Top: A man walking at low tide at Lau Fau Shan on July 3, 2015, with the fast-developing city of Shenzhen (metropolitan population of 23 million) on mainland China seen in the background. Courtesy Bobby Yip/Reuters[1]
Bottom: In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, this Sentinelese tribe member aims his bow and arrow at a Coast Guard helicopter.
Human Animals
Before entering the human zoo, there is the animal question. Human brains are, evolutionarily speaking, more evolved than the brains of any other species. Chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, dogs come close in some areas, but you know. Covid-19 is a stark reminder just how deeply we are linked to the wider human-animal-plant ecosystem. Viruses have traveled from animals to humans and vice versa — called ‹reverse zoonosis›— since their evolutionary divergence ca. 5 to 7 million years ago.[2] We tend to overlook how changes we bring to environments affect us in turn. As Christine Kreuder Johnson from the Epicenter for Disease Dynamics notes, «spillover of viruses from animals is a direct result of our actions involving wildlife and their habitat. The consequence is they’re sharing their viruses with us.»[3] ln the late 1960s zoologist Desmond Morris wrote The Naked Ape and The Human Zoo, comparing human and animal behavior. For Morris,
The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Cleary, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo. The comparison we must make is not between the city-dweller and the wild animal, but between the city-dweller and the captive animal.[4]
Morris goes on to describe the urban environment where the modern human finds itself in a «huge, restless menagerie in constant danger of cracking under the strain. But despite the hazards, it is the most exciting game the world has ever seen.» Indeed, according to a European Commission forecast, by 2100, some 85% of the global population will live in cities.[5] Emerging from Covid-19 lockdowns, many find solace in crowds, including Black Lives Matter, climate and anti-lockdown protests. Some of them are inspiring, some truly puzzling. Some are not protests at all but raves or riots. A passage from The Human Zoo reads, «if they feel themselves trapped in a planner’s prison they will stage a prison riot. If the environment does not permit creative innovations, they will smash it in order to be able to start again. This is one of the greatest dilemmas our societies face. To resolve it is our formidable task for the future.»[6] The international animal charity ‹Born Free› seized the moment for their ‹Creature Discomforts› campaign to raise awareness for captive, mistreated animals. The campaign shows animals talk as if in Covid-19 self-isolation. One realizes that for animals, captivity is a permanent condition.
Born Free advert.[7]
In her recent book ‹When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy›, artist and animal ethicist Eva Meijer writes that «animals have been speaking to us all along.»[8] We are just bad listeners — «animals are stuck with us on this planet, and we are stuck with them. They pester us, threaten us, entertain us, and, as we have been recently reminded, infect us — as we infect them in turn. Like it or not — and some of them surely do not — we exist in relationship with animals.»[9] One project to better understand animals, their movements, interactions with humans and earthquake sensing is the ICARUS initiative, online since 2019.[10] Putting trackers on animals sounds fairly evil, but carrying smartphones makes us as traceable. We are issued passports with rights attached, while animals are excluded from any form of citizenship even though they are part of the same ecosystem. A tracker would be an animal passport of sorts and a way to acknowledge the existence of the individual animal. It could be a first step in drafting global animal rights. Without tracker they are more likely to remain sidelined (much like homeless people or undocumented migrants).
North Sentinel Island
Covid-19 has unlocked a new awareness of bodies in spatial confines. Stepping outside, especially at the beginning of the first lockdown, felt different, there was a new sense of inside and outside. After a few weeks, the inside became for some, I imagine, a cage, an official (stay indoors) yet private (how to deal with it) claustro-existentialist mini phase. Self-isolation, a term that previously evoked prison environments or fictional scenarios (Orange is the New Black) would become — who would have thought in January 2020 — a new way of living.[11]
For the Sentinelese, living in near total isolation from the global community is the norm. The Sentinelese are the indigenous people of North Sentinel Island, a square shaped island the size of Manhattan in the Bay of Bengal. The island is part of the Andaman Archipelago, a union territory of India. The Sentinelese are among the last tribal people to remain virtually untouched by modern civilization. With a population estimated to be between 39 and 400, the inhabitants are hostile to visitors.[12]
Nord Sentinel Island. Paradise or crime scene?
In 2018, missionary and adventure blogger John Allen Chau attempted to preach Christianity to the North Sentinel tribespeople. Chau was killed upon arrival by tribesmen. The case was being treated as a murder but there has been no suggestion that anyone would be charged.[13] The incident raises a set of challenging questions. How does a government, the Indian one in this case, deal with a hostile, uncontacted tribe facing the threat of infectious diseases to which they have no immunity, as well as potential abuse from intruders, particularly adventure tourists? The Indian government has declared the entire island and the surrounding waters extending in a 5-mile radius from the island to be an exclusion zone.[14] The nearest neighboring island is almost 20 miles away — roughly the distance between England and France at the Strait of Dover.
Seven individuals were taken into custody by Indian police on suspicion of helping Chau illegally obtain access to the island.[15] Survival International is an organization dedicated to the protection of uncontacted tribes. In a statement they critique the authorities for having «lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe’s island from foreign tourists, which sent exactly the wrong message, and may have contributed to this terrible event.»[16] But can the Indian government really be blamed? Only constant surveillance with alert mechanisms would provide absolute safety from intruders. The implementation of such a system raises additional questions. Total surveillance would effectively turn the island into a zoo-like cage with humans inside. As travel writer Jim Dobson notes, «this outcast paradise, removed from all civilization, is surrounded by more mystery than any science fiction film.»[17]
Top: Indigenous people of the Andaman Archipelago. North Sentinel Island is colored red.
Bottom: Jarawa youngsters. By the 2000s, some Jarawas had become regular visitors at settlements where they trade, interact with tourists, get medical aid, and even send their children to school.[18]
On the nearby South and Middle Andaman Islands, road building and rising tourism have fundamentally changed the local Jarawa tribe. The Andaman Trunk Road cuts through their territory. The road has given rise to ‹human safaris,› where tour operators take tourists on rides in the hope of spotting one of the 250 to 400 members of the tribe.[19] Diseases like measles can be devastating for a tribe like the Jarawas.[20]
Given enough time and infrastructure investment projects, what happened to the Jarawa may happen to the Sentinelese. Despite efforts there is little one can do to stop the world from coming closer. Much like The Truman Show, the Sentinelese might one day become ‹content› of some desperate vlogger beaming their voluntary isolation into modern living rooms by filming or live streaming their daily routines. This vision is not far-fetched: as Jim Dobson writes, «several local operators are now starting to organize the ultimate human safari in protected armored boats to the shores of North Sentinel.»[21] There are manifold ethical issues related to uncontacted tribes.[22] Ideally, they would continue to live in peace, shielded from modernity and safe from the threat of infectious disease. But modernity, this insatiable movement, spreads like wildfire across the globe. Like literal wildfire especially in Brazil where deforestation caused by illegal logging is a direct threat to uncontacted tribes. Modernity is also literally hungry, relentlessly demanding meat. Agriculture is arguably the most destructive human activity on the planet.[23] The current Brazilian government under Bolsonaro doesn’t commit to protection efforts. At the current rate, the Amazon rainforest will be reduced by 40% by 2030.[24] The immediate victims are the many remaining tribes of the Amazon. There are no easy solutions. Brazil is a sovereign state deciding its own policies.
Top: Fire and deforestation scar the Iriri national forest reserve near Novo Progresso in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Lucas Landau/The Guardian.[25]
Middle: A NASA satellite observation of forest fires resulting from deforestation in August 2007. The red dots represent areas of fire. The transformation from forest to farm is evident by the paler square-shaped areas under development.[26]
Bottom: Zones of potential and confirmed uncontacted tribes. In 2013, it was estimated that there were more than 100 uncontacted tribes around the world, mostly in the densely forested areas of the Amazon and New Guinea.[27]
Big Brother, Bing and Truman Burbank
The syndicated television spectacle Big Brother attracts millions of viewers worldwide. Contestants agree to enter closed compounds as ‹housemates› and be monitored 24/7. People are voted out and in the end the one remaining contestant wins the cash prize. As of 2018, there have been 445 seasons of Big Brother in over 54 franchise countries and regions.[28] Producer Linda Holmes writes, «‹Human zoo?› Sure. If the zoo animals volunteered, signed a release, and were being paid to be there. In fact, you could change the name of Big Brother to The Human Zoo and you know what? They'd still come, because this is the game.»[29] Producer Allison Grodner says the houseguests often compare themselves to the dolphins at Sea World.[30] In Extras, Ricky Gervais’ character agrees to be in a celebrity Big Brother house, then rants in disillusion, «You’re literally the gutter press. And fuck you, the makers of this show as well, you can’t wash your hands of this, you can’t keep going, ‹Oh, it’s exploitation but it’s what the public want.› No. The Victorian freak show never went away, now it’s called Big Brother or X Factor. Where, in the preliminary rounds, we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires. And fuck you for watching this at home. Shame on you and shame on me… I’m the worst of all cause I’m one of these people that goes, ‹Oh, I’m an entertainer, it’s in my blood.› Yeah, it’s in my blood because a real job’s too hard.»
Top: Big Brother franchise locations.[31]
Middle: Big Brother compound, Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire.
Bottom: Big Brother house pool.
Millions watch these formats. The participants signed contracts and unlike animals consented to being locked in and put under televised surveillance. Despite the obvious differences there are overlaps between animal zoos and Big Brother. Viewers virtually visit a curated (meaning video-edited) human zoo-type situation. The zookeepers appear as executives with viewing numbers in mind. The Big Brother format allows viewers to be emotionally implicated (by witnessing people respond to situations) and root for their house guests of choice. There is empathic engagement, as the housemates are human — unlike in animal zoos where humans watch animals without necessarily gaining deeper insight into animal joys and struggles.
The Black Mirror TV series has its own human zoo episode, ‹Fifteen Million Merits› (season 1, episode 2) where young inmates of a massive live-work complex have to cycle on exercise bikes to earn ‹merits› to get everything from toothpaste to the power to skip annoying ads. In their windowless, screen-clad living cubicles, the inmates watch personalized entertainment programs interspersed by targeted advertisements. Bingham ‹Bing› Madsen (Daniel Kaluuya) encourages friend and potential love interest Abi Khan (Jessica Brown Findlay) to enter Hot Shot, a reality contest where winners are able to forgo bike riding and live luxuriously. Khan sings a song by Irma Thomas. The judges, though impressed, state that there are no more positions for singers, and one judge suggests she would be better suited for Judge Wraith’s pornography show ‹WraithBabes›. Abi, fuzzy from the compulsory ‹Cuppliance› drink, caves in to pressure from the crowd and to Bing’s dismay, accepts the offer.
Incensed by this turn of events, Bing goes on a regiment to earn enough points to enter the talent game Hot Shot himself. Starting with a dance, Bing pulls out a shard of glass and threatens to take his own life. He rants about the tyrannical system they live under. After some discussion between the judges, Bing is offered his own regular show on one of the channels, which consists in him ranting while holding the glass shard to his neck. By having his own show, Bing escapes the slave-like living conditions of riding bicycles. He lives in a bigger, sterile flat now. The episode ends with Bing looking out from his room onto what appears to be a vast green forest.
Top to Bottom: Bing in his tiny cubicle/ living quarter facing his avatar. Bing puts a shard, his channel’s signature item into a box after a live stream. The episode ends with Bing looking out at a vast forest. It remains ambiguous whether the forest is real or just another projection.
The system in the episode «tolerates dissent as long as it can be packaged and commodified.»[32] As another commentator notes, «It’s The Matrix, but stripped of all that film’s epic cyberpunk design and scale. Instead of being harvested as batteries by robots, the inmates are used as drones by an unseen bureaucracy.»[33] A recurring subtheme of Black Mirror is economic enslavement disguised as self-determination (obviously the current zero-hours contract and gig economy extrapolated into the near future). If you earn enough points you will get a chance to ‹get out,› but the whole game is rigged. Reality has been replaced by an intricate illusion that pretends to be reasonable. The system preys and feeds on aspiration, the individual inhabitants are mere ‹providers of content› to fuel a system that is on a dehumanizing trajectory.[34] The exercise bicycle is evocative of hamster wheels and absurdity of pursuit as illustrated by the Sisyphus myth. Through his actions, Bing sustains a dystopian system that thrives on individualized exploitation and engineered dependency. It can only be sustained by the participants’ ignorance of the mechanisms, and indeed the characters seem unable to articulate collective discontent. A similar plot structure can be found in Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You (2018). Everyone fights for themselves, while only gradually becoming aware of how such pursuit fuels the system in a perpetual cycle of exploitation. In the crass way typical of Black Mirror, ‹Fifteen Million Merits› portrays the death of solidarity.
Top: The Truman Show (1998). A model of Seahaven Island, the massive set built for Truman Burbank.
Bottom: The Truman Show. Noah Emmerich as Marlon, Truman’s best friend since early childhood, in front of a map of the Fiji Islands in Truman’s basement. Earlier, Truman’s love interest Sylvia is whisked away by a man claiming to be her father who tells Truman they’re moving to Fiji. For Truman, Fiji is an extraversion of a deep inner yearning.[35]
The interplay of voluntary and involuntary confinement is a major theme in The Truman Show. The main character Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) lives in the modern town of Seahaven, a massive stage built to host and film him 24/7. Truman increasingly senses the fakeness of people’s behavior and, in the end, manages to step out of the dome into the real world. The film is a fairly deep meditation on human drive and purpose. Much like North Korea with its totalitarian media and propaganda apparatus, Seahaven’s illusion can only be upheld by high production standards (meticulous attention to detail to make Truman believe in Seahaven’s reality) and force (a fake storm disrupts Truman’s attempt to sail away). Consider the following dialogue between Truman’s love interest Sylvia (Natascha McElhone) and Truman Show creator Christophe (Ed Harris):
Sylvia: Don’t you every feel guilty?
Christophe: I have given Truman a chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in, is the sick place. Seahaven is how the world should be.
Sylvia: He’s not a performer, he’s a prisoner! Look at him, look at what you’ve done to him!
Christophe: He can leave at any time. If he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there is no way we could prevent it. What distresses you, really, caller, is that ultimately, Truman prefers his cell, as you call it.
Sylvia: Well, that's where you're wrong. You’re so wrong! And he'll prove you wrong!
Through many strange occurrences and behaviors of fellow citizens, Truman begins to doubt the reality he is presented with. His observations push him to leave Seahaven, which he ultimately achieves. The film presents a more uplifting ending than the Black Mirror episode where the outside has been abolished altogether. Note the similarities between Truman Burbank and the Sentinelese. The Sentinelese have never left their island, a Seahaven of sorts sustained by their own worldview. Every outsider signifies a threat precisely because it brings with it other worldviews and technologies that would alter their way of life forever. With the world around encroaching, their existence becomes increasingly threatened. The neighboring Great Andamanese tribes have seen their first Covid-19 cases.[36] The Sentinelese are accidental outcasts in a quickly globalizing world. They are completely dependent on what the outside decides for them. As the Ed Harris character in The Truman Show, the Indian government and NGOs increasingly find themselves in a position of curating and sustaining the reality of the Sentinelese so that their Seahaven won’t disintegrate. Because any permanent contact would forever change their world and island living, the situation requires a benevolent zookeeper that helps to maintain the illusion of independence and self-determination. Beyond the science fictional dome and scenario, The Truman Show is relevant because many people who in real life decided to leave the village they grew up in have faced similar obstacles. The Truman Show evokes the curiosity that moves people to move and discover other places, other people far from home. Modernity in this sense is, despite its many horrifying manifestations, not simply a one-dimensional and destructive human development, but rather an ambiguous, multifaceted and ultimately vital and curious one.
1) A group of Philippine ‹Head-Hunters› on display at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Credit: Jessie Tarbox Beals/Missouri Historical Society.[37]
2): Visitors observe the Igorrotes living at Coney Island in 1905. Credit: Library of Congress.[38]
3) The pond of the ‹Senegalese Village,› Universal Exposition of Liège, Belgium. Postcard, heliotype, 1905. Credit: P. Blanchard/Collection Groupe de recherche Achac.[39]
4) Germany's Emperor Wilhelm II examining some Ethiopians positioned behind a wooden fence in the Hamburg zoo, Germany, 1909.[40]
5) A postcard depicting ‹Korean cannibals› in Tokyo in 1914. In the early 20th century Koreans were presented as savages at several exhibitions in Japan. Credit: Collection particulière/Collection Groupe de recherche ACHAC[41]
Human Zoos in the Colonial Period
In the period from ca. 1850 to 1950, ‹world exhibitions› and traveling attractions often featured ethnological expositions. As a study on these ‹human zoos› explains, «Europe sought to reinforce its world hegemony by declaring its mastery over other ‹races,› whose destiny involved a simple choice: to be brought under colonial rule or disappear. Each of the great centers of Western imperialism exploited this chance to ‹exhibit difference›in order to reinforce its self-justificatory arguments concerning its policies overseas.»[42] Human zoos served to prime the general public for justifying imperial ambitions and demonstrate, through the hollow claims of scientific racism, superiority over the exhibited subject. The visitor numbers were staggering, in the millions for each event.[43] Traveling was not widespread for the common population. Commercial airlines did not exist before 1914. Photography and film, less harmful means to discover other parts of the globe, were only emerging. For most people living in the late 19th century, ‹world exhibitions› were an opportunity to come into contact with the ‹Other,› people from far way. One has to imagine a curious Western public with a high demand for such events that are now perceived as racist. Yet «the exhibition of the Other cannot be reduced to a simple demonstration of the hierarchy of races. It is part of a far more complex process. It is a fact that some exhibitions led to fascination, even reverence and admiration.» Cinema itself, a competitor to world fair/human zoo events, can be seen as a type of emergent Zoo-Keeper, picturing and attributing visual meaning to people.[44] As Eric Deroo notes, «through postcards and, later, film, images became ideal vehicles for a process of popularization. The vast majority of Europeans and Americans, who were barely literate, would discover new worlds through the reproduction of the image. While these images allowed the discovery of the Other, they also allowed readers and viewers to become aware for their own status as observers.»[45]
Abuse was widespread and many ethnic performers died in the context of the expositions. From the 1880s on, ethnic shows became an industry of sorts for participating groups, as contracts were entered into with the recruiters and the performers were often represented by a third party – thus complicating the image of the Other as victim. «Some participants signed contracts to tour Europe for one or two years without having any idea of what it would be like. Others, such as the Sioux Indians, had long performed in such shows and were perfectly aware of what to expect. Some individuals came from a context of deprivation, signing up in order to escape poverty or debts, whereas groups such as the Sami had wealthy backgrounds and dictated the terms of their contracts, even requiring that salaries be paid to replacement herdsmen for the period of their absence. All sources indicate that money was the most important motive for prospective participants in the ethnic shows.»[46]
Lovercraft Country (2020). The second episode, ‹Whitey’s on the Moon›, is built around the mental torture of the three black protagonists. In one scene, a group of white people watches the characters Letitia ‹Leti› Lewis, Atticus ‹Tic› Freeman and his uncle George Freeman being tormented by evil spirits. The scene recalls events of the colonial period. The table is turned in the following scenes where the black characters assert their agency. A painting of Noah’s Ark features earlier in the episode.[47]
Human zoo-type ethnic shows disappeared by the mid-20th century. «Human zoos clearly tell us nothing about the ‹exotic› populations exhibited. However, they are an extraordinary tool for analyzing Western attitudes from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s, and for exposing declarations of popular racism in almost all the countries of the West.»[48] Human Zoos stopped making sense even by colonial standards, as the colonized populations were supposed to become successfully assimilated, ‹civilized› subjects:
The status of the Other within these exhibitions also gradually changed. At first reified as a ‹savage,› the ‹exotic› figure was gradually ‹tamed› during the period of colonial conquest and then ‹civilized,› in order to demonstrate the achievements of the colonial ‹civilizing mission.› By contrast, those races who, in the contemporary view, were embarked on an irrevocable decline continued to be portrayed as ‹savages,› in anticipation of their disappearance when confronted with civilization destined to act as a guide to the whole of humanity. Against this backdrop, human zoos adapted themselves to the views of the time, the political context and the expectations of their visitors.[49]
However difficult a subject, ethnic exhibits are part of colonial — and postcolonial — history, and what becomes evident when reading about these events are the serious shortcomings of a certain overconfident, scientific-technological worldview that, from today’s perspective, was unscientific (as it was co-opted by racialism and colonialism). Exploitation has a tendency to return in different guises, especially when its root causes and lineages through history are overlooked or forgotten.
Solitary confinement
As Desmond Morris described in The Human Zoo, life in cities can be seen through a zoological lens. Venkatesh Rao described the current period as domestic ‹hard cozy,› characterized by periods of extended indoor living.[50] In Japan, a societal phenomenon named hikikomori has been occupying sociologists and therapists for some time. Hikikomori choose to live in voluntary self-isolation, often for decades. The main reasons for it are societal pressures and interpersonal relations in particular. A 2016 government survey estimated that «541,000 people aged between 15 and 39 in Japan avoid social contact and shut themselves in their homes.»[51] In 2018 the number was estimated to be 613,000 people, males making up 76.6 percent of recluses between the ages of 40 and 64.[52]
In the near future, there may be a growing need for hikikomori caretakers to attend to and reintegrate people living in self-isolation almost completely withdrawn from society. Hikikomori live a hidden existence at the margin of society, in constant fear of outside intrusion by a neighbor, family member or foster person. This irrational fear s amplified over the months or years living in isolation. With time the chance of reintegration may decrease, creating a loop of isolation and loneliness.
Top: Yūko ‹Alice› Shionji from Heaven's Memo Pad (2011). The NEET agency is led by Alice, a childish, anti-social extreme shut-in who never leaves her room full of computer monitors and stuffed animals. However, Alice has proven herself a resourceful hacker and an astounding detective. Throughout the series, Narumi, accompanied by the other members of NEET, solves crimes, including murders, using their limited resources and Alice's genius intellect.[53]
Bottom: Upper Rhenish Master, Frankfurt Paradisgärtlein, c. 1410, Städel, Frankfurt. The subject is a gathering in paradise attended by the Virgin and Child and a number of saints. Elements of the sacred hortus conclusus (closed garden) — an allusion to Mary’s virginity — are skillfully combined with motifs from secular castle and love gardens.[54] Ignorance as bliss?
In many cases, the lives of the hikikomori had become so stressful that they saw no other option but retire to a room. It is a terrible, not a blissful state. In the context of this essay, note the vanishing line between a ‹free› individual choosing to self-isolate voluntarily and a prison or zoo inmate involuntarily incarcerated yet provided with certain rights.
Non/Human Guinea Pigs
In the Westworld episode ‹The Riddle of the Sphinx› (season 2 episode 4) a man in a cell-like space engages in his daily routine. He is revealed to be a robot-host in a secret park compound into which the consciousness of the now dead James Delos, founder of Delos Incorporated (which owns various entertainment parks, among them ‹Westworld›) was implanted to create a human-host hybrid. The goal of this endeavor is to achieve immortality for Delos, and if successful, for everyone else with the appropriate funds. However, each time William (the ‹zookeeper› if you like) visits to establish a cognitive baseline, the James Delos host reaches a ‹cognitive plateau› after a few minutes and becomes unstable. When William informs the Delos host that his wife (the wife of the real James Delos) died, it is like «warning a phantom that it is about to be haunted».[55] William then gives instructions to burn the host and cell down to start the process anew to reach a better result next time. This process is repeated around 150 times over many years before the project is abandoned.
1) Westworld, ‹The Riddle of the Sphinx› (S2E04), fan edit
2) Westworld personnel watch the James Delos host in his circular cell.
3-5) Ex Machina (2014).
6) Pig from Elon Musk’s Neuralink presentation (28 August 2020). The immediate goal is to solve brain and spine issues, but Neuralink’s ultimate aim is to implant devices into the human brain to increase processing bandwidth in order to compete with superintelligent AI.[56]
Ex Machina presents a film-length Turing test in which Ava (Alicia Vikander), a sophisticated AGI, is imprisoned and confronted with a human guinea pig (played by Domhnall Glesson) to test if he would trust and fall in love with her. Ex Machina addresses the control and alignment problem of human level AGI. As Stuart Russell puts it, «we need to teach machines humility.»[57] The irony of this statement is that we very possibly do not excel at humility either. Another enclosure is featured in Blade Runner 2049 where Ana Stelline, the daughter of Rick Deckard and Rachael from the first film, was put in a dome chamber at the age of 8 due to health issues (a compromised immune system). For her work as a subcontractor of the Wallace corporation she uses a ‹memory orb› to design artificial memory implants for a new line of Replicants. She says to K, the visiting replicant, «if you have authentic memories you have real human responses – wouldn’t you agree?» A few moments later she realizes the memory implanted in K is from her own childhood. K becomes a vessel programmed to help a pro-replicant cause. He is a puppet of his mind and Ana the memory maker. From within the domed cell, her impact on the world is considerable.
Blade Runner 2049 (2019), Ana Stelline (Carla Juri).
Absalon
In 1992, the year before he died of HIV-related illness at the age of 29, Absalon made ‹Solutions,› a short video where the artist can be seen performing a series of ordinary activities such as sitting at the table, eating, pacing in the space, smoking, masturbating, taking a bath, sleeping. The video has a striking resemblance to the aforementioned James Delos scene in Westworld. Absalon’s work in its white modernist existentialism has a human-zoo vibe. Perhaps driven by his progressing illness and approaching death, Absalon spent the last few years of his life working tirelessly on a series of structures. Based on his body measurements, the six structures of ‹Cell (Prototypes)› (1992–1993) were one-person living units to be installed in six cities (Paris, Zurich, New York, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt, probably Tokyo) that henceforth would serve as the artist’s «home.». Absalon designed them as non-utopian living units radically adapted to his body. They don’t fall into easy categories and express a dedication to radical isolation while being located within an urban, societal context. The cells «both unite and separate society and individual.»[58] They oscillate between individual freedom designed to curb desire and the creation of an infallible system, a totalizing prison. The cells propose a type of self-imposed, minimal zoo living that constantly tests the limits of one’s own freedom. His «proposals» sculptures outline «structures, probably underground or bunker-like, in which to house future communities in post-apocalyptic states.»[59]
Given the conflicted existence of the cells (Absalon called them «viruses»), the way the artist’s body sits uneasily within them and they sit uneasily in a city , the white objects are more mental than architectural. With his drive to radically self-isolate in the midst of urban centers (in his youth he lived among Bedouins in Sinai but ultimately found it unfulfilling), his interest in unlocated violence (does it come from the outside or is it brewing inside?) and correspondent acts of rebellion, Absalon, and the cities along with him, flirt with real and imagined crime (in Assassinations we watch Absalon as a criminal protagonist committing a series of murders for thirty minutes). The figure of the criminal in its depth and shallowness lures the modern audience. The criminal in its moral ambiguity and absurd yet determined goal orientation is perhaps the quintessential modern subject. Where does rebellion against injustice (the injustice of rigid societal structures or of the sickness invading his body) end and destructive, criminal behavior begin?[60] Absalon inhabits this territory. Absalon is an exemplary modern individual – this other island.
Top: Absalon, Solutions, 1992. Video, color, sound, 7:25 min. Friedrich Christian Flick Collection at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin.
Below: Vernissage TV, opening of the exhibition «Absalon» at KW, Berlin, 2010.[61]
Consumer Zoos
The film Ready Player One features vast container cities called ‹stacks.› By the 2040s the world is gripped by an energy crisis due to the depletion of fossil fuels and the impact of global warming and overpopulation, causing widespread social problems and economic stagnation. To escape the decline, people turn to the ‹OASIS,› a virtual reality simulator accessible to players using visors and haptic technology such as gloves. The Stacks are named for the way dozens of trailers and similar mobile living quarters are stacked on top of one another, held together by metal beams, pipes and makeshift girders. They were originally trailer parks inundated with refugees who sought to live closer to the cities as the energy crisis hit.[62]
Both Black Mirror’s ‹Fifteen Million Merits› and Ready Player One show a defeated, quasi-enslaved, tech-addicted population sleepwalking into human-zoo living. Both societies are sustained by engaging in virtual reality platforms that double as (rigged) economic opportunities. Refusing to play would mean to forfeit the already scarce or nonexistent labor opportunities. Ready Player One is bleaker than ‹Fifteen Million Merits› in that Ready Player One’s OASIS online system has a communal side where people can gather, whereas ‹Fifteen Million Merits› (like Black Mirror in general, with the exception of the occasional more optimistic episode) shows a world where social disintegration has advanced beyond a point of no return. The massive complex in ‹Fifteen Million Merits› and the evil IOI corporation of Ready Player One are both on the more cartoonish side of science fiction, but like the gem Idiocracy they do offer a vision of what happens if consumerism turns into large-scale rentism.[63] The science fiction of Black Mirror and Ready Player One presents exaggerated socio-economic extrapolations to provide tools to culturally think through flaws in current systemic landscapes.
1) Stacks in Ready Player One (2018).
2) Huoshenshan Hospital construction nears completion on 2 February, 2020 in Wuhan.
3) Leishenshan hospital, built by 15,000 workers in the Chinese city of Wuhan in under 2 weeks.
4) Leishenshan hospital, after completion.
5): São Paulo, Brazil.
The Zookeeper Scenario
Discussing possible superintelligence aftermath scenarios — the moment after artificial intelligence has gained and surpassed human level cognitive abilities — Max Tegmark lists 12 possible outcomes, among them the ‹Zookeeper scenario›:
Why would the zookeeper AI keep humans around? The cost of the zoo to the AI will be minimal in the grand scheme of things, and it may want to retain at least a minimal breeding population for much the same reason that we keep endangered pandas in zoos and vintage computers in museums: as an entertaining curiosity.[64]
Animal zoos are not widely considered controversial, even though groups like Born Free and Peta raise awareness and campaign against them.[65] There is something fairly deep taking place at zoos: recognition. We, consciously or not, face ourselves in the past or on different evolutionary branches. We share traits, not just superficial ones, with animals. We were apes. If given a powerful enough computer and enough data, the lineage of every human could be traced back to apes, and further to simple organisms like mollusks. As humans build parks, a superintelligence could start building infrastructure,[66] an infrastructure utterly alien and of unknown purpose to us humans, as it dismisses existing human dwellings. With such an outcome we would gradually lose territory. We would be like the ant city we accidentally or deliberately destroy while gardening. Some ants survive and regroup, but the main ant infrastructure is lost. As ants we would be forced to migrate to other, safer territory. Much like we do for endangered animal species, the superintelligence could establish zones for humans to live. In those zones, human culture would be preserved. Humans in those zoo-like zones or living archives/museums continue to exist, but they are marginalized to the point of irrelevance. Human survival may rely on superintelligent human preservation lobbyists.
Top: Max Tegmark, Graph of superintelligence aftermath scenarios from Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Science fiction is of course rife with works drawing on one or several of the scenarios above. The perhaps most explicit human zoo appears in the manga Gantz (see below) where, as a result of an alien invasion, a number of humans are put in a zoo next to exhibits of other extraterrestrial trophy species. Other unfortunate humans are being processed as food for the extraterrestrial high society. Michel Faber’s novel Under the Skin also features human food processing by extraterrestrials, an aspect that is only briefly alluded to in Jonathan Glazer’s movie based on the novel. In another Gantz scene, an extraterrestrial child keeps a human in a jar with other pets. René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet contains scenes with humans as pets. At the end of Gantz, humankind is saved by another extraterrestrial race that provides it with the necessary weapons to fight the invasion. The savior species doesn’t exactly care about humankind, as evidenced by the alien ambassador’s statement that «what we chose to help survive was a certain level of order that is earth itself. It was not to save you humans. In our eyes, your existence is nothing more than that of insects.»
The zookeeper scenario may likely turn dark as it raises the question for how long and to what extent the particular zookeeper would adequately maintain the zoo. The zoo could initially look like a «happiness factory where humans are kept nourished, healthy and entertained with a mixture of virtual reality and recreational drugs. The rest of Earth and our cosmic endowment are used for other purposes.»[67] After initial attention and educational interest, the human zoo might be forgotten, much as we ignore insects or wildlife surrounding our cities. «Who takes care of the zookeeper» will then become an existential question. At some point the zookeeper might malfunction or die or forget to deliver food. Water supply might accidently fail for a few days. Lack of medicine and proper treatment will be a huge issue for overall survival rates. It can go sideways at any moment because as humans will have lost all agency and be dependent on the zookeeper showing up. As Nick Bostrom wrote in his landmark book on superintelligence, «as the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of our species would depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.[68] A bleak zookeeper/gatekeeper scenario appears in Cixin Liu’s Death’s End where all of humanity is given the choice to settle on the continent of Australia or be exterminated. Australia quickly descends into a mega slum with people fighting for survival.
Gantz by Hiroya Oku (2000-2013)
Zoo Hypothesis
In 1973, former MIT Haystack Observatory scientist John Ball wrote the short article «The Zoo Hypothesis,» which starts with the preamble:
Extraterrestrial intelligent life may be almost ubiquitous. The apparent failure of such life to interact with us may be understood in terms of the hypothesis that they have set us aside as part of a wilderness area or zoo.[69]
Given the vastness of the universe and the steady discovery of new exoplanets, intelligence probably exists throughout the universe and most of those civilizations are bound to be much older than our own.[70] Because of the immense distances, life outside our solar system will likely be immeasurably more advanced, comparable on earth not to the gap between humans and mammals or birds, but rather to the gap between humans and «those in our Ordovician geological epoch, namely mollusks and trilobites.»[71] Ball notes that «the perfect zoo (or wilderness area or sanctuary) would be one in which the fauna inside do not interact with, and are unaware of, their zookeepers.» The regions where forms of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI) have settlements might be blocked from our view, like in heist movies where CCTV footage is replaced by fake footage.
The Truman Show (1998). The sequence shows where Seahaven, the set hosting «The Truman Show» is located (on Mount Lee near Hollywood).
Let’s assume Ball is correct and one or more ETI’s did set us aside in a zoo: would they have any interest in us? After all, we began to study the skies as soon we had the technological capabilities. We currently hunt for earth-like exoplanets or large, artificial structures and catalogue them.[72] ETI’s would do the same. As Ball puts it, «we may only be an obscure entry in their tabulation of inhabited regions of the galaxy. Earth is worth studying at least by a few of their scientists, but the faun on their street has never heard of us and doesn’t care to.» They would monitor us, but inconspicuously. We would appear in their news feeds as frequent as studies of mollusks would in ours.
There is a wide range of extraterrestrials in science fiction. In Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest the outlook on civilization co-existence is pessimistic. Liu proposes a universe filled with intelligent life that keeps quiet to avoid detection and immediate destruction by a superior civilization. Liu describes each civilization as a stalking hunter in a dark forest.[73] The «Dark Forest» theory highlights the importance of caution when it comes to sending signals into space. While Liu’s focus is on avoiding detection of one’s own civilization at all cost, Ball suggests a more benevolent system.[74] ETI’s «are deliberately avoiding interaction and for that they have set aside the area in which we live as a zoo.» Both hypotheses point to a possible further humbling of anthropocentric thinking. «The history of science contains numerous examples of psychologically unpleasant hypotheses that turned out to be correct.»[75] Speculating on more well-intentioned reasons behind the zoo treatment, researcher Jean-Pierre Rospars argues that «it seems likely that extraterrestrials are imposing a ‹galactic quarantine› because they realize it would be culturally disruptive for us to learn about them.»[76] Large-scale isolation that benefits everyone.
The Truman Show (1998). Towards the end of the film Truman battles an engineered storm to reach the walls of the dome that houses Seahaven Island where he spent all his life under constant surveillance. He steps through the door, disappearing from the fake into the real world.
When will we achieve zoobreak? Would we ever be allowed to join the club? Imagine two ETI civilizations discussing whether to approach a third to join the club. Risk assessment would be complex, to say the least. The accession criteria to a group like the European Union are fairly demanding; the accession criteria to join interstellar alliances must be incomparably higher.[77] We may eventually get contacted and accepted into an interstellar club.[78] Our zoo status would then be dropped or reclassified. In the absence of confirmed intelligent extraterrestrial life, we continue to build and visit zoos, mostly animal zoos. You may find yourself in a zoo, one or another.
[1] Chris Weller, «The world's largest megacity already has more people than Canada, Argentina, or Australia,» Business Insider, July 8, 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-mega-city-has-more-people-than-canada-argentina-or-australia-2015-7.
[2] «Reverse zoonosis: human pathogens are ruining wildlife,» Health Europe, December 11, 2018,https://www.healtheuropa.eu/reverse-zoonosis-human-pathogens/89348.
[3] «The scientists assembled a large dataset of the 142 known viruses that spill over from animals to humans and the species that have been implicated as potential hosts. … The scientists also found that wild animals that have increased in abundance and adapted well to human-dominated environments also share more viruses with people. These include some rodent, bat and primate species that live among people, near our homes, and around our farms and crops, making them high-risk for ongoing transmission of viruses to people. Researchers say threatened and endangered species also tend to be highly managed and directly monitored by humans trying to bring about their population recovery, which also puts them into greater contact with people.» Amy Barrett, «Transmission of viruses from animals to humans is ‹a direct result of our actions,›» Science Focus, April 8, 2020, https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/transmission-of-viruses-from-animals-to-humans-is-a-direct-result-of-our-actions. For the study, see «Global shifts in mammalian population trends reveal key predictors of virus spillover risk,» Royal Society, April 8, 2020, https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.2736.
[4] Desmond Morris, The Human Zoo (1969) (New York: Vintage, 1994), p. VII.
[5] «Based on previously accepted definitions of urbanized areas, the ratio of the world’s urban population is expected to increase from 55% in 2018 (approximately 4.2 billion people) to 68% by 2050, meaning that the world’s urban population will nearly double. By 2100, some 85% of the population will live in cities, with urban population increasing from less than 1 billion in 1950 to 9 billion by 2100.» Developments and Forecasts on Continuing Urbanisation, European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/foresight/topic/continuing-urbanisation/developments-and-forecasts-on-continuing-urbanisation_en.
[6] Morris 1994 (as in n. 4), p. 157.
[7] Born Free, Creature discomforts: Life in Lockdown, 2020 campaign, https://www.bornfree.org.uk/life-in-lockdown. Video on https://youtu.be/5B7BQKmq7FM.
[8] Eva Meijer, When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy (New York: NYU Press, 2019).
[9] «Meijer argues that ethical relationships between humans and animals — like all relationships — require communication, whether through words, sounds, behavior, or other means. And because so many animals can intelligibly communicate their needs and wants, agreement and resistance, she proposes that they are, in a sense, political actors, deserving of a part in human political systems.» Michellle Nijhuis, «Buzz Buzz Buzz,» New York Review of Books, August 20, 2020, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/08/20/buzz-buzz-interspecies-communication/.
[10] Such a tracking project has been operational since March 2020. ‹Icarus›, the German-Russian observation system for animal migration, has a tracking antenna installed on the International Space Station: «Approximately 70% of the global epidemics, be it SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), West Nile virus, or bird flu, originate as zoonosis, provoked by the interaction between wildlife, productive livestock and humans. Global data on animal movements are indispensable in our modern, international networked world to understand how to simultaneously protect human health and wildlife. To contribute actively to solve such problems, but also to understand basic biological principles, zoologists urgently need answers to fundamental questions such as: Where is an animal at any given point of his life? What is the internal state of the animal, i.e. what amount of energy does the individual animal dissipate for which activity, and which physiological performance does it achieve? What behavioral activity performs the animal just now or what are the reasons for an individual animal to die?» ISS Utilization: ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space), https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/i/iss-icarus.
[11] Helen Vera, «The Most Terrifying Thing In ‹Orange Is The New Black› Happens In Real Life,» Business Insider, June 20, 2014, https://www.businessinsider.com/solitary-confinement-in-orange-is-the-new-black-2014-6?r=US&IR=T; and Jordan Gaines Lewis, Ph.D., «Orange is the New Bleak: What the SHU Can Do to Your Brain,» Psychology Today, June 3, 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/brain-babble/201507/orange-is-the-new-bleak-what-the-shu-can-do-your-brain.
[12] George Weber, «Chapter 8: The Tribes; Part 6. The Sentineli,» in idem, The Andamanese. Archived from the original on May 7, 2013, https://web.archive.org/web/20130507061710/http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter8/text8.htm.
[13] Nicole Chavez, «Indian authorities struggle to retrieve US missionary feared killed on remote island,» in: CNN, November 26, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/25/asia/missionary-john-chau-north-sentinel-island-sentinelese/index.html.
[14] «The island is a protected area of India. In 2018, the Government of India excluded 29 islands — including North Sentinel — from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime, until 31 December 2022, in a major effort to boost tourism. In November 2018, however, the government’s Ministry of Home Affairs stated that the relaxation of the prohibition was intended only to allow researchers and anthropologists, with pre-approved clearance, to visit the Sentinel islands.» https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island.
[15] «Police face off with Sentinelese tribe as they struggle to recover slain missionary’s body,» NZ Herald, November 26, 2018, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12166118.
[16] «Survival International statement on killing of American man John Allen Chau by Sentinelese tribe, Andaman Islands,» in: Survival International, November 21, 2018, https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/12031.
[17] Jim Dobson, «A Human Zoo on the World's Most Dangerous Island? The Shocking Future of North Sentinel, » in: Forbes, November 21, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/09/28/will-the-worlds-most-dangerous-island-become-a-human-zoo-the-shocking-future-of-north-sentinel/#2035884d2688.
[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarawas_(Andaman_Islands).
[19] https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/jarawa.
[20] «Although physically strong, the Jarawa were weak in other ways. Contact with the outside world brought the first outbreak of measles and 40% of the population was affected. Kar treated them with the antibiotic ciprofloxacillin and they recovered.» Sribala Subramanian, «The Doctor's Diary That Holds Clues About the Residents of North Sentinel,» in: The Wire, November 28, 2018, https://thewire.in/health/jarawa-north-sentinel-andaman-tribes.
[21] Dobson 2018 (as in n. 17).
[22] «Anthropologists have an ethical obligation to do no harm to their research subjects, according to the American Anthropological Association’s Statement on Ethics. However, they are rarely the first people to make contact with indigenous groups — missionaries and resource developers almost always get there first, says Kim Hill, an anthropologist at Arizona State University who has worked with several recently contacted tribes. As a result, there is no standard practice for initial contact, he says. But also: ‹Others see a more benign process at work, at least some of the time. Tribes may seek contact with outsiders because they begin to trust their intentions›, says Hill. ‹As soon as the tribes believe they might have some peaceful contact, all these groups want some outside interaction,› he says. ‹It’s a human trait to want to expand our contacts.› Modern medicine, metal tools and education can also exert a powerful pull. … Often, there is a lot of disease because the tribespeople are exposed to novel pathogens. It is not uncommon for half the population to die of respiratory illness — unless outsiders bring sustained medical care, says Hill. Also, the newly integrated tribespeople frequently end up on the lowest rung of the society they join. Still, he says, when he interviews such people years later, ‹I don’t find anyone, pretty much, who would want to go back to the old situation.› Bob Holmes, «How many uncontacted tribes are left in the world?» New Scientist, August 22, 2013, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24090-how-many-uncontacted-tribes-are-left-in-the-world/.
[23] Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, «Environmental impacts of food production,» Our World in Data, January 2020, https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food.
[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil. See https://maaproject.org/en/ for updates on amazon deforestation.
[25] Lucas Landau and Tom Phillips, «Amazon ‹condemned to destruction› as fires proliferate across Brazil, » The Guardian, September 2, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction.
[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil.
[27] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples.
[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(franchise).
[29] Linda Holmes, «We Call It The Human Zoo: An Uneasy Stroll Through The ‹Big Brother› House,» NPR, August 1, 2010, https://www.npr.org/2010/08/01/128908639/we-call-it-the-human-zoo-an-uneasy-stroll-through-the-big-brother-house.
[30] Brian Porreca, «Go Inside the ‹Big Brother› Control Room as Producers Reveal Season 19 Secrets, » The Hollywood Reporter, June 28, 2017, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/big-brother-19-allison-grodner-rich-meehan-preview-interview-1016605.
[31] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(franchise).
[32] Ian Berriman. «Black Mirror ‹15 Million Merits› TV Review,» GameRadar+, December 12, 2011, https://www.gamesradar.com/black-mirror-15-million-credits-tv-review.
[33] David Sims, «Black Mirror ‹15 Million Merits›,»AV Club, November 9, 2013, https://tv.avclub.com/black-mirror-fifteen-million-merits-1798178735.
[34] «To me, it seems like a metaphor for how we can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the state of consumerism in society. We can complain all we want about the constant marketing and giant media conglomerates that force feed us this crap, but in the end, it’s our own fault for choosing to go along with it.» u/miglas on reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmirror/comments/2pffvp/a_few_thoughtsquestions_about_fifteen_million [this post has been deleted].
[35] In a post on Medium, Travis Weedon cites Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson: «For all humankind and through all ages, the sea has been the great symbol of the unconscious. The islands across the sea, the exotic kingdoms and distant lands, have always represented the Great Unknown. Our longing for these places of mystery, magic, flying carpets, and genies has a deep inner meaning. It is our nostalgia for the mysterious, unexplored depths of our own psyches, for the hidden potentialities within our own souls: for what we have never known, never lived, never dared.» Weedon concludes his essay with following, remarkable passage: «Like Truman, we are all summoned to this door. We are drawn towards expansion. Our dreams may ask us to waken from the slumber of our waking lives; people may enter our lives to act as guides through new experiences; events may occur that dispel our beliefs or our patterns and our routines. In whichever form it may come, whether we answer the ‹call› is up to each and every one of us. We must choose whether to sail the seas and step through the door, into the darkness, into a greater knowledge of Self, or, instead, choose to remain at the center of a much smaller stage.» Travis Weedon, «Psyche and the Truman Show,» in: Medium, April 27, 2017, https://medium.com/@tweedon8/psyche-and-the-truman-show-24e0d96b9204.
[36] «Covid–19 hits isolated tribe in the Andaman Islands, India,» Survival International, August 26, 2020, https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/12447.
[37] Shoshi Parks, «These horrifying ‹human zoos› delighted American audiences at the turn of the 20th century,» Timeline, March 20, 2018, https://timeline.com/human-zoo-worlds-fair-7ef0d0951035.
[38] For more context, see Linda Qiu, «Tribal Headhunters on Coney Island? Author Revisits Disturbing American Tale,» National Geographic, October 28, 2014, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141027-human-zoo-book-philippines-headhunters-coney-island/.
[39] Charline Zeitoun, «In the Days of Human Zoos,» CNRS News, November 22, 2016, https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/in-the-days-of-human-zoos.
[40] John Moore, «The Hidden History of Human Zoos,» 2018, https://blackhistory.neocities.org/Human_Zoos.html.
[41] Charline Zeitoun, ibid.
[42] Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Gilles Boetsch, Eric Deroo, Sandrine Lemaire and Charles Forsdick, Human Zoos, Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008), pp. 9–10.
[43] «In 1851 and again in 1862 the exhibitions topped 6 million visitors. The Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 failed to match this figure, at 5.5 millions, but it was a smaller affair, covering only half the area of 1851 and 1862. The Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 actually surpassed it, with 5.7 million visitors. Later ones in that city in 1901 and 1911 were equally successful, the former drawing no fewer than 11.5 million people and the latter 9.4 million. It is of course true that these figures would include some multiple attendance by locals, a habit which must have become more pronounced as the funfair aspect developed. The peak was reached at the 1924–25 British Empire Exhibitions at Wembley, with more than 27 million visitors, whereas the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition attracted only 12 million. … None of the British exhibitions matched the great success of the Paris Exhibitions Universelles — with the whole Continent to draw on — in 1889 (32 million) and 1900 (48 million), the 1931 Exposition Colonial Internationale (33.5 million), the Exposition International des Arts in 1937 (34 million), or Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition of 1893 (27.5 million) and Century of Progress International Exposition of 1933–34 (48.7 million).» John MacKenzie, «The Imperial Exhibitions of Great Britain,» ibid., pp. 260–261.
[44] «Cinema had appeared as a competitor which was far more capable of generating the illusion of the exotic dream than even the best-equipped ethnic show. In particular, the general public was attracted by the opulent silent movies of the twenties, with their exotic settings and locations, for example, Joe May’s The Indian Tomb.» Hilke Thode-Arora, «Hagenbeck’s European Tours: the Development of the Human Zoo,» ibid., p. 166.
[45] Eric Deroo, «The Cinema as Zoo-Keeper,» ibid., p. 125.
[46] Hilke Thode-Arora, «Hagenbeck’s European Tours,» ibid., p. 169.
[47] «Zoological gardens thus responded to a nostalgia (for nature), but also the need to create an ‹elsewhere› that could serve as the unlikely image of a lost paradise, a Noah’s ark revisited by the Enlightenment, in which increasingly varied species of animal were to be found side by side, displayed in exotic settings. … At this juncture between exoticism and knowledge, between fantasy and rationality, that the human zoo appeared.» ibid., p. 2.
[48] Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel and Sandrine Lemarie, «From Scientific Racism to Popular and Colonial Racism in France and the West,» ibid., p. 110.
[49] Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Gilles Boetsch, Eric Deroo and Sandrine Lemaire, «Humans Zoos: The Greatest Exotic Shows in the West,» ibid., p. 16.
[50] Venkatesh Rao, «Domestic Cozy: 12,»Ribbonfarm, March 18, 2020, https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/03/18/domestic-cozy-12/.
[51] «The most prevalent factors cited for triggering such behavior were truancy and difficulties adjusting to a working environment, the survey said, suggesting that many of those who are socially withdrawn are or were struggling with interpersonal relationships at school or work.» «Japan home to 541,000 young recluses, survey finds,» Japan Times, September 7, 2016, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/07/national/japan-home-541000-young-recluses-survey-finds.
[52] «I have no communication in my neighborhood. My neighbors are scarier than the general public for me. If I don’t look at the internet or put the TV on, I have no contact with the general public. But neighbors may visit me, so it’s scarier.» Andrew McKirdy, «The prison inside: Japan’s hikikomori lack relationships, not physical spaces,» Japan Times, June 1, 2019, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/06/01/lifestyle/prison-inside-japans-hikikomori-lack-relationships-not-physical-spaces.
[53] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Memo_Pad
[54] https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/the-little-garden-of-paradise.
[55] David Crow, «Westworld Season 2 Episode 4 Review: The Riddle of the Sphinx,» Den of Geek, May 14, 2018, https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/westworld-season-2-episode-4-review-the-riddle-of-the-sphinx.
[56] «Neuralink Progress Update, Summer 2020,» Neuralink, August 28, 2020, https://youtu.be/DVvmgjBL74w.
[57] «Stuart Russell: The Control Problem of Super-Intelligent AI, AI Podcast Clips,» Lex Fridman, October 13, 2013, https://youtu.be/bHPeGhbSVpw.
[58] Susanne Pfeffer, «Absalon,» in Absalon (exhibition catalogue), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2013.
[59] Moshe Ninio, «Radiant Non-Vision, or the Hazy Edges of Darkness. On the Six Cells Absalon Built for Himself,» ibid.
[60] «In fact, in many regards, the work of Absalon can be seen as a violent re-questioning of a social order based on what the home represents and reinforces. For the home is the foyer both of our possessions and of our institutions (marriage, sexuality, family, education). What does an asexual dwelling, for the ‹single person,› stripped of all possessions, of all decorum represent? What does this cell represent if not the deliberate choice for marginality: the destruction of social, identity-based, and economic norms.» Philippe Vergne, «Absalon: The Man without a home is a potential criminal,» in Absalon: Cells, Models, and Drawings (exhibition catalog), Goldie Paley Gallery, November 5 – December 12, 1999.
[61] «But as the show made clear, this tension between isolation and exhibitionism is a pervasive theme in Absalon’s work. The ‹Cellules› are the clearest examples: though they are heavy with a sense of retreat, they are also impositions on the world from which they protect the artist. In Absalon’s words, each one was ‹like a virus in the city, because of its whiteness, because of its different way of existing, and because of its different proposition.› Other works showed a similar yearning to escape society, break cultural norms, and be noticed, all at the same time.»Anthony Byrt, «Absalon, KW Institute for Contemporary Art,» Artforum, May 2011, https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201105/absalon-29433.
[62] https://readyplayerone.fandom.com/wiki/Stacks.
[63] «Rentism is one possible future, which Frase differentiates from traditional capitalism, writing that ‹it is based on the extraction of rents rather than the accumulation of capital through commodity production.›» Carly Sheridan, «Alternatives to Capitalism: Explaining Peter Frase’s Rentism,» Sonic Acts Critical Writing, 2017, http://sonicacts.com/mobile/critical/alternatives-to-capitalism-explaining-peter-frases-rentism.
[64] Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017).
[65] Under ‹what you can do› the website states, «Never patronize zoos. The money spent on ticket purchases pays for animals to be imprisoned and traded, not rescued and rehabilitated,» https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/animals-used-entertainment-factsheets/zoos-pitiful-prisons/.
[66] «Since the Statesman and the Republic there have been discourses which speak of human society as if it were a zoo which is at the same time a theme park: the human husbandry in parks or stadiums seems from now on a zoo-political task. What is presented as reflections on politics are actually foundational reflections on rules for the maintenance of the human zoo. If there is one virtue of human beings which deserves to be spoken about in a philosophical way, it is above all this: that people are not forced into political theme-parks, but rather put themselves there. Humans are self-fencing, self-shepherding creatures. Wherever they live, they create parks around themselves. In city parks, national parks, provincial or state parks, eco-parks — everywhere people must create for themselves rules according to which their comportment is to be governed.» Peter Sloterdijk, «Rules for the Human Zoo: a response to the Letter on Humanism,» Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, 2009, pp. 12–28.
[67] Tegmark 2017 (as in n. 64), p. 191.
[68] Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. vii.
[69] John Ball, «The Zoo Hypothesis,» Icarus 19, 1973, pp. 347–349.
[70] «About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars have an ‹Earth-sized› planet in the habitable zone. Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.» https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet.
[71] John A. Ball, «Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Where is Everybody?» American Scientist 68/6, 1980, pp. 656–663 (revised December 14, 2004).
[72] http://exoplanet.eu/catalog.
[73] Jeremy Hsu, «China's ‹Dark Forest› Answer to ‹Star Wars› Optimism,» Discover Magazine, November 1, 2015, https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/chinas-dark-forest-answer-to-star-wars-optimism.
[74] «Benign may not be quite the right word; but if you believe that there is someone out there with the ability to squash us like a bug, and he has not — we’re still alive and functioning — this implies either that we’re more valuable to him alive than squashed, or at least that we’re not interfering much with whatever he’s doing. How could we interfere? We can’t even get out of our own solar system — yet,» Ball 1980 (as in n. 71).
[75] John Ball, «The Zoo Hypothesis,» Icarus 19, 1973, 347.
[76] Peter Dockrill, «Scientists Say We Could All Be Living in a Galactic Zoo Run by Aliens,» Science Alert, March 27, 2019, https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-think-we-could-all-be-living-in-a-galactic-zoo-run-by-aliens.
[77] European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/conditions-membership/chapters-of-the-acquis_en.
[78] «These ideas are perhaps most plausible if there is a relatively universal cultural or legal policy among a plurality of extraterrestrial civilizations necessitating isolation with respect to civilizations at Earth-like stages of development. In a universe without a hegemonic power, random single civilizations with independent principles would make contact. This makes a crowded Universe with clearly defined rules seem more plausible.» Steven Soter, «SETI and the Cosmic Quarantine Hypothesis,» Astrobiology Magazine, October 17, 2015, https://www.astrobio.net/alien-life/seti-and-the-cosmic-quarantine-hypothesis.