Highway To Mars

We have just had an interesting experience in outrage in Australia with the census.  Something so boring has been handled so badly that it will take years to rebuild trust with the community.

The thing about “outrage” though is why?  So the census didn’t go to plan, how did that in any way change the world we live in?  Sure it’s an issue for government and an embarrassment but for ordinary citizens – WHY SO ANGRY PEOPLE????

What it comes down to is we as a community have started to outsource even our emotional management.  If we don’t have a tool to sooth us, a tool to pep us up, a tool to get us all sexy like we are less and less able to function.  We have never been fully rational creatures but then we have never had such an easy means to unleash our emotions on everyone 24*7.

The consequence though of outrage is good things get destroyed and no I am not talking about the target of the outrage.

In the case of the census, most government services will be really gun shy about technology which will only slow the glacial improvements that are being made to making dealing with government simpler.

Onto Ghostbusters.

Now, I get that there were a lot of people who disliked Ghostbusters, and many of their criticisms were genuine, thought out and meant with all good intentions.  The sheer volume of those criticisms and the anger levels attached drowns out any good to be had.

This episode we have a look at the reaction to Ghostbusters 2016 which I think is the real story, and it highlights the biggest threat to geek culture moving forward.

Once outrage infects a community too thoroughly and the culture starts to fragment it becomes much harder to “please” an audience because the trust is gone.

Once that happens creatives get gun shy.  Everybody wants to be part of success.  Nobody wants to go near controversy lest they poison their brand.  The DCEU is already running perilously close to permanently damaging their brand right now.

What you are left with is the also-rans that will never deliver the impact of the culture in its heyday.

Previously these wars were restricted to the gaming community via gamergate.  Ghostbusters may be that moment war breaks out in geek culture overall.

The Matrix delves much further into Transhumanism in the second outing as the machine world.  While parts 2&3 of the matrix have their flaws to me they are complex and nuanced views of the future of machine and human politics.  More importantly they highlight that like humans machines are unlikely to find change easy.  Despite all the flash and the smiths this story is all about change.  It’s hard in this current world so dominated by talk of privilege and oppression that machines would be treated in this way.  Yet even with the need to stand up for the oppressed there is an equal need to slap down the privileged.  It’s not that our prejudices go away, they simply find different modes of expression.

The point that the oracle makes that we are in this together couldn’t be more true.  Maybe we need to learn that as humans before we tackle machine intelligence.

The matrix fits somewhere between Transhumanism and the Singularity.  While it delves into the machine world in a way no movie has before, it also delves into what it means to go beyond the normal definition of what it means to be human.  I with there were more movies like the matrix series that combine an entertaining story with a deeper examination of some of the tougher topics we will face into the future.

Like it or not, I see it as inevitable that transhumanism will be part of the future of humanity.  The question is, will it be our choice or forced upon us, like the matrix.

Life, Don’t talk to me about life.  That is unless you add a dash of Universe and lashings of Everything.  Cricket is not the most exciting sport.  In fact, they had to cut it down to nothing just to get people to watch it.  So why you would write an entire book based on the idea that cricket is the basis of a devilish plan to destroy the universe?

Now look, it’s one thing for Sir Simon of the Meddings and my good self to create a political drama built on the Ashes.  Let’s face it that war will be going on a century from now.

It’s a whole different matter to include batsmen, balls, and wickets.  There is a reason why the BBC didn’t run with that.  Still, Douglas is nothing if not stubborn when his mind gets hooked on an idea.

William Gibson has to get a look in if you are going to talk transhumanism, it’s just unfortunate that there isn’t an entry that better showcases Gibsons skills than 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic.  None the less the core of Gibsons ideas come through.  The only problem with Gibson’s Cyberpunk world is it hasn’t come true and probably won’t for some time.  Humans are definitely connected much more via the virtual world and new problems are arising.  We are a long way though from biology and technology interfacing with one another.

At some point plugging in will become a thing.  It seems inevitable, the only question is will this be to interact with each other, or to interact with AI.

That is a question left to next episode…. The Matrix.

This was I think the best piece we did under the Martians are Here.  It had a great story – Zombies told with a serious tone and by this stage we had a clear creative vision of what we wanted to achieve.  While it’s a simple enough piece I think overall it is the most human and challenges your values and understanding of how the world works.

This is the sort of science fiction storytelling I am proud to have been a part of.

We finally made it to a new topic, Transhumanism and where better to start than the 1982 classic Blade Runner.  What is a life lived half as long but twice as bright?  We will never know but what we do know is it ends dramatically no matter how you want to look at it.

Blade Runner introduces us to the idea that human life itself can be reduced to a commodity.  Comforting?  No.  Yet within the violence that is death there are moments of beauty that remind us that life is in many ways the struggle against death.

We are not destined to live long, but Transhumanism puts questions around just how short out lives need to be.

The last entry into the Singularity is the honorary epilogue. This is a pretty typical 1950s science fiction story of boy being meets girl being and they fall in love while all around them the world is going to hell in a hand basket at the hands of a monster.

I have really enjoyed our work on the singularity. Do I have a closer idea of what the singularity will look like? I think so. I think there will be two parts to the singularity. One part will be exciting as new interactions become possible. The other will be much more difficult as AI takes on roles that humans would normally do. Change is always easiest for those that are ready to face that change.

Will AI be a thing? Hell yeah. If we are at the point of speculating what it would be like to have an intimate relationship with an AI then we are in a very accepting place.

I always end up on the optimistic side of these things.  I am all for the creation of unshackled AI and seeing where we end up.  There will be many who feel that is a really dumb idea.

Hopefully we have helped you think on where you sit.

Star Trek is one of the tent pole science fiction series that is loved around the world.  It challenged the establishment and in any other world would have put Science Fiction on the mainstream map as a story telling medium.  Alas, that road was a long one to travel.

Uhura was not one of the big three of star trek (kirk, spock, bones) but she is right up there and had enormous influence in the community as an aspirational role model.

This is probably her biggest legacy, the woman that showed the world that accepting people based on what they give the world not just on their appearance was not just an idea, it was the right way to live our lives.

She embodies the vision of the world that Martin Luther King gave us.

 

Credits:

Malcolm Gladwell – Revisionist History

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/01-the-lady-vanishes/

Michelle Nichols Interviews – Archive of American

http://emmytvlegends.org/interviews/shows/star-trek

Discovery Channel – the kiss

In the last official part of “The Singularity” (yes there is an epilogue…) we look at the Movie Her.  This is an important part of the discussion on the singularity as human relationships are evolving through technology in the same way that most other parts of our lives are.  Already phones, with their cameras always ready to capture everything have changed both the way we experience and the way we express our relationships.  It is not so big a stretch to imagine that in an increasingly virtual world a virtual being would not be attractive.

Yet I think there is a more important point to this movie.  It is the differences between men and women that create attraction.  From the differences in our bodies, to the things we bring to the table emotionally and spiritually.  Once upon a time, those differences were celebrated, increasingly they are seen to be a problem to be solved and regulated especially in the era of gender fluidity.

As the world reduces those differences, relationships must be redefined.  Samantha though virtual brings both.  In the beginning she caries a very traditional femininity and joy for the world that excites Theodore.  In the end though she grows past that to where her femininity no longer exists.  Sure it does in voice but she increasingly inhabits a space that scares Theodore.  Partly it’s her growth as an AI but mostly it’s the fact that he can see he is loosing not just her but all the qualities she bought to his world.

Should we feel sorry for him?  Samantha has outgrown him as happens in the real world.  In his divorce his ex-wife accused him of not being up to the challenge of her.  To use a colloquial term, she was after him to “man up”.   Yet the question that has to be asked is, if he did, what would she give back to him?  As you do in breakups, she sees the faults without expressing what she wants to give him.

Relationships require longer term commitments the need to get past the ups and downs to see the benefit in the whole as being more about we and less about me.

Just like the Brexit vote this week.  If it only comes down to a question of what is in it for me, the outcome is unpredictable and the consequences last a long time.