MovieChat Forums > Into the Forest (2016) Discussion > Society seems to unravel pretty quickly.

Society seems to unravel pretty quickly.


Let me start by saying that I have never read this book. But, I do read a great deal of prepper, survivalist, zombie apocalypse, dystopian type of stuff. One the things that all these books have in common, is the fact that society pretty much collapses very quickly. I know that these are books. But within days, people are raping women, killing minorities( I might as well just put Black people here), and killing each other over gas and food. Sounds like Utopia to some right? Anyway... are there really that many people out there, that are being help back from doing horrible things, simply because they are afraid of the legal consequences. Human nature in general really disappoints me on some days, but I would like to think that we are better than that.

"Payback's a bitch and her stripper name's Karma"

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is the fact that society pretty much collapses very quickly
Makes you wonder how and why people maintain order on a daily basis; Obeying traffic laws & lights, paying for things at the store, etc. And when you see people breaking these laws you think "ass holes", lol.

are being help back from doing horrible things, simply because they are afraid of the legal consequences.
I believe so.

but I would like to think that we are better than that.
We're not. It is in our DNA to do terrible things to each other. We are only taught NOT to do these things, yet instinctively, we can do them without being taught. Makes you think, huh?

_
Every person that served can be called a veteran, but not every veteran can be called a Marine.

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I do NOT agree with your conclusion.

You're basing your analysis solely on the archetype of a competitive human being, there are hundread (if not thousands) of cases of people gone living in small communities, totally isolated from society, no electricity, no water, no gas, no nothing, they build all by themselves in small communities and they live pretty much happy.

It can be done and humnas are not "wired" as you speak to do terrible things, it has to do more with your character, they way you were thought things and the things that you already brought with you when you were born.

Doing an analysis base solely on an archetype is narrow minded. Instict does play a role in survival, but we have tons of examples of civilizations living in perfect harmony with each other in tribes before "this" tech civilization.

Oh BTW, that "wired DNA to do terrible things" did come from Europe. They killed of the majority of tribes in America for no other reason than conquest.

We have tons of examples of people working in groups for the better. You just like to see the worst of us, that's all, the movie would love to see that too.

It was good, but too much feminism for me, there are good people and there are bad people (woman included).

Alex Vojacek

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Oh BTW, that "wired DNA to do terrible things" did come from Europe. They killed of the majority of tribes in America for no other reason than conquest.

Typical Marxist racism. The native tribes were already killing each other because of tribalism (racism). Evolutionary biology, chimps do it too. There are plenty of westerns condemned by the left as "racist" for simply showing the truth.

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Did you happen to study the native american tribes to confirm they were all fighting each other?

Also, invalidating an argument about violence with another act of violence is stupid, you say the Europe invasion and destruction of native american tribes is justified because the native american tribes were already fighting each other?. Who gave Europeans the right to do that?.

Let's not get into that, I'm not interested in talking to you anymore.

Alex Vojacek

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I'm sorry, but WTF. Are you implying that native tribes didn't wage war and kill one another? Only real difference between Europeans and Natives is that Europeans had power and technology to do it on a much larger scale.

He didn't justify actions of Europeans, he just pointed out that your notion "Oh BTW, that "wired DNA to do terrible things" did come from Europe." is a total BS statement.

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Some american tribes were far more advanced than the europeans that came here to wipe them out.

Plus, the majority of ships that came here were filled with assassins, war prisoners and psychopats.

Comparing the two is almos nonsenical, you can defend Europeans all you want, their attitude was shameful.

Becasue some local tribes fight with each other that automatically gives you the right to descent into a new continent, forced them to live like you and then wipe them all out?

Sorry, but you're an idiot or you don't know what you're talking about, study a little more history before putting native american tribes at the same level than their invaders.

Alex Vojacek

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So you put your words in my mouth, show your ignorance in history, declare Europeans more vile than Natives, misspell every other word and call me an idiot? Wow, you must be true intellectual.

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I think its in our best interest to stop just stop trying to critize one another.

I will be polite as it should be and start by saying that I am sorry I called you an idiot, that was totally uncalled for and it is not what i truly believe about you, at all, it's just something I said in the heat of the moment and it's more related to my personal insecurities rather than what I think you are.

Having said that, I prefer to switch the topic of discussion to the things we both agree on rather than replying one another like this, I think you could agree its a lot more preferable.

Once again, I'm sorry for my comments.

Alex Vojacek

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But you are an idiot for believing native indigenous people are inferior to any invaders arriving from another land. The fact is the native people know the land and can distinguish between what is safe against unsafe in terms of edible plants as well as dangerous areas not to venture into. Invaders would be unfamiliar with all of this, meaning the natives are charged with the superiority the inferior invaders lack.

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No. No Amerinds were more advanced that Europeans. Some were advanced in certain very specific areas but that is all.

No. The majority of ships over time were filled with families.

Are you actually totally ignorant? or are you just this much of a partisan, historical revisionist? Because almost nothing you write has even a shade of truth in it. And I am an Amerind and I do study history.

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Marxist racism
This claim can be made only by someone who never read any marxist work, except right wing propaganda about marxism

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"Typical Marxist racism."


What the hell does that even mean?

"There are plenty of westerns condemned by the left as "racist" for simply showing the truth."


What "westerns" are you talking about, and what "truth" is it you think they're derided for demonstrating?

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You're underestimating how dependent of electricity we became. It's not just comfort and leisure, it's pretty much everything for us. If grid failed catastrophically like in the movie, most of us would become broke, unemployed and lacking in any marketable skills. Plus our communities are overgrown and cannot sustain themselves without electricity and transportation.

Those factors will lead to starvation and massive change in society, no doubt good portion of people will resort to crime in effort to survive.

Another problem is we became dependent on policing. Our trust in build upon the law instead of personal knowledge like it is in small communities you mentioned. In rapidly changing society like in case of black out, crime rate will go up and without effective policing it will skyrocket.

Extreme desperation and lack of policing is hell of combination that can destroy our societal norms rather quickly.

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Although I can agree with you that your assesment seems pretty logical and "may" happen, we never had the kind of outage described in the movie so, all the scenarios depicted in movies are, for all intents and purpose, theoretical.

I do not abide to the rule that human beings are inerently bad, it depends on a number of factors and everything can happen.

On the contrary, if the outage or problem is orchestrated, then, of course, you can begin to guess where it will lead to. We have evidence that orchestrations had the expected results, we had orchestrated wars and conflicts through the world and the outcome was expected because it was planned that way to begin with.

Alex Vojacek

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All the later comments seem plausible. If you don't think civilization can unravel quickly, just type something on the internet and see how quickly things spiral out of control....

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The internet is not bound by the usual social constraints that people are under in real life. If I went to a town hall and started saying the kinds of things people say on the internet, I'd find myself in a world of hurt pretty quickly, because society doesn't tolerate that kind of behavior.

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The internet is not bound by the usual social constraints that people are under in real life.


Which is exactly the same as a suburban neighbourhood would become without electricity, cops etc - the usual social constraints would be gone, that's the point.

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It all depends on how scared people get (especially of other people). I agree with the idea that the more disconnected people in a given area the more quickly they would turn to self interest and violence in the absence of social norms. First week might be fine but I think suburbia would turn to hell within the fortnight.

A bunch of people that know each other and know how to work together, in a smaller rural community for instance, would probably hold on a lot longer.

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My guess is that a widespread power outage would result in some anarchy, but not complete breakdown.

Day 1-2 would be small-scale disturbances, petty theft, etc. But I think the police would start to crack down pretty hard -- curfews, significant arrests, etc.

By the end of week 1, lots of temporary generator power would be deployed to hospitals and so forth, as well as engineers de-coupling local grids from regional and national grids and actually restoring power on a limited basis.

If widespread sustained outages (weeks) continued, I'd expect national guard units deployed for relief (food, water) and to maintain order.

I don't think you get to total anarchy for months, if ever, without a secondary crisis.

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@tecnogaming
I hate to sound like an ass, but you are mostly wrong in your posts. Not, I think, from a lack of understanding or an "attempt to rewrite history," but instead, from a desire to see the best in everyone.

Yes, there are many examples of small communities living and working together for the greater good, often without "modern" conveniences. However, those utopian communities tend to fall apart when they grow too large. This is what is known as the "free-rider problem." There are too many instances where people tend to take advantage of communities without contributing anything back. Check out Mancur Olsen for more about this (famous political scientist).

Alas, while Europeans did commit genocide on a massive scale, it is a bit much to claim it was merely for conquest. There are way more reasons than that for what went down with Native tribes, literally too many to list here. I agree that saying all tribes were at war with one another is a dumb thing to say. Many tribes were fairly peaceful. Yet, out of the hundreds of different tribes on the North American continent when Europeans first colonized, more than a few were war-like societies constantly in a state of conflict with each other.

Saying that most ships that came here were filled with assassins and psychopaths while the Native tribes were more advanced than the Europeans is nonsensical. Technologically speaking, Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the most advanced human beings had ever been. Much more so than the great civilizations in the Americas. Check out the "Columbian Exchange," which talks about how these two civilizations influenced each other.

Finally, modern society is based upon trade, often large-scale trade across vast distances. Lets say, hypothetically speaking, the power DOES go out across the entire United States. There would be no way to continue trade and society collapses in days. According to some research I've done, there is enough food in the City of New York to last three days without a constant influx of shipping (mostly trucking goods from distribution centers around the US). After three days, you'll have millions of people fighting for what is left. No matter how civilized you were, when you or your loved ones are starving without any other recourse, there will be the desire to do anything to fix it. This includes killing/stealing/lying, all marks of an uncivilized person.

Most people lack the skills to survive without modern society. Probably something like 90% of the population would die fairly soonish. Just imagine the disease that would run rampant without indoor plumbing. If human waste is within about 500 yards from your water supply, you'll die from disease. If you live someplace where there is no freshwater supply without piping it in, you'll die. These are just the facts of life as we know it. Civilization would collapse without indoor plumbing.

And before you ask, I am literally a trained historian with a BS and MA in history, with an emphasis in political science and the American West.

Cheers!

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"It is in our DNA to do terrible things to each other."

If that were true, society would never develop. Humans are a social species. Individuals in a social species help each other, because survival demands it. That's why all the great apes live in social groups.

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Sure, smallish social groups may be a natural predisposition for our species but civilisation usually develops through force. Take the rules away and civilisation would crumble fairly quickly, its a bit of a false construct.

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The family is naturally a close, protective unit and progressed to a tribal group also protective of itself. So, of course,they would not do "terrible things to each other" outside of punishment or rituals meant to hold the unit together. It was religions that held units larger than the tribe in check and prevented chaos and anarchy. Religion isn't very influential in the west now. It was not the innate goodness of man that held society together because that doesn't (never did and never will)exist.
To those who can't imagine things unraveling "pretty quickly", have you not heard news stories of the looting and violence in a blackout when the power is down for only a few hours? Of course this is usually in larger cities and is unlikely in smaller communities--at first. If the power is down long enough (a week, a month?)and you're fighting for the last can of beans down at your friendly neighborhood grocery store so your family will have something to eat it all goes to hell "pretty quickly".

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But within days, people are raping women, killing minorities( I might as well just put Black people here), and killing each other over gas and food.


I actually do think it's very realistic to think that people would go on a power trip in a post-apocalyptic world, killing and raping. Just the fact that no one can communicate to police or other authorities very readily would lead to massive looting very very quickly. Six to eight months in... I definitely wouldn't trust anyone to act civilly to each other anymore. Sure society would eventually correct itself into some sort of order, like has existed in generations past, without electricity, but in the immediate wake of the crisis, it's not instantly going to become a utopian pre-technology society.

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"Payback's a bitch and her stripper name's Karma" well very useful for me this quote
so i'll memorized it xoxo

see you in the next life

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The only real life example I can provide is when a city or part of a city suffers a black out look what happens. Riots, robbery, burglaries, etc. If people have no fear of getting caught I think they would surprise you what they are really like.

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A small, close knit community would fare better than a city. A community of a few hundred would do better than 20k or more. Through military history it's been found that it's hard for everyone to know much about each other in groups numbering more than 150. With strangers comes danger.

You can probably look at the history around your area for how the towns were set up, pre-automobile, to see how "safe" your community would be to strangers. Communities were usually set up around 20 miles from each other, give or take. This is about how far you could walk in a day. Settlers would camp at a river crossing and a town would develop. If your town is more than 30 miles away from anything and not on the way to someplace else - you can expect to be fairly isolated from people just wandering in on foot or horseback.

This film had the characters living 3 days walk from town - the two visitors that showed up only did because they knew something was there. If only Dad would have had a book on roof repair.

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Well that makes sense to me. The less people the more likely everyone knows each other giving way to a more friendly and coming together in a time of crisis. I can totally see that. Very good points to consider. Thanks for making me see this.

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Actually human beings are "wired" to live and survive in social groups. In primitive societies being ousted from your group is pretty much a death sentence. That said, when resources are scarce one group may very well try to "conquer" or chase out another group in attempting to take their resources for themselves. BUT, and I will stress this point, civilization will CHANGE and ADAPT not fall apart.

People lived without electricity for most of our history and still had strong well-organized societies as well as law and order. There is absolutely no reason to believe that our police force and our legal system would suddenly cease to exist simply because we suddenly have to go back to an older way of doing things. Lack of electricity doesn't prevent us from continuing to make bullets for our military or cops, and it doesn't stop us from making paper or even rebuilding. A strong EMP pulse over a large area could conceivably destroy sensitive equipment and interrupt our power supplies, but that certainly wouldn't signal a permanent end to things-and certainly not "an end to civilization as we know it".

I won't deny that there are likely to be some people who would seek to take advantage of the situation, no matter how temporary it is (we've seen that in black outs in the big cities) but that kind of anarchy wouldn't last even in the event of a prolonged outage as people re-organized and adjusted to the situation, and would even be a non-starter in many if not most communities. You would be most at risk when isolated or in large cities where neighbors don't know each other well. People living in isolation would continue to be at highest risk from those with ill=intent. If it such a situation went on indefinitely for whatever reason, people will adapt and relearn old skills. People with carts and horses or other old-fashioned tech would become very popular.

The whole idea that civilization would collapse and it would be every man out for himself is a fantasy not supported by the humanity's history, or by the continued existence of people who continue to successfully survive and even live quite contentedly by primitive means.

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I think that the ass riots that have gone on since the election, and the ones that will likely ensue on inauguration day and after are a really good example of what happens when people think either the rules don't apply to them, or when they are gone what people will do. I have seen some scary stuff in the last year, and if it showed me one thing, whether you agree with this or not doesn't matter, with the God(of the Bible) and Biblical principles, society crumbles when it has an opportunity. I have talked to many of the rioters and most either have no religion at all (but most were not atheist, just not following a religion), or reject the major tenets of the faiths they supposedly follow. Without a moral compass from religion and without any possible consequences, eternal or now, man is capable of very very scary things. Recent history and older history shows this.

~Amy

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nyway... are there really that many people out there, that are being help back from doing horrible things


Not that many, but I feel like it would only take a handful of bad people to ruin things for everyone. Look at history for some examples.

The old quote (paraphrased) about "all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing" applies. In a civilized society, we pay people to be "good men" and keep evil in check. In the right circumstances, good men will arise naturally to take care of business. But yeah, far too often, bad folks become larger than life simply because everyone else figured it wasn't their problem.

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“Are there really that many people out there, that are being help back from doing horrible things, simply because they are afraid of the legal consequences?”

Yes.

It’s a thin line between society and chaos.
As each day of news now aptly shows.

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