Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dracula's Biggest Mistake

blog.ayjay.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 157 posts

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#101

Post by Ekaros »

aquova wrote: post #56
at_a_remove wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've counted at least three civilization-shattering technologies in Star Trek which were simply thrown in, without consideration for the long-term, for reasons of budget and convenience, but largely to maintain the Sailing Ship, Days of Yore set of metaphors. Transporters: Originally designed to save on tedious shuttle launches and landings and, most importantly, footage, these would utterly rewrite medicine, aging,…

I think there's a fourth, which in my opinion is even more world shattering than the others -- the replicator. It often was shown as a novelty device to make food or warm beverages, but the ability to convert energy into any needed material would instantly transform the world into a post-scarcity, post-economic future. What would you even use as currency when everyone has personal money making machines? I've seen som…

What fails me with TNG is that why would anyone do any of the jobs that require hard boring labour anymore? Like mining dilithium, or other stuff that isn't easy to replicate.

Are they all some starfleet officers toiling for decades on off-chance that one day they might get job on a vessel? The ages of people on show don't present that...

The whole post-scarity kinda really breaks down when you start to look at edges. As society would not be effectively be able to keep up the production at least not as shown in shows...

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#103

Post by hef19898 »

smogcutter wrote: post #65
Izkata wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several episodes mention subspace relay stations, and between how communication seems to jump between real-time and waiting hours or more for a reply (I don't recall any minutes-long delays), I have a suspicion the unwritten rule is subspace communication has some sort of speed decay. Like it actually slows down the further it has to go, instead of going at the same speed but weaker, and subspace relay stations inter…

I think the unwritten rule is that subspace communication takes precisely as long as the plot requires it to. (Especially in the more modern series)

Star Trek is an extreme case of the plot driving the tech, and not the other way round. They manage to pull it off, most of the time, using ingenious Starfleet engineering and technobabble. For some reason, with Star Trek it works most of the time.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#104

Post by strken »

hef19898 wrote: post #95
dreamcompiler wrote: post #77

Slightly OT but Dracula is not the only monster that has no chance in the modern world. The "Quiet Place" movies make me laugh because if those creatures ever really came to Earth we'd have them under control in about 5 minutes. Too many monsters? Rig up a battery-powered AM radio with a motion detector and a stick of dynamite. Toss 1000 of these things out in a field somewhere. Monsters go boom. Every human now wear…

Same with all those zombie scenarios. Quite conveniently, each and every film or series starts with patient zero, skips the part where the whole world order, society and whatnot collapses, and starts with our heros trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. World War Z, the book that is, is the only instance that tried to explain how the collapse occured. I'd expect it to take a lot more than 5 minutes, a lot of…

The thing I find unconvincing about zombie movies is that the zombies are running around powered by human physiology for weeks in the middle of winter and yet their numbers are inexhaustible and they can get through security doors.

It seems like a far more realistic scenario would be a fortnight of chaos where everyone locks themselves inside, possibly enforced by 24/7 shoot on sight curfews, followed by the death of all the zombies and a partial and limited social collapse. Maybe sporadic continuing outbreaks, radically different border policies, and limitations on movement within countries after that.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#105

Post by Ekaros »

dylan604 wrote: post #52
RheingoldRiver wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really interesting to me how precisely you can date modern tv shows. - Do computers exist? Does everyone have a computer? Is the idea of searching the web a novel thing? - Do they have cell phones? Are they smartphones? - And now the new one, are they mentioning LLMs in some way? Like one thing that really dates The Expanse imo is the complete lack of AI technology in the books/movies. It was probably an artisti…

I think any scifi talking about LLM is just doing it wrong. Nobody watching a scifi cares about AI other than it's doing things--good or bad depends on the script. Imagine if Ripley and Dallas having a scene discussing if Mother can be trusted or if it's hallucinating. What if HAL told Dave that LLM isn't fine tuned well enough so he's sorry he can't do that at this time? I'll tell you what, that scene would be on th…

I think HAL is actually perfectly done example of AI. As we currently see with many recent issues. It is trained over reasonably long time and then it is fed too many directives. HAL is exactly following the instructions and survival of the crew is NOT the top priority.

Edit: added NOT

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#106

Post by hef19898 »

RheingoldRiver wrote: post #38
kevinmhickey wrote: post #5

On a related note, when I re-watch shows from the 1990's or even early 2000's it's amazing how many problems would be solved with a simple cell phone call or text message. Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be a much shorter show if the gang could just text instead of wondering where the others were or if they knew some key fact.

It's really interesting to me how precisely you can date modern tv shows. - Do computers exist? Does everyone have a computer? Is the idea of searching the web a novel thing? - Do they have cell phones? Are they smartphones? - And now the new one, are they mentioning LLMs in some way? Like one thing that really dates The Expanse imo is the complete lack of AI technology in the books/movies. It was probably an artisti…

Not sure about that so. AI at the moment is a hype around LLMs. Given what the tech in the Expanse is doing, it is easily possible that AI is used as just another tool for everything from automated med bays to ships diagnostics.

Edit: Another great example of how computers are used is Perry Rhodan (a German SciFi series going since the 60s, and a rather good one). There, in books written up tobthe 70s, they have positronic computers (and other tech that beats everything Star Trek, Star Wars or any other sci fi universe I know has), and computers are still used with punch cards and stripe print outs. Even the ones salvaged from civilisation being millenias ahead tech-wise compared to humans. Pretty funny detail.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#107

Post by hef19898 »

strken wrote: post #104
hef19898 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with all those zombie scenarios. Quite conveniently, each and every film or series starts with patient zero, skips the part where the whole world order, society and whatnot collapses, and starts with our heros trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. World War Z, the book that is, is the only instance that tried to explain how the collapse occured. I'd expect it to take a lot more than 5 minutes, a lot of…

The thing I find unconvincing about zombie movies is that the zombies are running around powered by human physiology for weeks in the middle of winter and yet their numbers are inexhaustible and they can get through security doors. It seems like a far more realistic scenario would be a fortnight of chaos where everyone locks themselves inside, possibly enforced by 24/7 shoot on sight curfews, followed by the death of…

Or zombies ripping humans litterally apart. No idea where a dead body would take the strength from for that.

Take the living dead for example: From what I understood, it is the Wildfire virus that causes it, with everyone (I assume everyone who contracted it) turning upon death. As soon as people figure that out, every dead person is getting his brain stem severed. And there are not that many people dying, outside of war zones and such, for that to be a world ending problem.

28 days later, 28 weeks later is just bad, does mention that: when the rogue army officer states that the indected to build or tend fields, he rightly concludes that one can just wait until they starve or die of dehydration. Zombies should, unless one assumes some magic virus as in World War Z (the book, again), just rot away. Which posses another problem: how to deal with millions of contagious corpses lying around. Using the Black Death as a basis for how such things did play out in real life, would make for a really grim story. Of course, armed survivors scavanging the world has some more fun angles.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#108

Post by hef19898 »

SenHeng wrote: post #78
aquova wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a fourth, which in my opinion is even more world shattering than the others -- the replicator. It often was shown as a novelty device to make food or warm beverages, but the ability to convert energy into any needed material would instantly transform the world into a post-scarcity, post-economic future. What would you even use as currency when everyone has personal money making machines? I've seen som…

Replicator technology often comes up in episodes involving trading with a less advanced civilisation, and often mentions how the Federation/Star Fleet is not willing to share that technology because it’s too game breaking. And that unlimited energy has led them to a post scarcity, post money utopia, though that scenario seems to have been withdrawn a little in Picard.

The one thing, despite all other things I critique regarding Star Trek I still like it, that drives me crazy is how the Federation treats first contacts, from their prime directive to diplomacy in general. The whole concept is so fucked up. And every other power should be so quick in capitalizing on this: Those people won't share their miracle tech with you, we will. For a price. Kind of like what China is doing in Africa.

Edit: Why would someone, say the Romulans, do that? Well, Starfleet doesn't establish contact, or invite a planet, because of some on going war or a non-unified government or no FTL tech. The Romulans step in, side with one party. They provide technology and weapons, they unite the planet as an "ally" or theirs. And now they have a new planet and systek to exploit, to use a base. Legally, and even better the Federation canot intervene. Rinse and repeat everytime Starfleet side steps a planet in a strategically important position. Do so over a couple of decades. You see were I am going, right?

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#109

Post by probably_wrong »

RheingoldRiver wrote: post #38
kevinmhickey wrote: post #5

On a related note, when I re-watch shows from the 1990's or even early 2000's it's amazing how many problems would be solved with a simple cell phone call or text message. Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be a much shorter show if the gang could just text instead of wondering where the others were or if they knew some key fact.

It's really interesting to me how precisely you can date modern tv shows. - Do computers exist? Does everyone have a computer? Is the idea of searching the web a novel thing? - Do they have cell phones? Are they smartphones? - And now the new one, are they mentioning LLMs in some way? Like one thing that really dates The Expanse imo is the complete lack of AI technology in the books/movies. It was probably an artisti…

Interesting to me is that I saw exactly one series taking place in the "real" world where the story acknowledged COVID.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#110

Post by FerretFred »

wisty wrote: post #53
gwern wrote: post #37

OP is echoing, with a Catholic-centric viewpoint, a point that's been made in much greater depth by others: I suggest https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2014-robbins.pdf and then more briefly, https://www.thefitzwilliam.com/p/turning-back-the-economic-c... https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/br... I read _Dracula_ afterwards, and I think this perspective is 100% correct, and perhaps the single larg…

A lot of vampire fiction includes themes about technology vs the supernatural, Anne Rice especially has the vampires being overwhelmed by the new world. The focus (not so much in Ann Rice books) can be more on more action oriented technology (trains and gadgets) rather than the modern weapons of a detective though. Weird steam-punk gun gadgets (even in a modern setting like Dusk to Dawn) are a common and lazy example…

A modern Dracula has already been documented in that Hammer Classic "Dracula AD 1972" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068505/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk - plenty of ham and cheese in the acting, but good fun!
Post reply on HN