List of Suggested Things to Explore

CS266 Explorations
Guidelines:
The purpose of this list is to provide a broad variety of books, movies, video games etc. That you might explore in order to generate ideas about the society you are creating. It is hoped that the works below, which focus on societal issues, the creation of society and on societies downfallen. (Any comments, jokes etc. about items in the list are in brackets after the items)

Books
Geroge Orwell – 1984
Jonathan Swift - Gulliver’s Travels (of particular interest there would be the fourth voyage to the land of the Houyhnhnms)
George Orwell – Animal Farm
David Henry Thoreau - Walden (a romantic natural utopia)
Stephen King – The Stand
Thomas More - Utopia (This is a brilliant and wonderful book but caution is advised as it is complex and deeply ironic)
Francis Bacon - New Atlantis (a scientific Renaissance utopia)
Edward Bellamy - Looking Backward
Cormac McCarthy – The Road
William Golding – The Lord of the Files
Alex Garland – The Beach
George Blecha – Love in the Time of the Apocalypse
Neal Stephenson - Snowcrash
Stephan Donaldson - The chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Aldous Huxley - A Brave New World
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingstone Seagull
Richard Bach - Illusions

Movies
Lord of the Flies
A Clockwork Orange
Blade Runner
The Pianist
Spartacus (I am Spartacus!)
Mad Max (1 & 2 but not the Tina Turner toting 3rd instalment)
Gattaca
Children of Men
The Beach
The Matrix Trilogy (even if 2 & 3 aren’t very good)
V for Vendetta
Equilibrium

TV
Stephen King’s The Stand (miniseries)
Battlestar Galactica (the newer series)
Jericho (not a great series but gives a simple look at a small town community after the collapse of the larger society)
The Wire (Brilliant!!!)
The Simpons

Video Games
Fallout 3 (what society do you find here, what decisions are you making, what actions are you taking? What companions do you keep? What societal implications would these decisions and actions have?)
Civilisation
Elder Scrolls
World of Warcraft
Black and White (1 & 2)
The Sims (what does the individual need? What does the family need?)
Sim City (what does a city need?)
Bioshock


Newspapers, Radio etc.
Listen, read, explore!

The Internet
Oh the internet! When you’re wondering about a topic or aspect of the society you are creating use the internet search functions, for example google, Wikipedia etc., in order to explore it. Just be careful you don’t get caught up in the perpetual motion mechanism that are the links from one page to another and another and another!

this website http://www.nationstates.net/ might be of interest to you – an extremely popular online RPG that allows user to create their own countries, shaping their own fortunes by addressing different issues that are emailed to users every day.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/report_back_2/
https://www.adbusters.org/

http://www.newint.magazine.co.uk/?T=1260809649&JTID=130741699&OGID=201&network=GAW

http://sugarscape.sourceforge.net/sugarscape.html (Growing Artificial Societies is a milestone in social science research. It vividly demonstrates the potential of agent-based computer simulation to break disciplinary boundaries. It does this by analyzing in a unified framework the dynamic interactions of such diverse activities as trade, combat, mating, culture, and disease. It is an impressive achievement.)

The Group Without Society

The Individual Without Society

Spicynode-Create Your Own Society

Create Your Own Society!

This blog functions as a support for the CS266 Behavioural Science Create Your Own Society Project 09-10.

What Kind Of Society Will You Create?


Free website - Wix.com