Could you save civilization with a tweet? Tell us how and win a copy of 'High-Rise'

If you're a fan of books or movies that open with a handsome young man roasting the remains of a dog, you'll be thrilled that High-Rise -- starring Tom Hiddleston and based on one of J.G. Ballard's best and grimmest novels -- is now screening in theaters. 

Yep, it's that dark. 

The dog scene turns out to be a flash-forward to the end. Hiddleston's dog-roaster character turns out to have been an ambitious 20th century doctor named Robert Laing, a social climber who just landed an apartment in an exclusive and very chic new tower block. 

Well, it's chic to him, horrendously 1970s to us. 

With all the amenities they can imagine available inside, from a supermarket to a swimming pool, it's like a spell has been cast. Laing and his neighbors gradually lose interest in the outside world -- even, in fact especially, when the power cuts start. 

Without electricity or fresh food, the residents forget the rest of humanity completely, just as humanity seems to have forgotten then. A man leaps to his death from a high floor and the police don't come. 

Civilization ebbs away, and the high risers descend into orgies, brutality and class warfare between the lower and the upper floors. (Metaphor alert!)

The nice doctor Laing is powerless to stop the madness, and soon joins in. Same goes for fellow resident Wilder, a gruff political activist and documentary maker, and Royal, the building's architect. 

None can lead unless they reinvent themselves as an angry, violent strongman; beyond that, mob rule is all. 

Any similarity to our present society is purely coincidental. We hope.

Ballard's novel argues, very effectively, the dystopian worldview that we're a selfish, scared species with only a thin veneer of civilization keeping us sane. Mechanized buildings and other high-tech amenities are actually stripping civilization away rather than marching us into the bright new future the architects promised:

Secure within the shell of the high-rise, like passengers on board an automatically-piloted airliner, they were free to behave in any way they wished, explore the darkest corners they could find. 

In many ways, the high-rise was a model of all that technology had done to make possible the expression of a truly free psychopathology.

Anyone who has actually lived in a tower block or similar concrete monstrosity can probably relate.

Still, while we can appreciate Ballard's mastery of the dystopian form, here at Mashable, we're die-hard optimists. We think human nature is inherently cooperative, and that tragedy and adversity actually bring out the best in most of us. 

We also have five copies of a brand new movie-themed edition of Ballard's book to give away. So to determine who gets one, we're basically asking you to change the outcome in the space of a tweet -- and save all those fictional dogs from being roasted on spits.

Imagine that a modern high-rise has descended into brutality the way Laing's did. But the residents all have one technology the 1970s didn't -- social media -- and they are reading it one last time. 

You have one tweet to try to pull your fellow humans away from the abyss, and remind them of all that is good in the outside world. 

Would you say it in pictures? If not, what would you write? What phrase, what memory, what photograph, what line of poetry could most quickly snap us all back into our better selves at the worst of times? Think past the cliches of sunrises and flowers; what really hits home? 

Send your civilization-saving suggestion to @MashReads with the hashtag #HighRiseRevisited by 11:59PM ET on May 25th. We will feature our favorites on Mashable and five lucky winners will receive a copy of High Rise. You can find official rules here.