wonder if it was a guide for those who actually shape the world or if it was someone who was far sighted enough to know that humans will always be short-sighted. Though in the wake of our corporate overlords current stances I'm sure they would rather people forget this kind of story.
You guys should do a video on Brunners other work, The Sheep Look Up, he's eerily close on environmental issues too
I feel population pressure is the weakest point made. Many countries are struggling with the opposite problem, too few people (Japan, South Korea, China) and as countries advance population growth rates shrink.
Yeah sure ...but no. China sure doesn't lack people. Japan and Korea may have a shrinking population, but their main cities are still very much overcrowded.
China's population is heavily skewed towards an older population, meaning there will be fewer people to replace and pay for those retiring. In Japan every province is experiencing decreasing populations except Tokyo, which is due to internal migration. How does a shrinking younger and middle age group care for an ever growing elderly population?
@@br8745 My point is, even if the country population is decreasing, it does not stop you from feeling the population pressure inside a city.
@@br8745 Sounds like the Future of the US, the way the economy is leaving out the folks under 40. They're not having kids at nearly the same rate, for lack of economic stability.
Our only hope to pay for older people as they retire? Immigrant workers. You know, the people we're putting in Concentration Camps right now.
The countries are not struggling with too few people. They are struggling with ageing populations. Its a proportion thing not an absolute numbers thing
The history of the actual futurists is really interesting, but also very concerning. The idealism was born as a modernist one but not a traditionalist one, in that they sought to advance through the breaking from traditional ideals like religion, while adhering to modernist ideals like mastery of nature and the other. It is another of the ideals that stemmed out of the results of the industrial revolution and as such it looks upon that era of the rise of mass production and mass consumption very favorably, because a lot of the ideas were formed prior to WWI and WWII, where those methods of mass production also led into methods of mass killing and death on scales never before seen. I think they serve as another warning about the dangers of hubris in a lot of ways.
I read that in the 80s. Hit hard. I should read more Brunner.
Dystopia?
Edit: dystopia
Mothiieeo what
Imperial Guardsmen no. 3682 Dystopia!
Stand on Zanzibar? There's an old school Metal Gear joke in there somewhere, but I'm not clever enough to think of something good.
One of my favourites - Best part: Hipcrime and/or the first chapter.