A world of chaos walking ǀ What would it be like?
The popular trilogy of books, soon to be released as movies starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, by author Patrick Ness are a classic YA dystopian future hit.
They include all the classic workings you would expect from a hit young adult novel - a challenge they need to overcome; a journey where the protagonists inevitably fall in love, you get the idea...
A classic but nothing to special, right?
As good as they are, you wouldn't think would be breaking any boundaries of literature.
But they do - at least - in my opinion.
You see these books pose another interesting element. One that is not included in the likes of The Hunger Games or Maze Runner books.
On the New World, the planet where some humans have emigrated to, everyone can hear everybody else's thoughts.
This led my friends and I to an interesting debate. Like most people, I assume, they thought a world like this would be horrible. It is certainly presented as horrible for humans when they first arrive. Your probably thinking, yeah of course, I don't want other people to hear my thoughts. That's a pretty understandable point of view to hold.
Yet... I don't I agree with it. At least I don't think I do.
In these books, slight spoiler alert, there is another species- the natives to the planet. As humans in the novel call them, "spackle". These creatures, who have lived on this planet their entire life, don't really talk at all. They have the ability to make clicking sounds, like dolphins, but they rarely use it. Primarily they communicate through their thoughts - which everyone can hear - known as "noise" in the books.
The workings of this species are very different from our own. They have basically a single voice, their thoughts rolling into one, they refer to themselves as one- the land. With a singular leader, the sky, who determines decisions for the land as a whole.
The species, the land, seems to be very happy, everyone feels included - part of something larger. This is why I believe a world like this - eventually - would not be a bad place to live.
Before I dive and deeper let me describe the characteristics of noise a bit more. Your thoughts could be heard by the people around you, only within talking distance; you can control what other people hear to an extent, you can make yourself "louder" or quieter, for example if you are emotional, those thoughts would generally be louder.
Now people say they wouldn't want this, that's what you are probably thinking. But hear me out. I don't think this world is to dissimilar to ours - especially when we take into account social media.
When we are emotional, nowadays, most of us usually put it on social media, angry - on there, happy - on there, in love - on there. Some of these thoughts that we are so afraid of people knowing... we haven't considered that they already know them.
Clearly there is a primary difference, at least currently, there is choice. A choice about what we want to share. The thing is in this world of noise there is also still a choice, just to a slightly lesser extent. You can try to not think about something or push that thought out of your mind, in a similar way to how you might push some fear or anxiety out of your mind.
That might be to much, to much to constantly manage your thoughts. However, if you are anything like me you do that already, at work, when your studying. Besides, eventually, in a world like this, I believe every species- including humans - would eventually become like the land, having large collective thoughts, like the trending topics on twitter, if I were to go back to the social media analogy.
Those individual thoughts you might have would be unimportant, not focused on. And all these thoughts, ones that you might be embarrassed that you have nowadays would become destigmatized. At the end of the say I suppose its a question of privacy- at least on this "new world" you are aware of how little privacy you have.
What so many people forget is that even here, on earth, you would be surprised how little privacy you have.
If you don't believe you lack privacy then watch the movie Snowden- that true story gives an insight into just how little privacy we used to have, without ever knowing it. Currently, with all our advances in technology, I wouldn't be surprised if our levels of being watched are even higher than they were then.
And in a world where suicide, depression and loneliness are at some of the highest levels they have ever been, I don't think having a society where everyone is included and part of a greater unity, where everyone has an identity- as part of the "land". A world where yes there isn't much privacy - but at least we would know that.
This world where everyone is included and has a purpose, I don't believe would be a bad thing, in fact I think it might just end up being quite good for society.
Try and persuade me otherwise, I am interested to hear another point of view on this, I want to believe it would be bad, yet despite some of my friends best efforts, I still hold this opinion.
Sources:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2076822/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Walking
https://www.goodreads.com/series/44939-chaos-walking
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3774114/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
