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Dracula's Biggest Mistake

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Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#151

Post by RheingoldRiver »

probably_wrong wrote: post #109
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…

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

I think that'll get way more common with time, eg no one would acknowledge September 11th at first but now I think if you watched a tv show set in the year 2020-2024 they'd acknowledge that as part of the history. There's 2 reasons I can think why you wouldn't want to include a recent event, the biggest one obviously is that TV is escapism and people don't want to see their troubles highlighted in their escapism story (and also advertisers might not want their products displayed on anything mentioning traumatic recent events), but another is that when you're writing for a tv show in the modern worlds, you don't really expect to do as much creative worldbuilding as you would for a fantasy show. But if you include recent events that are going to cause a huge geopolitical ripple, you won't be able to predict as well what happens next.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#152

Post by thaumasiotes »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #134
thaumasiotes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would you even use as currency when everyone has personal money making machines? Cumals. You can give everyone as much food as they want (and we already do!), but you can't eliminate scarcity.

What is a cumal?

Wikipedia would have told you.

A cumal is the unit in which medieval Irish monetary values are denominated. It is also the medieval Irish term for a female slave; the unit is notionally equal to the value of one such.

The point of answering the question in a historical currency is to emphasize that this question is easy to answer by simply thinking "what have been some well-known historical currencies?"

People trade in materials, tools, food, livestock, and women.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#153

Post by shiroiushi »

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…

>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.

IIRC, in Star Trek, the replicator does not convert energy into needed material: it simply reorganizes existing molecules into a new form.

So, for instance, you can't use it to make yourself a bunch of gold: you could use it to convert a bunch of gold jewelry into gold bars, or vice-versa, but you would need some actual gold. It won't convert lead into gold. I think I heard or read somewhere in the lore (maybe non-canon) that the food replicators needed supplies of biochemical ingredients to use for making food. They could get that from various places, including breaking down the waste of the crewmembers, but they couldn't just conjure food out of nothing using pure energy.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#154

Post by shiroiushi »

Ekaros wrote: post #101
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…

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…

The 60s version of Star Trek just wasn't very well thought out, I think.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#155

Post by shiroiushi »

hef19898 wrote: post #106
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…

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 posi…

They did the same thing in "Space: 1999" which came out in 1975. Computers were printing out receipt paper instead of using proper displays. It was very curious to me, because IIRC, real computers at that time already had displays. And Star Trek, which came out in the decade before, didn't have printouts either.

Re: Dracula's Biggest Mistake

#157

Post by selimthegrim »

networked wrote: post #135
wisty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Anne Rice especially has the vampires being overwhelmed by the new world. I think the point Rice makes in the books I have read is that the vampires are not equally overwhelmed. The Vampire Lestat is about capital-P Progress even more explicitly than Dracula . The protagonist, Lestat, is influenced by the Age of Reason he is born into. He witnesses the end of the old ways in the French Revolution. All of it prepare…

The World’s Fair was probably the highlight of New Orleans’ recent history. It’s kind of been all downhill since then.
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