Day 1
I’ve been invited by @mikako6 to share one image (no posters, no titles, no explanations) from 10 films that impacted me.
The premise is that every day a new person will be added: 10 days, 10 movie images, 10 friends.
I'll tag @HistoPol (feel free to ignore if not interested or already tagged)
All the times I’ve seen Dr Strangelove and I never noticed Peter Sellers played the President.
I am so bad at stuff like this, that I had to watch Buñuel's "Obscure Object of Desire" twice to notice that the female protagonist was actually played by two different actresses.
😄
And I have to watch that movie!
Maybe Elmo watched it too and than dreamed of his future….for us…all…
But unlike the rest of us, he didn't see it as a totally dystopian future.
Oh yes you are right!
There were a lot of things that I was listening or watching and I thought, oh no that is never going to happen…
But now I am older and I saw too much bad things and I know now a lot of things can actually happen!
You two are 100% correct.
#Elmo and the other tech mogul #SciFi nerds from their high-school and college day are actually trying to realize part of these novels within their framework of beliefs, e.g. #Longtermism.
(If you listen to the two #TESCREAL interviews/podcasts in my TL, it becomes clear.)
Same with me.
There are a lot of dystopias but there are things that are real now, computers for example, who could possibly believe that?
These guys see things for the future, that we don’t.
For good or worse…
I saw an interview with Gates, an old interview and he was talking about smartphones, decades before we saw the first smartphone.
Blockchain! 😱
Metaverse! 😱 (though, this will eventually come, just not now)
Full self-driving cars 😱 (yeah, Elon claimed years ago, buying a car that wasn't a Tesla was as anachronistic as buying a horse, because they were ready to roll it out in 2019)
Hyperloop! 😱
Flying taxis! 😱
We all loved the tablets in "Next Generation", right!?
Modern tablets and phones are actually better than what we saw there.
Though, current voice assistants are still incredibly dumb, compared to Star Trek technology, except when it comes to spying on you or selling you stuff.
Predicting smartphones wasn't too prophetic on Gates' part.
The interview was probably from the early 90s.
Computers have been invented in the late 40s, as have been mobile phones (at this time: car phones).
Miniaturization was the thing in the 70s. The late 70s already saw the rise of connecting computers with each other.
Yes you are right, I know, for Gates it wasn’t, it was for the rest of us…
and here is the point that they cannot predict the future,
They work in tech, They can see that visions better.
You could ask a simple technician what he could see, in his industry, he will tell you a lot that we cannot believe.
(1/2)
Yes, very true. For me, they were sort of like a "Second Life", a fictitious "alternate reality" of what could have been or might be if...but nothing that would materialize in my life time, maybe apart from a lunar base.
Never have I been so wrong in an overall assessment:
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110748372372904448
Where I erred, in particular, was the rise of #DarkTriad* billionaires like Elmo and...
*Very insightful article in #TheAtlantic yesterday
@bjn @mina @si_irini @Yeekasoose @mikako6 @pmj
(2/2)
...#PeterThiel, who's seemingly plowing ahead to realizing #PhilipKDick's #SecondVariety, despite, IMO, belonging to the TESCREAL sects.
I should have thought more of the US' Robber Barrons of Industry of the Roaring Twenties and earlier.
It was all there.
//
What today's capitalism on steroids looks like, is pretty accurately described in the 1952(!) novel (series) "Space Merchants" by F. Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth.
They also predicted very accurately (in the 50s and 60s) the current #enshittification of technology in several short stories, and in the "March of the Morons" the dumbing down of modern civilization.
that's right
makes me itchy to ask him stupidly about it
Oh please please tell me was your role model Dr. Strangelove?
All the followers will scream and write a stupid comment about it😂
Everyone will watch the movie and, depending on how his answer turns out, proudly defend him, so that the world will turn right again and no one will ask him stupid questions
But he would never answer even if it would be terribly funny to read all the fan comments 😂
Another line from the film often comes to mind for me often in recent years:
Way too often! 😢
@mina compüter
[witchzard]
@mina @jwz @mikako6 @si_irini @pmj @HistoPol Even though I know that movie in and out (and love it), this short clip really made my evening. Thank you!
Yes, this is exactly what those "longtermists" want. My argument usually is: "It is not about earth or environment, because neither earth nor the environment gives a damn about us. Earth will recover as it always did, and the environment will keep changing. It is about our own survival. And if we're not interested in investing in our survival, we can as well just kill ourselves now!"
@mikako6
In the film "Doctor Strangelove and …" (1964), Peter Seller plays three roles: A British officer at a US military base, trying to avoid the third world war, the US president and Dr. Strangelove, the scientific Adviser to the president.
In the short video below (1m50s - I added subtitles) we see the outline of what "longtermists" like Elon Musk mean, when they talk about "taking humanity into space" and "preserve the human species".
@si_irini @pmj @HistoPol