The Sci Fi Eye

In Part 1 we looked at how people look for love today with that Sci-Fi Eye.
Part 2 of The Search for Love is all about what sci-fi has to say about finding love and relationships - and what we can learn from it about ourselves. 

Why does falling in love with a robot isn’t sustainable?
When does sex become sacred?
And how can love be used as a ruling mechanism? 

Listen and find out.

Show Notes:

References

• Her (2013), by Spike Jonze, with Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johannson.
• Ex Machina (2014) by Alex Garland, with Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Domnhall Gleeson. 
• Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World, (1931)
• Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
• Aeluons, from Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series (first published 2014)
• Gor, from John Norman’s Gor series (first published 1966)

Sound Bites

• "Swipe", Miracles of Modern Science -
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PpBsRO7iWY
• "Blessed be The Fruit" - from The Handmaid's Tale TV series (2016), created by Bruce Miller - Hulu.
• "May the odds be ever in your favour" - from The Hunger Games film (2012), by Gary Ross, based upon the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Sound of actress Elizabeth Banks.

Social distancing is making us all look at our relationships with fresh eyes. Love is one of the most trivial, and yet most important aspects of our life.
And that is exactly why we love sci-fi.
It's a way to deliberately think about things that are too commonplace to pay attention to.

So we took our Sci-Fi Eye - the tendency to look differently at those facets of our lives, dissect it and examine it from a distance - and went to look for love.

What did we find? Listen and find out.

This is a Part One of a Two-Part Episode:
In Part 1, we look at how people look for love today with that Sci-Fi Eye.
In Part 2 - to be published soon - we will look at how science fiction examines the search for love, and what can we learn from it about ourselves.

Show Notes: 

Links

• Techcrunch 2019 dating survey:
  https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/06/pew-30-of-u-s-adults-have-used-online-dating-12-found-a-committed-relationships-from-it/
• Technological and social co-production: Sheila Jasanoff -https://sheilajasanoff.org/research/co-production/

References

• Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
• Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World, (1931)
• Ernst Klein, Ready Player One (2011), film by Steven Spielberg (2018) 
• Neil Postman  - Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985)
• Idris Seabright - Short in the Chest (1954)  

Sound Bites

• "Swipe", Miracles of Modern Science -
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PpBsRO7iWY
• Computer Magic, SoundEffects Heaven -
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SmDcLhKBLg
• "Money, Money, Money", ABBA -
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxmCCsMoD0
• "Delicious", Candy Crush
• Wile E. Coyote Falling, Cartoon Network -
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRSHzenjiNA

What can we learn from Scifi about how NOT to handle pandemics, who's REALLY behind the Corona outbreak, and what's the connection to the the Flying Spaghetti Monster and OK Boomer?

Listen and find out!

Hosts: Avner Shahar Kashtan, Talya Vaish, Naomi Karmi
Links:

• piccadilly circus twit: https://twitter.com/hotdogsz/status/1241774524703612929
• Chinese Virus: https://time.com/5806657/donald-trump-coronavirus-war-china/

Credits:

• Theme Song - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive
• “Brains” sound bite from The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Directed by Dan O'Bannon
• Red Alerts sound bite and episode synopsis from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), Created by Gene Roddenberry
• Those Damn Hippies sound bite from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Directed by Quentine Tarantino
• Armageddon sound bite from Good Omen miniseries (2019), based on the book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
• Twelve Monkeys (1995), directed by Terry Gilliam.
• Wade Watts, from Ready Player One (2011), by Ernst Cline
• Hiro Protagonist from Snow Crash (1993), by Neal Stephenson
  
  

OK Boomer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3FYUw3w-I

In our pilot special, we start with an app that tells you it's improving your photo but actually creates a new photo that is almost - but not entirely - like the one you took. And we end up proving how Science Fiction acts as an immune system for our society, and why we can trust absolutely nothing. Well, nothing but Sci Fi.
How did we get there?
Time to listen and find out!

Hosts: Naomi Karmi, Talya Vaish, Avner Shahar Kashtan

Links: 

• Enhance app: https://letsenhance.io/
• Deep Image Prior: https://dmitryulyanov.github.io/deep_image_prior

Credit:
Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

• "Almost, but not entirely, unlike tea" - from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams, Radio Series - 1978, BBC Radio World Service.
• "I don't Know What's Real Anymore" - by Dreaming Of Ghosts, 2017.
• "All The News That's Fit To Sing" - by David Rovics, 2014.
• "Another Brick in the Wall - Part 2" - by Pink Floyd, 1979.
• Jessica Jones - Sound bite from season 1 intro - Netflix, 2015.