[Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works] - Overpopulation

Jun 25, 2015 8:08 AM

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Aug 2014

939

At one of the lasts episodes of the second season of Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, Gilgamesh says something along the lines of:

That people in the past at least had a purpose and duty in life to do something regardless of their class in society. But in our modern era, because of overpopulation no one really has a purpose anymore. Everyone is just a statistic and easily replaceable. They're either lucky or they're not if they want to do something meaningful with their lives.

(Also discussed here: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1395488 )

Personally; I believe this makes a fair point. The authors behind the series may have taken this line of thinking from the German philosopher Nietzsche and his works on Nihilism; which it does resemble a lot.

Sadly, the entire first page of the conversation on that forum page has not a single argument. It is just a lot of unsupported opinions. Therefore I'm asking this here:

Did the overpopulation of humanity lead to the loss of purpose and meaning that people used to have in life?

(Or has there never been any of that to begin with? / Or is it still here? / Or were there other reasons?)

Jun 25, 2015 9:56 AM

Kasai

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Jan 2015

2911

Well acctually ı think the humanity lost its purpose.Forgetting about my religion and looking at it in a scientificial way we evolved from the monkeys right.Our first purpose from when we were monkeys was that we should survive and dominate other species.So we evolved after we evolved enough that no other species could pose a threat to us our purpose changed.Now our purpose was to dominate others and be the one at the top.In orders words being a king.That was what gilgamesh did.He united everyone and dominated each and everyone of them and gave them a purpose in other words serve him.But after the wars have ended and we started solve disputes with arguments lots of people lost their purpose.We can not fight so we can not dominate others and be on top.So right now we only live to live.Also this is another reason that we are over populated as there are no wars there are no casualties so we are over breeding.Think of it like an island full of rabbits.As there is no predators there rabbits will over breed and eat everything at the island so there will be nothing left.I think this is the direction we are going.

Jun 25, 2015 10:08 AM

Elvario

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Aug 2014

939

Scientifically I think it's more like;
-We share common ancestors as the monkeys.
-The first purpose was to survive but not neccesarily to dominate.

I like your idea about how Gilgamesh was a King and that being the endline.
I also agree with your idea of an island full of rabbits without predetors. (Though I believe that this won't last long, new wars might start in which humans become their own predetors, virus outbreaks form a bigger and bigger danger, there is the whole global warming issue and an increase in nature's violence, ect.)

Though I'm not sure if this was the point he wanted to make.

---

Let's say you had a village with a population of 50 with the nearest village being 60 days away. If you were the docter in that village, your job literally saved lives and without people would die. If you were the farmer you supported a big part of the populatioin with the food you grew. If you owned a windmill you were the only one who could turn wheat into bread. Ect.

So in these days you played a really vital role. And Gilgamesh said that even the simplest of slaves had such a role in his time and age. So even a simple slave was missed, because productivity would decrease without him so much that it would affect the entire society.

Nowaways in our age and countires, if a baker dies, there are countless other to fill in his place. If a doctor dies there are others. If a whole hospital would be blown up and everyone in it would die, there would still be others to go to and an 'emergency hospital' would be set up in no time. In short; nobody is as vital as they used to be. Even the best directors of the biggest companies have people lined up to take their place if need be. Even the most skilled surgeons have people that will immediatly take their place. And so on.

I think that this is the main point made. Back in the day; you were someone with a puprose. (I am baker --> I bake bread --> without my bread the town would starve. Nowaways... I am a baker ---> I bake bread --> without my bread... mothing... without my bread people would buy it from elsewhere...)

Jun 25, 2015 10:26 AM

Kasai

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Jan 2015

2911

I understand what you are saying so there are so many of a thing there it loses its value.Like a card if there are not a copy of it it becomes precious unique irrepreciable but if you have too many of them you would not care what happened to it.Even if one of them were to get wet or born you would not care because there are still some of it.I agree with you on that part but ı think just humanity lost its way because of its thinking.In my thinking everyone has a specialty but because of our society we cannot find them.

Think of a man who is great at pulling carts.He would be irrepreciable in old times but he would be useless in these times.So he would have to do something he is bad at and that would not give good results.Not only that if that man was born in this era he never even would have learned about this unique abilty of his.Because of our society we chose the jobs that makes a lot of money like being a doctor or a lawyer.We dont even try to find what they are good at.We are just trying what makes money.But there are some special cases like someone who can learn languages easily like me or someone who can solve puzzle easily like you.Some people call them geniuses but they are wrong there are no geniuses in the world those we see as geniuses are the ones who found their unique abilty and that is important in the modern world.

So yeah we lost our purpose not because of overpopulation but because of the society system we set up.

KasaiJun 25, 2015 10:32 AM

Jun 30, 2015 4:01 AM

Elvario

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Aug 2014

939

But that assumes that everyone has only one thing that he or she is good at.
There are tons of things you can be good at now that you couldn't be good at back in the day. Everything involving electronica, from making it to working with it. Also things such as professionalism in certains sports such as skating, gaming or even handicapped olympics. There should be more ways for someone to find something he is good at then ever before, because pulling carts is replaced by a lot more options.

What I do completely agree with is that the focus on what makes money is way too strong. (As a philosophy student who tries to stay out of debt because the government doesn't recognize my study as 'usefull' anymore and prefers to have all it's citizens work like clocks in a machine instead of having them learn to realize how wrong our society actually is I fully understand that.)

However, even if you find that thing you are good at, you are still very unlikely to be unique. I can't think of a single thing in which there is only a single person a professional. Sports, jobs and hobbies alike, there is always a second-best and a third-best and so on. And because of globalization and overpopulation those people can easily replace each-other.

So even if you do find that thing that you're good at, you're still one of many who's good at it and you can still be replaced by them if needed.

Jul 18, 2015 7:19 AM

Canaas

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Oct 2014

552

I think part of the loss of meaning comes from modern society in a certain way. Pre-industrialization there were more community bonds, the whole town worked as a group in a way. Now communities become increasingly disconnected. People are treated more of as commodities to be processed through an employment system than unique individuals with needed talent. Being treated as resources(Human Resources) people are also encouraged to buy products and consume more resources while they also work at a job to make more products to expand the buisness, with the process disconnecting from any purpose other than consumption and expansion which is quite cancerous as a core motivation.

While the baker dillemna mentioned does exist, if the baker enjoys baking bread, and the town/community appreciates it and he can see that, he still enjoys his life if he can keep his family going well and is filling a useful role. The problem is current society has disconnected it:the bread is made, but for the most part people buy it on shelves and are disconnected from that guy who really baked it. He doesn't get to see appreciation due to the factory-model process. Same goes with quite a few jobs.

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[Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works] - Overpopulation

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