The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Snowpiercer, And The Third Industrial Revolution

There is a famous quote by Karl Marx which states, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” The history of mankind started from lives in caves. The first human beings used handaxes to hunt animals for food. As time passed, human began to seek for a more stable life, marking the beginning of civilization, followed by industrialization which led to the development in the field of technology. Now, the human history is facing a new chapter of evolution, which is the Fourth Industrial Revolution also known as Industry 4.0. A distinct characteristic of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that artificial intelligence and big data technology is emphasized in addition to the IT technology, which represents the Third Industrial Revolution.
While the human history is presented in a fictional sense, just like what is mentioned in the quote by Karl Marx, each scene symbolizing a certain stage of evolution roots from the reality and handles similar problems to the issues happening in the 21st century that appeared as the society developed .The story begins with a news of 2014, alarming people that environmentalists decided to diffuse CW7, a chemical that is expected to cool down the temperature of the Earth, into the atmosphere as a solution to counteract global warming. However, the side effects of CW7 results in global ice age and all the living creatures become extinct except for the people who are on Snowpiercer, a massive train. This train powered by a perpetual motion engine is dictated by the owner of the train, Wilford. Moreover, the train depicts a hierarchical society since the habitants of the tail section receive inhumane treatment while the people from the front sections live a luxurious life, throwing parties and taking drugs. This irrational system makes the protagonists, Curtis and Namgoong Minsoo who are from the tail section of the train to revolt, bringing them all the way to the engine compartment. The Snowpiercer and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is similar in a way that both of them are a totally new reality that mankind have to adapt to. The people facing worldwide ice age had to begin their
Thus, looking at the problems presented in the Snowpiercer, it is possible to point out some problems that might be brought to the surface by the upcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution. The first problem presented in the Snowpiercer is global warming and side effects of geoengineering, a crucial technology of the Industry 4.0. In the film, an artificial coolant called CW7 is used to adjust the temperature of the Earth. However, it results in an unexpected side effect, and turns the whole world into snow-covered fields. Hence, CW7 can be seen as a symbol showing that geoengineering can have shadows despite the many advantages stressed by