#BigTech#SiliconValley#Dystopias: "By attaching the new product to a popular speculation, especially one with built-in dramatic tension, the founders can elevate a buggy, unproven, or partially conceived technology into the cultural firmament, even if only briefly. It’s a cheat code, a way of getting us to relate to a future that’s already been culturally prototyped, and it can be quite successful. To wit: The day after admonishing tech companies for using Her as a benchmark for their products, Roose dedicated his column to explaining how AI’s ‘Her’ Era Has Arrived — thus further entrenching the link between OpenAI’s aspirational technology and its attendant useful dystopia in the public consciousness. Hell, my own story about the grim origins of the metaverse probably made Facebook’s deeply lame Horizons VR product seem orders of magnitude cooler than it turned out to be.
Even if consumers aren’t aware of all of the dystopian reference points these founders and companies are pushing, they probably should be aware of the narcissistic, us-against-the-collapsing-world mentality that is active behind them. And we shouldn’t merely mock the tech set for using dystopias as marketing materials — we should try to stop them from creating them, too."
...#Orwellian#dystopias simultaneously: #1984 and, more pertinent in this context, #AnimalFarm. Seen from this novel's perspective, aspiring to be the One Animal [that] Is more equal Than Others makes perfect sense. It even strongly appeals to the lowest human instincts.
I have long thought that #DefundThePolice doesn’t have any merit, except for anarchists waiting for the breakdown of civil society to loot shops, etc.
...disects the laughably thin layer of civilization that we have accumulated since the Stone Age.
In contrast, Orwell's #AnimalFarm never strives to scientifically explain why the animals on the Farm behave like human beings because it is an ancient way of telling a fairy tale. It isn't even fantasy (no magic weapon with which a quest to fulfill, etc.,) but a modern fairy tale used to show society...
Actually, giving it a second round of contemplation, though not chronologically, but evolutionarily speaking, the #LordOfTheFlies points to the root of all evil: humanity. It is the philosophical antipode of #JeanJacqueRouseau's concept of a "noble savage."
No, savages are not noble, they are just savage, they fight for their survival every day and every hour. And, I daresay from what I have read as a layman, not an... @carturo222@obot50549535
...anthropologist: homo sapiens has literally exterminated any other human being (like the Neanderthals) that might have become dangerous. Collectively, not individually, humans carry the seed of their own destruction in them.
Now, that we have "conquered the earth," have destroyed any number of wild animals that might have threatened us significantly, so that they became extent, we have been turning on each other in...
...endless and ultimately senseless wars, brothers against brothers (#WarInUkraine,) and neighbor against neighbor (MiddleEastWar.)
Conclusion:
The Lord of The Flies doesn’t only belong in the Venn diagram, it actually should be the cornerstone of a 3D version to be constructed. (That'd be something for my friend @mina sci-fy pro and math wizard 😉.)
"In his Discourse on the Inequality Among Men (1755), [#Rousseau]...
...argues that humans are naturally good, and that injustice is caused by civil society." 1)
While the latter is true, the former assumption is incorrect, as I have tried to show by means of the extinction-level events we humans have been bequeathing on our genetic brethren, and the animals in our garden that we should have been taking care of, as well as the..
#AI#AGI#Dystopias#GodLikeAI#Film#SciFi#Movies#Cinema: "It is strange how these fears, once prominent, have faded into the annals of sci-fi history, but have seen a resurrection of sorts in the growing discussion of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and existential threats from AI. Sure, some fears of AGI and super-intelligent machines are unjustified, but it is interesting that some of these fears may very well have some early roots in these terrifying depictions of Godlike machines. I don’t think that we can learn a lot from these films, but at least they deserve to be revisited by those who are interested in popular culture depictions of AI. The ‘Godlike AI’ phase, though often overlooked, bears some intriguing reflections on humanity’s inherent fears, and hopes from its technological creations." https://www.technollama.co.uk/forgotten-dystopias-the-godlike-ai-that-time-forgot
> When picturing humanity's future, dark visions are everywhere - but are there alternatives? Historian Thomas Moynihan explores what we can learn from forecasters 100 years ago.
#SciFi#BigTech#ScienceFiction#Dystopias: "Science fiction, therefore, does not develop in accordance with the scientific method. It develops by popular entertainers trying to attract a bigger audience by pandering to them. The audience today includes billionaires who read science fiction in their childhood and who appear unaware of the ideological underpinnings of their youthful entertainment: elitism, “scientific” racism, eugenics, fascism and a blithe belief today in technology as the solution to societal problems."
Another article -- this one from 2009. I remember this one. I've been into sci-fi and stuff for a lot of years (the Terminator stuff in this article, Philip K Dick stuff, etc), but I've never wanted to obsess with it or have it make me paranoid or doomy. I even had to back off on a lot of it, other than Star Trek, etc, because it IS so dark, and no sci-fi will ever perfectly predict anything. But this article from 14 years ago is interesting. This kind of talk has been going around for a lot of years and again, NOBODY knows how all of this is gonna end up. And that's what's so weird about it. Anyway. The article from 14 years ago: https://archive.ph/pgDyv
Almost every week now, + despite statements to the contrary, by many #AI#scientists and #programmers, the utopias of #IsaacAsimov and #PhilipKDick (+ others 1)) are making a leap forward.
Due to all the white noise + the hype regarding #AI most of the general public.
I'm also really interested in immutable systems! They are really cool and interesting to me. Currently I'm using #VanillaOS.
I also like media with environmental storytelling a lot (where you have to figure things out yourself, put the puzzle pieces together.) And I really like CRPG and souls-like games.
I'm kinda new to this social platform and really awkward and shy, sorry for that. I'm not sure if I'm gonna post here a lot. I'm not used to being social.