Brand New Sam: Report

How Would Humans Act if they could Live Forever?

‘Brand New Sam’ is a story based around the question posed above. I believe the story is a realistic, although dystopian interpretation of what would happen if humans could live forever. The reason I wrote the story through the eyes of Sam is because his behaviour is the closest to that of humans today and I thought it would be an interesting contrast to see how a relatively ‘normal’ person would act in the world of the future.

                I will answer the question with reference to ‘Brand New Sam’ and links to both religion and psychology, which I believe are the two things that subconsciously influence the actions of humans today and if certain things about them were missing in the future, we would not act the same.

                The first thing I would like to address is the lack of a godlike figure in the future and I will be focusing on Christianity to prove my points given that the story is most likely based in an English speaking countries which tend to be more Christian based. The story references Christianity when Sam thinks back to his mother and sister, but in his present little effort is made to display any kind of religious behaviour. One reason for the lack of religion is because the surroundings also make no effort to convince Sam (or anyone else) that a god of any kind exists. By this, I mean there are no churches or mosques, no references to a god, and the general reinforcement of religion has gone.

                For example, nowadays, almost every family in the UK will have somebody who is religious in it. Their belief in religion may influence one’s own belief in religion. Schools also teach religious education which provides students with an understanding of what each religion actually means and, if they think one religion is correct, they may start to believe in it. Television can also influence one’s perspective on the subject; there are many programmes that delve into what religion is. Even Richard Dawkins acknowledges religion; by saying it isn’t real he is in fact spreading its existence even further.

However, if all of this is gone in the future, why would people even remember about religions let alone believe in them? Well, the reason they remember religion is because of both their memories of lives they lived long ago as Sam proves and also because religion is such a big part of peoples’ lives and the world in general.

                But there is still a lack of religion in the future and this is one of the reasons I believe people would act the way they do in ‘Brand New Sam’; with more violence and less of a moral compass. If they do not fear the wrath of God when they die (which everyone assumes won’t happen anyway), why behave in the world?

                Because of the government?

                But let us consider how the government is designed using Karl Marx’s “opium of the masses”. The government and its laws are based loosely around the structure of religion. The English government uses the ten deadly sins as a base, for example. The government, as we still, still exists in the future as some kind of invisible being controlling the world. In this sense, does the government stand, in a sense, as some kind of religion and, if not, does religion still exist behind it?

                I don’t think so and my reasoning for this is simple; whilst the government does attempt to keep control over the public, the laws they seem to have don’t quite follow the Ten Commandments. They even allow murder and their attempt to control it seems half hearted when they quite literally allow a murderous hunt on Sam. In fact, not only do they allow it but they give rise to it.

                Psychology comes into play here. There are several studies that correlate with the idea that if one thinks no consequences will arise from their actions, they will develop a more violent behaviour. I will refer to three studies here; Bandura’s bobo doll experiment, Asch’s conformity experiment, and Dodd’s deindividuation study

                Bandura’s bobo doll experiment contained three groups of young children although all children experienced the experiment individually. They were each sent into a room with an adult role model and given toys to play with although they were told not to play with the adult’s toys which contained a bobo doll, a mallet and a toy set. One of the three groups experienced the adult attacking the bobo doll and displaying aggression. Another saw the adult playing with the toys normally (the control group). And the final group saw the adult displaying absolutely no aggression.

                The results showed that if a child saw their role model attacking the bobo doll, they too would attack it when in the room alone. The results also infer that the males displayed more aggressive tendencies.

                This relates back to the short story because it shows that “hunter”, in theory, isn’t too farfetched. If the government, an organisation that all of the men trust, created a game where people went and killed one another, they would probably do it because they think it’s okay. B.F. Skinner’s theory of positive reinforcement can also be applied here because if nobody is punished for being violent and they have a thrill from aggression as well as a reward if they win, why would they stop?

                While I could say men being more aggressive reinforces my argument, I believe if the story were about women instead, the same kind of behaviour would still manifest.

                While Asch’s conformity experiment doesn’t have the subject display violence of any sort, it shows that people conform to the actions of those around them. The experiment had nine participants choose which of three lines was equal to the length of a line displayed by the experimenter. However, only one of the men was a true participant, the others were simply actors.

                The results had the true participant conform to the answers the actors gave, whether true or false. This is the source for mob mentality, where people become violent because of those around them and because they believe, as part of a group, they are less easily identifiable.

                Consider this in a world where everyone lives in the same kind of apartments, gets their food from the same place at the same times, and all watch the same television channels. Everyone in the story is already part of a crowd and so they’d feel like they can get away with more violent behaviour.

                In Dodd’s essay (Robbers in the Classroom: A Deindividuation Exercise), he explains that he experimented on subjects from 13 different university classes of undergraduate psychology and he asked them the question “If you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do?” The subjects were asked to write their answers down.

                The results showed that 36% of the answers were antisocial, 19% were not normal to standard social behaviours, 36% were neutral and only 9% of the answers were prosocial. 15% of the answers held the response “rob a bank” and some answers even included murder, rape and political assassination.

                Dodd’s study quite clearly illustrates that if somebody is allowed to do whatever they please without consequence, they will choose to perform antisocial tasks. The argument could be made that the answers given in the experiment were probably exaggerated and given in order to ‘please’ the experimenter. However, we have to believe that, over time, if there are absolutely no rules in place and humankind is allowed to roam free without any consequence whatsoever, what is currently antisocial would probably become their socially acceptable behaviour.

                All of these studies show that traits and behaviours visible in the story already exist today; the only reason we don’t do the same things is because we don’t live forever and therefore have to follow certain rules.

                So, yes, people would behave differently. But what is it that makes Sam think in the same (or at least, most similar) way to most humans today? To answer this, I will reference a theory of Derek Parfit’s in ‘Chapter 10’ of Reasons and Persons. Parfit gives an example of what might happen if somebody was teleported. The method of teleportation involves breaking down somebody’s molecules at location A and having them reassemble at location B. However, a man who uses the teleportation device sues the scientist who invented it, saying that he was in fact murdered. He believes that the man he is now is a clone of who he used to be.

                This tale and the theory behind it bring into question the sense of self and it is something that is explored in ‘Brand New Sam’. Many times in the story, Sam questions the existence of clones and whether or not they are truly him, often coming to the conclusion that they aren’t. This reaction and Parfit’s theory are almost parallel to one another and this shows that how somebody would react today matches the way Sam reacts in the future. The reason that nobody else acts like this is due to some kind of brainwashing that the government installs into the cloning machines. Sam not getting this brainwashing and thinking in the same way as most humans today would gives us a more familiar insight into the strange and almost dystopian world of the future.

                In conclusion, I believe the way people act in ‘Brand New Sam’ would be an accurate description of the future if people could live forever and I think Sam being at least relatively normal in comparison gives us a way of viewing the world through the eyes of humans today.


'Brand New Sam: Report' was part of my University thesis and it is an examination of 'Brand New Sam: Creative Text' which you can find here.