For each of these book/TV show/film premises, discuss:
- the likelihood of that happening (Is it very likely to happen? Is it feasible? Is it unlikely to happen? Is it impossible? Is it too far-fetched?)
- its pros and cons, should that actually come about
- its ethical implications
Useful language:
- That’s highly unlikely.
- There’s a very slim chance that …
- In all likelihood, …………………………. will actually come true/ will become a reality.
- Space Tourism (2001: A Space Odyssey)
- Time Travel (Back to the Future)
- A Ministry devoted to rewriting past news, to tell what actually happened and never be wrong (George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four)
- Parents being able to track their children’s location, current vision and hearing and automatically censor distressing material through implanted technology. (Black Mirror)
- Teleportation: the act of travelling by an imaginary very fast form of transport that uses special technology or special mental powers (Star Trek)
- Creating genetically perfect babies (Gattaca)
- Falling in love with a female operating system (Her)
- Flying cars (Blade Runner)
- Having a smartphone implanted in your hand (Years and Years)
- Police foreseeing future crimes (Minority Report)
- Having a clone of your deceased partner/loved one made. (Black Mirror)
- Turning your body and soul into digital data after death (Years and Years)
- Life after death being a virtual reality-induced dream (Abre los Ojos / Vanilla Sky)
- Creating human clones to harvest their organs and give them to sick humans (The Island)
- Implanting chips on human brains to record everything you live through, and be able to revise what actually happened later on (Black Mirror)
- Enhancing food, adding vitamins and nutrients, with almost no natural ingredients; people not needing to cook at all (A. Huxley’s Brave New World)
You can download a pdf file with the task here.
To round up the activity, I simply love this epilogue/extra feature for Gattaca. Lots of food for thought.
natalialzam 