Movies and Real Life Future - Part 1

Some movies may be warning us about the future but are we alert about them? While writing, I realized there are too many examples. So I thought of covering this topic in a multi-part series. A few examples that I have so far thought out:

Equilibrium (2002), Avatar (2009), Hunger Games series(2012), Elysium (2013), Divergent series(2014) and Maze Runner series (2014)

All of the above movies are based on a common premise: There will be another World War in the near future - the cause of the war is immaterial - and in the aftermath of the war, the World will get divided into factions / divisions / districts. The rich and powerful will try to exercise control and even this will work for some time. However, there will always be a revolution. My father always says, 'too much of anything is bad for the human race'. In most cases, it is oppression. BJP's thumping win in the 2014 General Elections in India was one such real-life example where, in the opinion of the masses, the earlier ruling party had exercised extreme corruption / malpractices and people wanted a revolution. Therefore, this is supposed to be a warning for people who rule the others or who are the oppressive bosses in their office. 

Resident Evil (2002), I am Legend (2007) and World War Z (2013)

This is the movie genre that shows that attempts made by scientists to solve medical problems of humanity and the subsequent experiments that have gone wrong in a not-so-distant future. On similar lines, I am sure a lot of people have experienced over the last 5-8 years that a person who catches cold and cough can't recover as fast as the similar person did, probably in the 1990s. Here are some links that depict this phenomenon:

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/whooping-cough-has-evolved-response-its-vaccine

http://www.fiercevaccines.com/story/whooping-cough-mutations-may-be-weakening-vaccine-effectiveness/2014-04-16

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30551093

Then there are the newly emerging types of diseases like Swine Flu and Bird Flu. These are all, IMO, results of experiments that have been going on around the globe. Scientists, in their quest to solve the critical problems of curing incurable, widely spread diseases like Cancer, AIDS, Hepatitis, etc. have been performing experiments and I think this has led to increase in variety and effectiveness of the diseases. 

This is something that I have experienced first hand. There may be many such examples of which we do not know yet. All this just raises 1 question in my mind: How long before we end up being in a situation like World War Z? 

Quantum of Solace (2008)

James Bond is seen travelling to places like Bolivia where it is shown that there is acute scarcity of water. Imagine what would be the situation in African countries, where the rainfall is already scanty. In India too, we are already witnessing string of low-rainfall years for the past decade now. And we know that sea and oceans have salty water that cannot be consumed but we don't even, yet, have a technology to convert this saline water into pure, drinkable water. Just imagine what would happen if India didn't receive Monsoon rainfall for 3 consecutive years? 

We already see the Tanker Mafia (at least in Maharashtra state) who, may be artificially, create shortage of drinkable water and then force us to make use of tanker services. Quantum of Solace depicts exactly this same scenario. It may not be long before we realize that Water has become the single, most-expensive resource that this World ever imagined. We need the innovative solutions like 'water harvestors from air' which is fast gaining popularity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection

http://inhabitat.com/mit-develops-advanced-fog-harvesting-material-that-pulls-5x-more-water-from-thin-air/

http://www.fogquest.org/

http://www.gizmag.com/fontus-airo-ryde-self-filling-water-bottle/41545/

Scary, isn't it?

But wait.. there's more to come.. Watch out for my Part 2 on this series!!!