Welcome to CoffeeTropolis, the land of plenty... plenty of choice... plenty of problems... but plenty of hope too. As a citizen you choose this for yourselves. You choose what you watch on TV, we just put it there, you choose what you eat, we simply supply it, a land where you're free... heck, even the rubbish is free to float around as it chooses... You choose not to leave because we educate, placate and delegate... So on with your lives... Go out and buy... Plenty...
Episode 2: Skool Daze
Skool Daze, the best days of your life. Filled with fun interactive learning, exciting subjects taught by teachers who brought out the best in you. Or is that just for the few? The rest have to deal with old buildings, teachers who are just passing through and class sizes more suited to a rock concert. So should everyone get the same? How???
We're free to choose what we buy, who to vote for and what to believe, so what's the problem?
We're free to choose but we should be told more about who's behind the choices we're offered and what they want with our money, our votes and our minds.
Only the mega-rich are truly free and they control all the choices so what's the point in trying to change things?
Episode 3 : Born To Shop
Want, need, must have... everything you need, we've got it, everything you don't need we'll think of a clever way to make you want it anyway. There's no escape - bigger! better! faster! newer! morer... er, well, just more...
Mix the kids up so the slowest can learn with – and from – the brightest. The rich kids and the brightest kids shouldn’t be given special treatment.
Introduce a better education for all by taking money away from the hospitals.
Not everyone's interested in learning, so give a lucky 10% a good education and the rest can make do with a production line education route that selects the city’s needs and educates the kids to fit.
Episode 4 : Wasters
She can't take anymore she's gonna blow!!! Just where does all that packaging go? Each item individually wrapped in plastic and buried in a mound of foam chips... only to be thrown away. Coffeetropolis is fit to burst and despite the best efforts to cram the rubbish away the cracks are starting to show...
Recycling is not the issue; energy wastage is the real problem. People can consume and dump all the products they want, but must switch their homes, cars and appliances to energy-efficient technologies.
Place a waste charge on all shoppers' purchases.
The whole recycling thing is just a scare. Do nothing.
Episode 5 : Replicating Replicants
Good looking, funny, smart and stealing all the jobs! How dare these machine humans get the better of the Coffeetropolis human workforce. The speed and level of research into artificial intelligence is spiralling out of control and there are winners and losers.
It's alright for the people behind the machines, they still get all the money, but what about the rest of us? It's enough to make your circuitry fuse, oh hang on that means I'm... A REPLICANT... no don't get angry with me it's the others you want!
Encourage high tech recycling schemes. There’s a lot of ‘wasted’ computers in the ground more powerful than those used to put a man on the moon!
Send the rubbish to Mars. Take money away from education and health to pay for it.
Plug the gaps in the ground to contain the methane. Far less expensive than rocketing waste into space, but a never-ending task which must be repeated daily.
Episode 6 : It Came from the Deep!
Take 2 technologies. On their own great but what would happen if they were to accidentally mix together, creating something new? Something that we hadn't really thought about?
Those A.I and Nano Technology factories look a bit too close together... er hang... on is that waste going straight into the water system... wait a minute there's fish coming out of the water and they look like they mean business, women children and narrators first, RUN FOR IT!!!
Ban artificial intelligence (AI) research, and don’t worry if other cities carry on with it and become richer and more powerful.
AI replicants can work around the clock, don't need food or create waste. Let’s plough more money into AI research so we can all put our feet up.
Keep the replicants but only to do menial work, that way humans stay happy and in charge. The replicants won’t rebel, will they?
Episode 7 : Down On The Farm
I saw an old farm on the TV once, and can you believe it the animals were walking around! Talk about inefficient!! Grandpa said that in his day all this was just fields. Not sure what a field is but anyway...
People are always going on about "fresh" food. We went to a "fresh" produce market yesterday but the food was so dirty and weird it looked like it'd been dug up out of the ground! Food can only be properly stomached when it's clean, processed and wrapped in plastic. Especially cows and chickens.
Negotiate with the fish, maybe they can help us - if we can trust them.
They can't be trusted, we have to destroy them, ATTACK THE FISH!
We created the problem with technology, we'll have to fix it with more of the same technology.
Episode 8 : Reality Rocks
The TV in Coffeetropolis is great, there’s so much choice that even if there’s nothing on, by the time I’ve flipped through all the channels, a new show is bound to come on... and if I don’t like that one then I can just keep flipping...
There was this cool reality TV show on channel 9,561 called ‘Kids on Mars!’ and my best friend Maxine was in it, but it wasn’t very convincing so I turned over. Really, there aren't kids on Mars... but I haven’t seen Maxine for a while now, come to think of it…
Send the replicants to Mars to try and grow food there, and humans can do the menial work again.
Use technology to create artificial food and worry about the health implications later.
We don't need more food, we need fewer people, so introduce sterilization programs.
Episode 9 : Life Is Sweat
Make it faster, make it cheaper, make 'em low and sell 'em high... A job is better than no job, right? We could use machines, but then people would starve... A job gives you a purpose. Or a porpoise, if you like exotic pets... Sure it's hard labour err I mean hard work, but profits mean growth, growth means more jobs, and more jobs means more people with a porpoise. Or is that dolphin?
It should be up to the kids to decide their own leader.
They don’t know what they’re doing, so set up a dictator to look after them.
The kids need rescuing, the TV production company should be made to get the 'Kids on Mars' back to CoffeeTropolis.
Episode 10 : Healthy
What's on the telly? Oh no not the news!! Get it off it's too depressing!! Change the channel quick!! Hang on it's all the same - cough! What's goi - cough -ng on? Is everyone ill?
Cough! Quick get me to the d - cough -octors! Oerr think I need to get to the - cough! - hospital, is it - cough - still - cough - open?!? I pay my t- cough - axes I want a doctor, what do you mean that I've got - cough - to pay a - cough - gain !! OOooer I feel funny...
They don’t have to work there if they don’t want to – it’s their choice.
Let the workers take control of the business, they should be their own bosses and take their fair share of the money.
Don’t buy stuff if it’s made in really bad conditions. If the workers lose their jobs they’ll have to fight for better conditions, won’t they?
Episode 11 : City of Culture
Call that art?! I call it rubbish!! What’s the point of... with the juxtaposition of that... this site specific installation... conceptualises... and theorise, of a minimalist, oh, my elbows. IS THERE A POINT TO ALL THIS - what’s the word I’m looking for? STUFF!! Well, yes. Culture and enlightenment, possibly. Transcendent experiences, perhaps. Beauty and humanity confirmed yet questioned.... maybe. Or just an excuse to use lovely long words and make us sound cleverer... er?
Help stretch the money available for healthcare by stopping sick people coming to Coffeetropolis looking for health care.
Develop a vaccine, whatever it costs, even if only the mega-rich can afford it. The rest will have to take their chances.
Clone a spare 'me' for every citizen so when parts of your health start failing there's a new part to bolt on.
Episode 12 : End of the Mug
It had to happen, we've reached the bottom of the French plunger, the end of the filter bag, the bottom of the beans... That's right, it's the final part of the Coffeetropolis tale. And did it make you think? Did it make you angry? Did it make you confused? Perhaps it was a mixture of all three.
As you leave the good citizens of Coffeetropolis to carry on regardless, can you take one last look at the chaos they have created and see if you can help them to make some choices for the future? Go on, slurp that latte and have a last go; I dare you!
But come back to Coffeetropolis.com very soon and find out how you could win cool stuff and - who knows - maybe the legend will live on!
Art is a luxury, ordinary people don't need it. Clear the galleries to make way for hospitals that offer free treatment.
People make 'art' in their own lives, they don't need institutions to tell them what is and isn't art.
Cut back on sports in school so there's time to teach kids to appreciate art and culture.
