Headscratchers / Avatar Earth

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Would Earth people really care so much for an alien race?

During Earth's own history, various groups of settlers have committed genocide in far less dire situation. In Avatar, Earth is already a really crapsack world, so I take it that human doesn't really "get better" and still are bastards. With Earth running out of resources, why "kill a lot blue cat people or DIE YOURSELVES" would be so unacceptable, from a bastard's point of view?

I can think of an explanation that in the movie human are still relatively new to Pandora and have illusions that "we came in peace" might actually work?

• Because humans aren't bastards? These days, at least in the Western world, people are a hell of a lot more sensitive to atrocities being committed on other peoples when compared with the past. It's probably even moreso in the Avatar future. At the very least you're probably going to see a whole lot of political lobbies demanding that RDA be restricted and controlled.

  • In Avatar Earth isn't unified, different national governments hardly agree on anything, getting disperse countries supporting the extermination of indigenous extraterrestrials for a resource isn't an outcome to be expected.
  • Who would nuke Pandora from orbit? In Avatar the RDA has an agreement with the UN prohibiting weapons of mass destruction like orbital nukes, and if not the RDA who would do it? More importantly who would get the Unobtanium rights? I doubt the countries of an already depleted Earth can really afford another world war.
  • Given the nature of space law it is likely that the technolgy would not even exist.
  • This is something that really bugged me as well. Especially since the 'earth is a huge craphole' message is constantly stressed throughout the entire movie. Can you seriously imagine any human siding with some blue cat people that aren't human and live light years away when their planet is a hellhole and said cat people are standing in the way of improving their life? I certainly can't.
  • Except that nothing DOES 'improve their life'. This isn't Spaceballs, people.

• It's more that the RDA are bastards than all of humanity being bastards. There's already the plausibility of huge protests back on Earth, since there were already protests over the ethics and morals of the AVTR program. Of course, all those protesters can do is protest, because they can't stop anything going on in Pandora.
  • Especially with there being a 6 year travel time.
• Various governments probably have policies restricting that sort of outright Na'vi slaughter, likely a cover for an international Unobtanium détente preventing the various governments of a very non-unified earth from fighting to the death over Pandora's significant supply of Unobtanium.
• I think the right answer is that humans aren't always total bastards. The tropes even notes that this is usually a stereotype in fiction and humanity has always run the entire gauntlet of good and bad. Hell, people are sympathetic to the Na'vi now, and they're not even real! Besides, do we even know why the Earth is a crapsack one - the issue may be way more complicated than humans being meanie-faces.
  • For that matter, we have no proof that Earth's survival depends on exploiting Pandora's Unobtanium. Economic prosperity and profit for RDA, yes; survival no. This isn't Battle For Terra.
• It's not so much that we'd necessarily care for an alien race, it's that we despise the "HUMANITY FUCK YEAH KILL THE XENOS" people enough to side with the aliens. I'd happily see such people dead, might bump the IQ of the species up a few points.
  • Hey, it's better than Navikin. Much, much better than the Navikin.
• Being xenocidal does not necessarily mean you are less intelligent. Given that this is a hard scifi setting were relativistic kill vehicles are possible(ie like real life). The smartest move a species can make may be to destroy all other sapient lifeforms. Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise.
  • It's not hard sci-fi at all; the Na'vi have no way of deploying relativistic kill vehicles; and please stop quoting Warhammer. It makes you sound like a drooling sociopathic tool. It's the least realistic setting ever.
  • Agreed with the above - people here need to give the cliched 40k crap a rest. You make me embarrassed to have played, all these people who think it's soooooo kewl and all fiction should be it. Also, do you genuinely think 40k is hard scifi? It has MAGIC, it has daemons, undead vehicles and psychic powers, teleportation, physical manifestations of gods, etc. Go look at the early editions when it was still Rogue Trader, and it was actually intended to be semi-humourous. 40k and hard scifi don't mix, that'd be like having a star destroyer turn up in the middle of a Stephen Baxter book; they are completely different approaches to a story.
    • No FTL, fairly plausible if poorly designed vehicles, modified versions of things that we already have, and a reasonable handwave of FTL communications? Sounds like hard scifi to me, if you'll excuse the LEGO Genetics. Also, of course the Na'vi can't deploy the RK Vs, that's what the humans are supposed to do. Just face it, the only reason the Na'vi are still alive is because morality is a Restraining Bolt on the human's infinitely superior firepower. And because of the Zerg Rush.
    • Poorly designed how, exactly? The Dragon is impractical, sure, but still powerful. The Scorpion outperforms an Apache (generally considered the best current helicopter) in every measure in a comparable environment, both would have reduced performance in Pandora's environmental conditions. The Samson is still versatile enough to be used in any context and clearly excellent as a cargo vessel, being able to move at least an entire link unit, and both fast and manoeuvrable.
    • Then you can argue that humanity completely devoid of morality wouldn't be co-operative enough as a whole to start civilizations.
• Of course, the cost of deploying kill sats and what have you is Awesome, but Impractical (the trope page has a section on them, in fact). For the cost of weaponizing something like that, you could send an army... who could not only blow stuff up but secure the place after.
  • Simpler - do some heavy calculations and jettison a hunk of granite massing in at 2 metric tons while the ship slows down. That'll hit em like a comet on the dinosaurs.
    • Missing the point. Where are they going to get that much granite much less get it up into the space, aim it, avoid the aftermath and the tools needed to survive in the altered environment? It is not that a killsat or whatever is impossible; it is possible. The question is whether it is -practical- and worth more than the cost. As well, to address a point a few steps above, quoting fictional universes is meaningless. First, because it's fiction; what works in there does not necessarily work or imply meaning here. Wisdom can be gained but reality can not. Also, because while some measure of selfishness is beneficial, it is also beneficial to have some measure of cooperation. Vampire bats for instance; they will feed other bats who are unable to feed themselves (they couldn't find something to hunt or whatever). Bats who are selfish enough not to share with others and only take eventually stop getting any sort of help at all... so when they're starving or need something, well, tough luck, the people they need help to survive from no longer wish to help them because they're not contributing anything at all.
    • Yet again, they can't. That would not only make them highly unpopular but also cause them to lose their very contract for being there. Not everyone on Earth is a sociopath like you just because the marines there are.
• Also, the Na'vi are (IIRC) the first sapient alien species which humanity has encountered in this universe. Wiping them out would be unpopular, if only because a large portion of the populace would be amazed by them. Think about the amount of time, exploration, mental energy, and imagination which we dedicate now to the possibility of life on other planets. Imagine the boom of curiosity and excitement which would erupt when actual living, breathing, talking aliens were discovered. Prior to the events of the movie, there would be little reason for people the dislike the Na'vi, too, since RDA would probably keep a lot of the disagreements between the locals and their forces as quiet as possible, if for no other reason than to avoid spooking investors.
• And most historical genocides have been predicated, in part, upon xenophobic paranoia as well as greed, e.g. Western settlers' fears of "savage Indian raids", that exacerbated an already-exploitative mindset into full-blown "get 'em before they get us" bloodbaths. The Na'vi are on another planet and aren't capable of space travel, hence can't pose the least conceivable threat to Earth.

What makes Earth such a crap hole?

So everyone evers real soylent green made of algae and petridish grown meat, so what if it tastes fine. So there are twenty billion people, who cares if everyone can make ends meat when a lot of people can't do that today? So what if Jake can't can have a miracle surgery when there simply aren't enough resources to give such a treatment to everyone, and besides humans in the past just had to deal with it? And what precisely makes one artifical or natural environment better than the other?

• And since the manual states that humans have colonies throughout the solar system and can have them in other stellar systems, isn't their way of living actually more sustainable in the longest timeframe that the navi's. Pandora will eventually become unihabitable as it's star ages, but humans in this setting can live anywhere that a star is available to power their machinery and resources are available to extract. I have a problem with Green Aesop in general, but this is just a stange setting to have one in if you follow your Fridge Logic.
• Earth is worse off because humans have covered it with their nasty technology.
  • That's by far not the explanation; science is good in this movie, and science combined with biological samples from Pandora is a potential salvation for planet Earth. Earth is a Crapsack World because it's been exploited carelessly, not because humans developed science.
    • Hardly. Science is neutral in this movie- the respectful study of Pandora is viewed as good, but the fruits of science, technological development, are at best neutral and at worst actually portrayed as a malignant blight upon Pandora that has already destroyed Earth. The movie gives absolutely no indication that the conclusion holds any hope for Earth as a result of contact with Pandora; Pandoran lifeforms are wholly incompatible with those of Earth. If it says anything, it's that the human perspective of Jake is improved by adopting the simpler, naturalistic ways of the Na'vi, allowing him to turn against his former kin and save Pandora. At no point does the movie provide a more nuanced view of technological progress; the only options we're shown are the deliberate tribalism of the Na'vi and the Crapcack World urban hell of Earth.
  • I think the arguement being made is, why is exploitiong everything in our path intrinsically bad if it is actually more sustainable longer than living in a biosphere? And for that matter why is living in "balance" with the natural environment good if it is not necessary for survival? What makes covering the planet in cities and efficiently exploiting every source of energy and materials a bad thing? It seems like the answer that they are giving us is, because machines and human buildings are ugly. Or that we should be nice to and animals and trees just because we should. Well I live in a rural area and frankly I disagree.
    • Because there's more to life than just 'survival'? Living in a biosphere and moderating your consumption of resources means infinite sustainability (at least until the stars around turn into supernovas). There isn't a direct reason that's available to explain why Earth's a crap sack world, but it's highly suggested that the population of humans on Earth are unhappy with scrambling around in their squalid filth all the time. If they're unhappy, then something's wrong.
    • "biosphere and moderating your consumption of resources means infinite sustainability", bunk. The land living portion of the biosphere can only survive another 450 million years at most until solar immittance increases to the point that C4 photosynthesis is impossible, not to mention the likelyhood of at least one globally catastrophic bolide impact during that time. Given the technology of this setting the humans could live in space until red dwarfs begin to burn out more than 100 billion years in the future. Screw the biosphere we've got space habitats arranged in a dyson swarm.
    • Still haven't explained why the human population in the movie agree that Earth is a Crapsack World.
    • People think today's world is a Crapsack World despite being far more peaceful than the previous decades of the Cold War, World War II, World War I, the Age of Imperialism etc. People are simply spoiled.
    • It's better than it was but I'd call a world where a child dies every 3 seconds very crapsack. Yeah kids dying are simply spoiled, don't know how good they've got it.
    • 450 million years? Where did you get that number? Temperature does not depend only on the Sun. Atmosphere is just as important. And how do you know it was not an asteroid impact what destroyed the biosphere?
    • The photosynthesis won't become impossible because of atmosphere or heat, but because in 450 million years the sun will be emitting wavelengths that are extremely inefficient for photosynthesis.
    • Actually the plants could just switch to the yellow, orange, and red pigments they already have instead of using chlorophyll to account for the lower wavelength of the light they receive. But as the hydrogen around the core of the Sun is consumed, the core absorbs the resulting helium, causing it to contract further, which in turn causes the remaining hydrogen to fuse even faster, That means the total solar immitence will be 55% higher in 450 million years. Which in turn means that land plants will lose to much water through evapotranspiration than they can replace, even if they all used the most water efficient C4 photosynthetic process possible.
• Remember the people who make bad remarks about Earth are not the most unbaised souls. Jake is a familiess, jobless guy in a wheel chair, Grace is a hippy scientist infatuated with Pandora, and other soldiers on Pandora my be there to take care of their own financial troubles. At the beginning of the movie Jake is with a bunch of people drinking and watching sports on a wall sized TV, they probably don't think that Earth is a toilet. And don't say that they're not really 'happy', because we don't know one way or another and even if that was the case it would not make Earth a bad place to live. Most people aren't happy today, but most people are content and that is enough, we shouldn't call any future that isn't perfect a dystopia.
  • Things that have changed is that the air smells slightly foul and that the food is crap, but the government is trying hard to restore it. The governments of the world are trying hard to get plant and animal life back on earth, though they need independent corporations to help. To stop these corporations from exploiting their position too much, there is a number of laws in place limiting military power. The problem with the large population doesn't seem to be space, but rather good food, due to lack of vegetation and edible animals, both of which are currently being restored.
• If extra-movie information is allowed to be used, I'm pretty sure it's perfectly acceptable to call your planet a crapsack world if you have to live in a hermetically-sealed hovel, can't go outside without a breathing mask, and are surrounded on all sides by other people. Unfortunately, the movie itself doesn't bother to tell us any of this.
  • It already hit the IMAX maximum length, not to mention the attention span of many people. A LOT was lost, e.g. whole characters' backstories, and many extra parts from the ending.
• I find it hard to believe it could get this bad. Assuming nature reserves and so on suddenly disappear, wouldn't the loss of nature result in it becoming more valuable? A corporation could buy up several square kilometres of nature and then use it as a for-profit park or heavily controlled residential area (for rich people who want to live in a relatively natural area, like the Californians buying up property in Montana). As nature receded, their property would become more and more valuable, and more corporations would get the idea to buy it up. Sooner or later, there would come a point where the cost of developers buying new land in natural areas would have to pay more money for the land then they would if they bought up a giant factory and demolished it to make space for apartments. The crappier the world got, the more valuable the "natural property" would be, the more corporations would get the idea that they could make cash by protecting natural areas (or even making new ones), the better the world would be. Problem solved. Corporations try to make money, they don't do evil for the sake of doing evil. For Earth to become as bad as described in Avatar, the corporations would have to destroy nature beyond the point where it becomes unprofitable to do so.
  • Overpopulation takes care of that. Unspoiled areas are a luxury when you need to build a city for another billion people, or a mine to get more energy and resources, or an algae farm to feed them.
• The "150 years in the future" somewhat hand waves this. It's a toss-up to determine what technology (and their repercussions) will be in the future. Given that time frame, it's assumed that there was incentive for corporations to screw up the Earth to this extent.
  • Exactly. It's happening even today, with things like the Belo Monte dam. There goes a huge chunk of the Amazon just to create electricity.
  • Even failing that, there are TWENTY BILLION humans on Earth. That many people just aren't going to live without causing major environmental damage.

"It is said that the people on Earth have grey skin because of their completely synthetic diet."

Saw this on the trope page, which leads me to question, if this is so, why don't all the humans on Pandora have grey skin? Or at least Jake Sully?

• It's called hyperbole. Basically, it's saying the synthetic diet is making humans look more like crap.

Inflation

Are the dollar amounts given in the movie and the supplemental material intended to be equivalent to 2009 dollars? Otherwise, if you assume 3.25% annual inflation - roughly in line with the 20th century US average - $1 in 2009 would be worth about $100 in 2154 and the economics of the whole thing changes significantly with unobtanium being $200k/kilo in today's dollars. (For comparison, platinum is just under $50k/kilo as of this writing.)

• It's likely in 2009 figures. The price of unobtanium adjusted to 2154 figures wouldn't be grasped as well by the audience, since not everyone is into math or economics.
• Temporal Translation Convention. Of course, nothing rules out a massive depression where the value of currency massively increases, or even countries chopping zeros off their currency to make it more practical as has happened in real life, mainly during hyperinflation.

Wouldn't society know better at this point?

• I know that environmental atrocities take place every day. And I know that it's a different planet than theirs and all. But sheesh, we now have some idea of what not to mess with. By now we're beginning to larn the error of our ways when it comes invasive species, colonialism, pollution, etc. There may be loopholes- okay, lots and lots of loopholes- that go on, but we're becoming progressively greener by the day. At what point in that some century's time did the government have a collective brain fart that brought them back to the ideology of the industrialized dark ages?
  • Probably when environmentalists ran out of actual environment to save. Even despite current efforts, ecosystems are still being destroyed; the efforts of environmental projects don't match up to the destruction that they're trying to fix. If the efforts never completely negated the destruction, the Earth would still progressively get worse (albeit at a slower pace). Given 150 years, it's not unreal to believe the Earth might be screwed over like that.
    • The original script gives you an idea of how much environmentalists have learned. Since the earth has been damaged, they have become far more powerful. So, the resident environmentalist has huge power. Rather than stopping the military, he takes their money.

There's no green left on Earth? Really?

Quaritch mentions that Sully fought in the South American bush. When someone mentions that they usually mean jungle, and all natural jungles on Earth are green without exception; no green means no trees, and no trees means no bush (calling an "urban jungle" bush is possible, but that would be quite a stretch). Besides that, where did they get the cardboard for the casket Sully's brother was cremated in if all the wood pulp is gone? Recycling only goes so far.

• It's possible the wars fought in the "South American bush" spelled the end of said bush. Also, "No green left" is hyperbole, not an absolute statement. It doesn't mean there is literally nothing green left on the whole face of the planet.
  • Also, think about the Australian "bush", most of which is dry plains. It's quite possible that the pollution and deforestation for food in addition to rampant wildfires and possibly salt-sowing tactics means Venezuela could have a lot of poisoned plains with no vegetation without being completely covered by a megalopolis.
    • That would also go a long way to explaining why a supposed veteran of jungle warfare acts like a complete fool in the jungles of Pandora, almost as though he had never been in a jungle before.
    • In the script, he is scared by the forest as he had never seen one before.
• It's never stated in the movie that there are no plants left on earth. Maybe in the year 2154, natural forrests have become subventioned by the UN giving each country for money for the amount of forrests they have. So in this future wars are fought over these jungles for the UN founds. However considering the atmospheric situations on Earth, it's likely to assume these forrests have been genetical altered, which could have turned them into nothing more than organic atmosphere cleaners. This might explain how there could still be plants and paper on earth but why the jungles of Pandora are so beautiful to people. The ones back home simply look like horrible.
• With increasing urbanization its likely the vast majority of people in huge cities that are very densely populated (think Tokyo) to help with the overpopulation, and probably do not have much room for parks, or large backyards. As Jake probably lived in a city that's why he may have never have seen so much plant life before. The whole "there's no green left" is an exaggeration as most people live in cities cannot have seen the remaining forests and natural landscape.

Earth's supposed overpopulation.

• In a serious case of Writers Cannot Do Math, although the population of Earth at current rates should reach 10 billion in 2050 it is unlikely to as more and more countries are having much lower birth rates. If anything, it should start decreasing after 2100 as more people are child less or only have one child. Unless everyone after 2100 decided that having over three children was the done thing, the Earth's population should not have reached 20 billion.
• A current trend won't necessarily continue into the future. Declining birth rates is mainly due to people holding off having children for financial or practical reasons, as well as better awareness and use of contraception, but that allows PLANNING, not preventing reproduction.
  • The problem is that as nations get more and more developed, birth rates tend to decline. It's an observable trend across the industrialized West. Remember, that trend is only due to the choices of the individuals within the industrialized nations. That fails to account for nations like China with their One Child Policy. As the population grows, and resources get more strict, doesn't it make sense to think that nations will begin variations of One Child?
    • That doesn't necessarily halt population growth. If enough people survive to adulthood, then only an average of 2.1 children per couple will keep population growing, or slightly higher to cover deaths and people who don't have children.As the adult population increases, then even with a lower birthrate, there will be far more children being born overall - IIRC, China's population is growing despite one child.
  • Possibly the population-control strictures were lifted when humans began moving into space colonies, under the assumption that excess people would move off-planet. Then a crisis blocked them from actually sending as many folks up as they'd expected — lack of energy, failed space-elevator project, etc — so they're stuck with all those excess would-be colonists and no way to transport them (hence, the need for Unobtainium).
    • Seems unlikely considering the difficulty of such travel. More likely, it's just another case of human apathy, people thinking "Well, other people can do that, I'm going to have as many as I like". Even China has failed to halt its population growth.

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