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Utopia Is Creepy

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Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#21

Post by jberryman »

michaelchisari wrote: post #3

I agree with this completely. In a sense, the dystopian presentation of a movie like Blade Runner or Akira feels oddly more comforting. Street venders, gangs of kids doing nothing in particular, smokers, etc. Even the cleanest, most polite scandinavian social democracy still has all these things, but they're conveniently left out of these "utopian" visions. I think, if anything triggers our discomfort, it's the subco…

I feel the same way about sterile utopia vs. messy blade runner-type worlds.

Interestingly I'm reading Snow Crash right now, which takes place in a world that is arguable similar to the one in Blade Runner, but the anarcho-capitalist aspect of the America depicted just really gives me the creeps.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#22

Post by sp332 »

wavephorm wrote: post #11
pjscott wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did we watch the same video? Apple makes much more usable and sane UIs than the jumbled, awkward-looking (but pretty) ones depicted in the Microsoft Productivity Future 2011.

Well, I was referring to the architecture. But yeah, it's funny how Microsoft can't even conceive of a future without ugly layers of Excel spreadsheets and graphs, and powerpoint animations.

A while back, MS actually put together a cmpaign to help people make less crappy PP decks. http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint-slidefest/do-and-...

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#24

Post by TamDenholm »

One thing i think a lot of futuristic guesses miss but that got pretty well illustrated in the movie Minority Report, is that the future will include a VAST amount of advertising. All this technology wont be invented to make our lives better, it'll be invented to make money.

I think the iPhone would be the best current day example of it. A product of excellence that was created to make money (and boy did it) but has a secondary application of making our lives better.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#25

Post by rbanffy »

My problem with the video is that it's the kind of depiction you get when there is nobody able or willing to say "this is impossible to do". Every display seems capable to project 3D images in the air, some of them translucent, others opaque. At the same time, there are screens hung on walls (or on fridge doors). There is also a translucent touchscreen that seems to project different images on each side. Technically, it's about as plausible as http://pomegranatephone.com/

I love, however, the use of type.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#26

Post by borism »

potatolicious wrote: post #8
pnathan wrote: post #6

Couple notes. * This is a straight conceptual extrapolation of current technology and designs. The only thing that I don't see coming from today's tech is the holographic projects. Oddly, most of the design seems to look like Apple-inspired tech. Does Apple consciously design to look like a sci-fi future? Or do their views of the future become shaped like Apple? * In the cubes, there are no walls. The cube-dweller di…

> " There are a ton of animations between slides in the screens. This is a waste of time."* Given the popularity of iOS and the growing popularity of OSX, I'd argue that most users disagree. Given the direction of Windows 8 it looks like we're getting more animation in the future, not less, and I for one am happy about that. Animation offers important cues as to the nature of the UI and data you're dealing with (the…

As you have correctly noted, there is NO below-class in this vision (well maybe except hotel concierge).

We may only imagine how we might arrive to such future.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#27

Post by rbanffy »

zeteo wrote: post #19

It's not Utopia that's creepy in that video. It's the combination of bad acting and advanced technology. For instance, there's nothing creepy about the use of an advanced UI in Minority Report , because there's good acting and a compelling plot.

It's creepy if you remember gesturing in the air is very tiring. Unless the UI is very efficient and you get done really quickly, the most noticeable characteristic of future humans would be Schwarzenegger-arms.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#28

Post by rbanffy »

xianshou wrote: post #4

One of the main problems about technological visions of utopia is that they so often assume that perfection is the absence of problems. Perhaps, but the more a world approaches that perfection, the more limited it becomes by necessity. Hence, the glimpse of Microsoft's world of optimal productivity is a glimpse of an intellectual and spiritual desert: meetings without purposes, productivity with nothing to produce. H…

To be fair, they seem to be having a serious biological problem - the nutrient absorption chart seems decreasing (assuming the x axis means time)

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#29

Post by rbanffy »

sp332 wrote: post #22
wavephorm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I was referring to the architecture. But yeah, it's funny how Microsoft can't even conceive of a future without ugly layers of Excel spreadsheets and graphs, and powerpoint animations.

A while back, MS actually put together a cmpaign to help people make less crappy PP decks. http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint-slidefest/do-and-...

According to the last couple hundred presentations I saw in meetings, this campaign had very limited success.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#30

Post by kabdib »

You never see anyone actually /create content/ in one of these things -- they're just sliding stuff around, or examining that already exist.

Are keyboards dead in the future? Are we doomed to cut-and-paste only the dead bits of the past?

The only things possessing motion are vehicles and clocks. Everything seems so pointless and sterile; even the beggars.

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