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Utopia Is Creepy

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Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#51

Post by contextfree »

potatolicious wrote: post #47
civilian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all-- the technology was shown helping the bellhop in the microsoft video. My friend works in a warehouse. It's not glamorous, and it's refrigerated, so it's maybe 40 F the whole time. A lot of the warehouse is automated, so he spends most of his time making sure that the equipment is doing what it needs to be doing. So, just one more anecdote about how technology is becoming a part of blue-collar work.

Oh, I'm well aware that technology has pervaded all walks of life - that's kind of my main beef with this video. It seems to wrap itself up entirely in this mythical environmental-engineering company, along with the very wealthy denizens of it, as if that will be the bulk, or even the theme of the world in the future... and in the end come off as rather sterile and soulless. More interesting than whiz-bang animations…

This is produced by the Office division though - office workflows are kinda their thing.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#52

Post by spyder »

TamDenholm wrote: post #24

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…

Yes, more ads like in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmjqudbf_RE

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#54

Post by jerf »

njharman wrote: post #50
fleitz wrote: post #40

It looks pretty lonely and soul crushingly transactional. A world where we know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Why don't we invent technologies that let us spend more time with friends and family and less time worrying about the production of goods and services? Wouldn't it be much more fun for the mother and child to spend time together baking something, than sliding recipes around the world? They…

> Why don't we invent technologies that let us spend more time with friends and family and less time worrying about the production of goods and services? Because we've been propagandized into wealth/success race and sold out to consumerism. There's less money in spending time with F&F (also it sets bad precedent, that of enjoying life rather than paying for experiences. The 1% can't allow that.)

You hypothesize a world-spanning conspiracy where simple economics works just fine. People work because on average they value the fruits of their labor for the relevant time more than the other things they could be doing, through simple principles of declining marginal utility. If all you did was spend economically unproductive time with friends and family, trading a few of your abundant hours for some other gain would seem like a good trade. (Since it is.)

Where you go wrong is forgetting that "friends and family" time isn't a magical good; it's subject to declining utility, too. (In fact I think you'd find many people would pay some amount of money to not spend all their leisure time with their family, however you define it....)

If you, personally, aren't getting enough F&F time, stop ranting at the distant, half-mythical "1%" and fix it. You'll find they're not actually stopping you.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#55

Post by mcclung »

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…

This video clearly takes place after all the undesirables have been sent to the Off World Colonies.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#56

Post by sitkack »

michaelochurch wrote: post #16

This brings up the concept of "Kool-Aid". I'm not talking about the Jonestown suicide, but about social groups that think too highly of themselves to accept criticism. Such communities tend to be viciously intolerant of outsiders, hostile to internal dissent, and deeply hypocritical, especially among the leadership. These false utopias are so unpleasant to deal with and the people who reach high positions in them are…

And the turkey buzzards from the Dark Crystal, wall street, the military, Wall Street, political parties, academia so ummm nearly everything. It is difficult for human groups to be open minded and self critical of their own belief systems.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#58

Post by rbanffy »

rbanffy wrote: post #37
icebraining wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy in the office is using a keyboard. The girl is writing on the screen with a pen. And not seeing someone creating content is far from unrealistic: most people nowadays don't either. Content is creating by a small minority, even if the tools are widely available.

> The guy in the office is using a keyboard. The curve is one of Microsoft's finest products. I like the natural better, but, when space is constrained, it's a great choice.

Funny how someone can disagree that Microsoft sells excellent keyboards. If, however, someone else makes keyboards better than the natural or the curve, I want to know.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#59

Post by tluyben2 »

It's the same reason why 'heaven' has a problem. If heaven is what you want, you can just install yourself now on a morfine or heroin drip, wait till you die and hope it exists (not that you will care at that point). As a child Jehova witnesses rang my doorbell to explain heaven;

"Heaven is like a growing garden, with all the fruit you want!"

"I hate fruit"

"For you it's a garden with what you want!"

"MSX computers?"

"If that's what you want! And there is no pain and suffering; it's only great!"

"If I die now, I won't miss my parents?"

"It will be only great!"

"But how? My parents and sister and friends are not there?"

"You won't remember them!"

"Eh...."

"It will be only good for eternity!"

etc.

Heaven makes no sense at all, nor does utopia. We need pain and suffering to be alive. Hopefully not too much, but too little is so dull, you can just sniff dope 24/7. He is right about that; all scifi has crap; Voyager is kind of utopian (no need for money in the federation, enough food etc), but they still need conflict.

And the MS world is not utopia; that's MS utopia (maybe) (making tons of money because people sitting in front of screens). BillG went for the cool aid to talk to computers many years ago, SIRI makes it happen now, not by MS. We are in utopia now (in the western world) by many past definitions.

Re: Utopia Is Creepy

#60

Post by Daniel_Newby »

potatolicious wrote: post #12

This reminds me of something I saw in high school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXuXBROyV-g It's good to see the tone of "utopia videos" hasn't changed in 8 years. Also interesting to see that slate type devices have been people's minds far longer than the iPhone has existed. Also interesting is how the vast majority of predictions in the video have come true - phones as transaction devices, front/back cameras/vide…

Ditto for the AT&T "You Will" ads from 10 years earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnQ8EkwXJ0

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