Kat explores the hidden cost of utopia in everything from Ursula Le Guin’s fiction, to John Calhoun’s famous rodent experiments, to the game Paradise Killer. Video contains spoilers for Paradise Killer and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

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A few notes and corrections: 1) on the quote about capitalism and the end of the world. I know that Fisher has jointly attributed this idea to Jameson and Žižek, but I couldn’t find a Žižek quote actually saying anything like this and a lot of people attribute it just to Jameson (who conveniently directly says it in his writing: “Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism”) which is why I attributed him only. 2) It seems there's zero evidence the Salem witch trials had anything to do with Omelas. The "Salem" Le Guin named Omelas after was not THAT Salem (it was a road sign for Salem, Oregon). I thought I'd read somewhere that she mentioned the parallel with the other Salem, but I can't find it, so this may be something my brain just made up. 3) The video makes it seem like I agree with all of Calhoun's conclusions - that's absolutely my own fault and people are totally right to point that out. My aim in this video was to emphasise the parallels between these works, but obviously there are many limitations to the generalisability of Calhoun's results to human populations. We did not in fact (despite the scaremongering of MANY dystopian films and books made in the 70s) end up living in one huge overcrowded hellhole where we have to eat each other to survive, so I do think it's fairly obvious that all this stuff was of its time.

Special thanks to Pam of the channel Cannot Be Tamed for providing her voice:    / @cannotbetamed1  

Thanks also to Videezy and Videvo for the stock footage

All game footage capped by me

Thanks to Zoltiboi for the thumbnail

Article cited: Calhoun, J. B. (1973). Death squared: the explosive growth and demise of a mouse population. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 66, 80-88.

Music used in this episode:
Welcome - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Paradise (Stay Forever) - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Breeze With U - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Lewis’ Coronation – Jeff Russo
Reconciliation – Joe & Bob Johnson
Respite – Joe & Bob Johnson
Idle Lands - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Threat (Outskirts) – James Primate
Plateau - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Headlights on the Shore - Barry Topping (Epoch)