Posted on 09/16/2011 1:38:33 PM PDT by Pride_of_the_Bluegrass
A series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines they have built. Although we don’t realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers. It claims that computers have failed to liberate us and instead have distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.
1. Love and Power. This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the Internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems – without hierarchy.
(Excerpt) Read more at vimeo.com ...
“A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We’ll be clean when their work is done
We’ll be eternally free yes and eternally young
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free”
IGY by Donald Fagen
when it's all said and done, it could be summed up that way.
Thank you for the Steely Dan reference. That made my day!
To some extent, in some niches, that is actually true. The value of open source software is in the billions, and used by everyone from Fortune 500 companies to mom&pops.
It does allow political groups to organize more easily, and has opened great windows onto the world that the Lame Stream Media didn't show us.
In fact, the internet is killing the traditional media.
But as with everything, there is bad with the good, and utopia is NOT around the corner because of technology.
But my life has certainly improved in the last 40 years or so because of it.
/johnny
For fun, check on old movie called “Electric Dreams”.
Really cute, about a computer that comes alive and competes for his owners girlfriend.
And then there’s “Short Circuit”.
Just some Friday fun ideas.
And, 2525.
That's what you think.
If you get a chance, read “The Happy Breed”, a short story by sci-fi author John Sladek.
When I first read it years ago, I thought it was a pretty odd fantasy that could never be true.
It’s getting truer and truer by the day!!
40 years ago, when researching something, it took me weeks to get the book on intra-library loan. Today, I have many of the obscure books available a few keystrokes away.
I don't have to go to the Doc's office to get my BP or blood sugar monitored. I can take little devices and do the same thing I used to pay an office visit for.
And I can keep in touch with folks that would have disappeared in earlier days. While retaining the right to disappear over the horizon myself.
No, bubba, my life IS better today than it was 40 years ago.
Only fly in the ointment is the current regime.
And we're set to correct that little problem November next.
/johnny
That sort of soured me on an otherwise entertaining, if overly dramatic, spin on an era in which I was largely preoccupied.
There are some fascinating facts mixed in and put in service of other dubious premises, some of which are probably partly realistic. It's a little pat and perfect a package to be entirely believable, though it could be dead on in some ways in spite of itself.
The idea that Clinton was a victim of Greenspan and Rubin is freaking silly.
Poor Monica Lewinsky. You could even see when Hillary began to put on weight, like most any woman who's been completely humiliated would.
ugh.
Nonetheless, it was all very thought-provoking, lots of fascinating clips and tidbits. And funny how China is building big empty cities today that nobody will live in.
WWIII when that bubble bursts. You read it here first.
No, you only think it is.
If you're a member of the human race, you're poorer in ways you probably don't even realize.
Enjoy!
I submit that current life is neither Utopia or Dystopia, but somewhat better than the 60s for individual power, knowledge, and health.
/johnny
I'm closer to God and Heaven today than I was 40 years ago.
Splain yourself.
/johnny
Not quite sure, though -- this was a series? The other video at the link was on 11 min.
Oh, look at one of the "sponsored links" on the page:
Capitalism a Religion? Libertarians? Tea Partiers? Dr Albert Ellis exposes & debunks www.amazon.com
Thinking of going Daneskjold, myself.
If I didn't like my deceased BIL so much, I would be disappointed that he picked a weekend to get buried.
Or I would have been right there with you, and it would have been classic.
And why did it have to be the BIL I actually liked?
/johnny
Harlans ideas were perverse and went way beyond the ccokie cutter pulp sci fi ideas of the 50’s and 60’s. Probably a big part of what I liked about him.
Gets to the point where it’s not really about the science at all, it’s about the psychology.
Much of Philip K. Dicks stuff was like that, you could take the same story and send it back into the middle ages and it would still be just as shocking. More about the people than the machines.
Look, getting back to my original, if somewhat cryptically expressed idea, it's this: the whole human race is poorer than we were 40 years ago. You're not gonna make me prove that, are you?
Oh, I get it, someone died. Godspeed. Condolences. RIP.
a series of related posts at my favorite blog.
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