Our world is too much like Panem. People fight and even kill each other in public with their fists for everyone to watch. In fact, 45 murders are committed every day in the U.S. We have people trash talk about each other and even to each other, especially with children. This seems bad enough, right? This is Panem. In our world, we have all of this plus gun shops, martial arts schools, violent video games, cyber bullying, and BB guns for kids. BB guns do kill. In fact, a six year old was killed by a BB gun. Our world doesn’t have many differences from Panem, and in my opinion, this is a bad thing, and we need to fix it.
For instance, have you ever gotten in a fight physically or verbally in public? If so, was it in front of a group of people, or a child? If it was, try to prevent it from happening again. We already have 45 murders committed every day. This happens a lot in contemporary society, and it is influencing people to do the same, and very slowly turning our world into Panem. Panem has so much violence that you have to fight people to survive and innocent children. In Panem, twenty four children exactly are sacrificed every year and only one is going to survive. This can be a problem if you’re a laggard.
You also have to go out in the forest and hunt for food, risking your life, and electricity is scarce. We are lucky to have 24/7 electricity, grocery stores, better police and government protection, and especially no Hunger Games, so we don’t have to deal with churlish Haymitch and the over controlling citadel known as the Capitol. I don’t want our world to turn into another Panem. Do you?

Furthermore, your government is watching your every move. Admit it! There are security cameras everywhere, and they tell you what you can and can’t do with laws. In fact, the U.S. has spent millions on security cameras since 2003, maybe more. They also have many restricted areas within our world which keeps us from using that land, and I believe land belongs to the people and other life forms of Earth, not just the government. The only reason it should be restricted is if it’s preventing other countries from getting to our country’s top secret data. There are places hidden from everyone besides people high up in the government, which is wrong. In contemporary society, this is totally wrong in my opinion because the people have the right to know, but in Panem, we don’t know what time period it is so we don’t know if those rights had been established yet or not. Our government in contemporary society and Panem’s government are very much the same. The only difference I recall is that you can get arrested for being against the Capitol in Panem, but not so in contemporary society.

Similarly, in both Panem and contemporary society, we are pretty obsessed with our physical appearance. We wear matching shirts and pants, we wear tons of makeup to cover up pimples and blemishes, and we wear short shorts and shirts that show off cleavage, etc. We dye our skin and get fake, spray on tans, and we also get lots of tattoos. The only time that we aren’t obsessed with our looks is if we can’t afford to be. Some people are lucky to have clothes to wear at all, and many don’t have clothes at all. Some people don’t care about their looks at all, but not many. It works the same way in Panem. The poorer districts, such as District 12, can’t afford nice clothing and makeup etc. Also, since most people can’t afford these things, people tend to not care about them as much. I cannot seem to think of one difference between Panem and contemporary society’s physical appearance besides in Panem, animal skins could be your clothing sometimes.

On the other hand, trading and bartering is very common in Panem. People hunt animals and trade things at “The Hob,” also known as the black market of Panem, for other animals and goods. One might trade a few rabbits for some bread and fruit, or even oil. You could also trade for services. In contemporary society, these ways are very uncommon. People don’t trade hunted animals for other food etc. Most people don’t even hunt nowadays. There is a black market, but only for illegal drugs and stolen items, such as cocaine, bombs, or famous paintings stolen from museums, and many other things you wouldn’t imagine. But, some stores may buy things they specialize in, or trade them for similar items, but this is not very common.

So, is this the type of world you want to live in? Do you want to live in a world where kids are becoming more and more violent, and so much money is wasted on physical appearance, when many people don’t even have food or clothes? I sure don’t. Instead of trying to look good, donate some money to people so they can have food and clothing. As for violent children, we should try to decrease this a bit, at least enough to make the child less likely to be more violent. We should also try to prevent black market trading more to keep people safe. If we do these things, it will make for a better world for us, and it will hopefully make for a good world in the future. Our world has way too many similarities to Panem.