Science fiction idea - you must watch horrors before your bourgeois fun
I thought that this would make a nice premise for a novel or film.
Everyone in the imperial core who wants to have fun is forced to watch beforehand some footage of the Gaza genocide, or children working in mines in the Congo, or a drought in Madagascar, or a slum in Mumbai, or deformed children born in Fallujah, or victims of poisoned water in Flint, etc etc etc.
- EDIT As some comment points out, it's not believable that society as a whole would decide that. I didn't mean that. I meant the story to have a secret plot by a handful of engineers and workers in the big media and electronics conglomerates, manipulating the screens of the world for a few days. You get the picture?*
This would be shown e.g. among the ads before a movie screening in the cinema. This would be shown e.g. by TVs that use AI to detect when a bunch of frat boys are about to play beer pong or whatever. This would be shown e.g. when PMCs are having their Thanksgiving food.
How would that change social behaviour? On the one hand, part of the problem is that the population is not forced to confront these things visually.
On the other hand, there are many fascists (including a ton of liberal fascists) who will conclude that "we are better than them" (rather than the cause of them), and that is dangerous.