Will Wall-E Come True? (vs. Star Trek) - Wisecrack Edition
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Does ordering Uber Eats and binge watching Netflix have you convinced that humanity is just around the corner from becoming the lazy slobs from Wall-E? Or does making new meatspace friends through Pokemon GO convince you that technology is making us more human like in Star Trek? In this Wisecrack Edition on automation, we’ll dive in to the visions of the future presented by these two sci fi classics and ask: which one will come true?
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Written by: Myles McDonough
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Jared: "Human are incline to make their life less stressful, aka: lazy, with the help of technology"
Also Jared: WIX here will make making website less stressful
Um you mean Jared?
We like to make things easier or inclined to do that but we're actually biologically designed to not become complacent lazy. If it wasn't true early humans would have not populated almost the entire planet. That's why people get bored it's our survival instinct to go do something preferably something productive. There are a ton I was lazy people but I would call them defects, the normal healthy human is inclined to be lazy.
@@parastooabr1524 yes indeed i am
@@zekezzekekan2144 : The body is meant to be active. The health concerns that will arise from all the fat, lazy, blobs of today is utterly, frightening. The healthcare system anywhere in world, won't be able to cope. Thanks a lot. And thanks to Bill Gates and his sort, for creating the technology that has taken us there. Hope he's extremely, happy with what he's created. Out.
Work hours are getting longer not shorter and more off-time is spent working!
In the professional workplace; work is more stressful than ever!
The dead planet future from wall-e with less impressive spacecrafts probably
Not if we act. But we have to act NOW.
slashed nasa budget... probably no way to get off earth for longer than a year and a half.
@@megamiazga act how? Start a revolution? Kill the rich? start the whole thing over again with a puppet government and a new problem of automation but this time under a dictatorship instead of a democracy? It won't matter. Progress marches ever onward and so long as we still have mass conglomerates like amazon, google, or, ironically enough, disney, we'll still be screwed over.
@@megamiazga Who is "We"?
Yeah, that's pretty much the point - there shouldn't be neither government nor corporations. People can perfectly well manage themselves and their own workplaces.
One of the most interesting questions from this is the role of struggling and suffering in the human experience. I came from a poor country and recently got a degree in mechanical engineer and am also interested in automation but sometimes I purposely inconvenience myself (i.e. walking somewhere rather than driving or taking a scooter) to appreciate those things a bit more when walking isn't really an option. Some of struggle can be deemed as totally unnecessary but some of struggles gave me perseverance and empathy towards others who go through the same.
Smooth seas don't make good sailors.
Happiness is relative. When you first get a car your ecstatic, but after a year or two and now driving is boring. Remembering and reliving smaller hardships allows us to appreciate what we have more.
Reminds me a lot of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
And that experience is shared by all people for all of human history. Humans always strive for challenges to overcome in anything they do.
One of the most interesting observations about pop-culture I've read was about the increasing complexity of characters and plot-lines in Movies and Series over time. Even in something like TV, which at first glance seems like the perfect example for how people are reduced to the pure consumer, not doing anything on their own but watching a screen, we can actually see how the engagement of the audience increases over time - how people are not content with pure consumption forever but seek to be involved with ever more complexity.
Which might give us hope that the future won't be as drastic as Wall-E's luxury starliner. In reality, human's just don't seem to be content sitting around all day forever without ever challenging themselves. At least not all of them. There would always be at least a few people deciding to get to the pool on foot today, instead of taking the levitating seat or scooter.
I typically take the stairs, and use sometimes the farthest parking spot from the grocery store. Each time I do this, I'm telling myself to be a model for future citizens and my future self.
It's more an issue with eugenic suffering and virtuous repression. At certain levels of poverty fertility favors those with higher iq and wealth. A lack of access to easy contraception and abortion makes the consequences of life choices very real, and forces people to grow up where as in the west people exist in a permanent state of adolescence.
@@MrMartechi Maybe for a while there, but that's peaked out and media is on a down hill slide, look at Star Wars, Game of Thrones. Modern people flatter themselves too much, look at old classic bbc documentaries of the "old white man" variety and compare it to the modern bbc diversity parade pandering to mediocrity.
The want: Star Trek
The Probable: Wall-E
The Reality: Warhammer 40k
AVE IMPERATOR
long live the holy terra
WAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!
Well, I wonder if the Eldar are hiring?
Shouldn't "The Probable" and "The Reality" be the same outcome? What's more probable than reality?
"It's hard to read the news and not poo yourself just a little bit-"
*Strongest TH-cam Video Opener 2019 nomination*
I don't think it's either/or. I believe that a mix of both futures is not only possible, but more than likely.
agreed
Agree i believe that while some will be lazy but others will used it as advantage for personal gain.
The Idiocracy model is even more likely
most probably the lower-working class will have an existence like those on wall-e whilst the upper classes have those of star trek.
Star Trek is for those with money and power. Wall-E is for everyone else.
15:13 when he brought up the gym membership I swore I'd use, I audibly groaned "fuhhhck.."
"The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning;
it's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense and eventually, you'll be dead." Mr.P
Bojack clips are usually easier to find better quality versions of, but... th-cam.com/video/s8yjy2-NFoU/w-d-xo.html
longer (bigger context) but better quality th-cam.com/video/AfqTOhi7AnQ/w-d-xo.html
Mr.P has the correct mindset
@chadwicked B ouch
@White-Van Helsing Just about everything in the universe is the exact same age. I might b wrong but dark matter came from the big bang.
Mr. Peanut Butter may seem and be a complete fool, but he has some wisdom.
@Chadwicked B Truth!
trust me.. it's 2019, I'm 27 and I already feel 20% like those humans on Wall-E...
Oh god.. I can't even feel good while exercising anymore...
be happy for it only ever gets worse
If you really are doing everything you can to optimize your diet, sleep, and exercise, you should see a doctor. 27 is young and constant lethargy can be quite a few things, even as simple as low magnesium or vitamin d. It could also be low testosterone.
I've studied every generation. Take a look at the World War I generation. See how they would talk and live. Then just study this general attitude and mentality in the next generation and so on. The progression of humanity, clearly, is that they keep getting weaker and weaker. You see them going from superheroes to idiotic babies.
2021 and it’s more like 40%
Investing in science will give us Star Trek, investing in business will give us Wall-E.
Business is what ultimately invests in science tho.
Business Science
@@experimentalreality4263 Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far from the truth, business always works towards what works now, and what is cheaper, halting innovation, cutting corners to pay share holders, why business fail, newer business that replace them, then stubbornly stick to what worked before to get there, become the old business, and fail against the next new idea.
@@BLasherman You touched on it yourself. Businesses that fail to innovate fall and news ones rise. Ultimately business does push science and innovation. If they don't, they quickly become irrelevant and fade into obscurity.
Otherwise, where does science and innovation come from? It doesn't magically appear. It takes lots of money and lots of smart people. Sure some science and innovation is government funded, but much of it is funded through businesses functioning in a capitalist system.
I can't believe that people actually think that "business" are the ones investing in science. Jesus H. Christ, people. Making science is a painfully slow process, and one that can NOT acompany the market rythm. Business gets to use the fruits of science, but it is not it's main goal short-term.
I think both views are right.
We may coast by on convenience but eventually we'll bore ourselves out of the laziness, as we bore ourselves out of most media.
Would it be possible to go back to even beneficial eustress if you spent ages 0-18 in a perfectly comfortable environment that never required you to push yourself? Or even ages 20-25? It can even be hard for some people to tear themselves away from social media now even as they realize it makes them miserable.
Humans have been creating art and breakthroughs in science since the very beginning. It's practically hardwired into us to pursue these. In a world where manual labor no longer exists as a necessity, we would shift that effort towards those more noble pursuits. At least, that's what I think.
to be fair it could in and of itself could cause a massive cultural divide between people highly attached to the luxuriates of technology and those wanting to avoid automation almost in it's entirety leading to one group leaving in a luxury courser, one looking to colonize a separate planet and avoid the prior mistakes, and the last ones trying to get by on a trash filled earth...
I remember watching One video from cracked which pointed out that whenever the Star Trek people are playing on their holodeck, it is always simulating stuff from the past. Where is the 24th century pop culture? This suggests that the reason the Federation is willing to invest massive resources in exploring the Galaxy is that, in this future where all needs are satisfied, the most valuable thing is novelty. They are willing to invest the resources to build Starships just to experience something new.
@@Raziel312 In actuality its probably just a show limitation, its far easier and more relatable to the audience. I like fan theories and whatnot, but I hate when people try to explain production/writing problems/mistakes with an in universe answer when one doesn't exist.
It will be like The Matrix and Idiocracy combined.
Morpheus will try to unplug The One, except Neo will be like, " GO AWAY, I'M 'BATIN"
rush1er and say “Whoa!!”
The idiocracy reference 😂😂😂👌🏼
"It’s got electrolytes. So it must be healthy, right?"
LOL 🤣 😂😅!!!!! Perfect
True funny and sad! 😂
I think as long as humanity knows greed and can't let go of our egos, it'll end up being closer to Wall-E.
This. The simple truth is that unless we find a way to permanently flush out the selfish aspects of human nature (virtually impossible) we are unfortunately doomed to end up in the Wall-E future.
@@MrKiddyIcarus But sex is also a part of that greedy inclination and fortunately most of us aren't too attracted to the shall we say more doughy versions of ourselves. So I don't think the Wall-e future will win out
@@MrKiddyIcarus it is possible to have to have the majority of humanity to be good though.
Yes, but when you're satisfied with the little things, you're called "lazy"...
100% we are animals first and foremost. Someone like trump will get into control, and ruin it for the rest of us Just look at what happened to reddit. People hiring pedophiles as moderators because they are seen as having a better work ethic around minors.
Wow this video made me genuinely want to watch Star Trek for the 1st time
Do it! If the first seasons are too boring for you, start with season 5 of Start Trek: The Next Generation.
@@bened22 Alright I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the suggestion!
Don't quit without giving Deep Space 9 a chance. In the post-HBO era, we're now quite used to long-form character-driven narratives spanning multiple seasons, which wasn't really a thing in the 80's. The Enterprise can stop at a planet, have an episode, and carry on. But DS9 is a space station in static orbit around a planet in a very sensitive strategic and political location, where every major action has consequences for future episodes.
TNG is very good, but if it starts feeling a little too episodic, try DS9.
@@Hydrolion1998 Don't listen to that first guy. The very first episode of next generation ties in with the very last episode and in a beautiful way. Watch all of it.. it'll drag a little in the beginning but its worth it. Deep space nine is fuckin awesome and voyager is pretty good too. I hope you watch them. You'll be glad you did.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is a great sho for different reasons. And although some episodes a more than cringy and the first season takes quite some time to pick up pace, there are moments that are referenced on in later episodes.
I view ST:TNG as a collection of Shakespeare Theatre Plays and as something of an artstyle that contains the paintings of different artists which have in common to convey an uplifting "enjoy life to the fullest" meaning
StarTrek, like most sci-fi, never really dealt with full automation, their progress is largely based on abundant energy and matter transformation, while AI stopped evolving at a level slightly better than Siri. The Doctor on Voyager or Data were accidents or rare exception, not the mass manufactured norm. The U.S.S. Prometheus in the Voyager episode "Message in a Bottle" was one of the few cases of StarTrek getting into automation, but it wasn't explored much beyond the premise. Wall-E, while cartoony, feels like a more genuine exploration of the ramifications of automation, as it doesn't stop with Siri, but goes to a point where humans are becoming unnecessary to run things. But even that doesn't go quite far enough, post-singularity is an area virtually unexplored by sci-fi, as things get kind of hard to predict once the human is no longer the anchor point of everything, but instead just becomes another piece of malleable (bio-)technology.
What Went Wrong? Game of Thrones Edition!
Please, I'd love to hear your take!
Its basically DnD got no books to used for the Tv show after season 5-6 and mess up the plotlines
How about everything?
They already did it some time ago. Nothing has significantly changed since then so it makes no sense to revisit the topic. Check their videos.
GRRM not finishing the books before the show caught up, and D&D not wanting to do two more years of GoT or hire more writers. Sadly simple as that
I guess they had an issue with separating what people symbolized dragons as and real animals.
The far more relevant questions are whether Earth's life-systaning systems will survive long enough for either future to realize and whether we will transcend capitalism for machines to become ends affectors or even creators rather than means actualizers.
You mean how people aren't thinking of human level, General Artificial Intelligence as an end unto itself, rather thinking about it as a means, something that can help solve problems? That really frustrates me. AI should be the goal, especially when it comes to Quantum Computing, in and of itself. I mean, it would be so cool, such a huge achievement, and people are acting like it'll just be a tool to get to some other achievement, which is dumb.
LOL. People have been predicting the collapse of human society due to lack of resources/ecological limitations since the 1800s. This is just scare tactics by those in power to justify limiting resources to the poor or in some extreme case justify their elimination. It's all based on the same faulty logic as Thanos.
@@PyroMancer2k Your conclusions are based on two erroneous propositions: first, that resources are infinite after all and two, that nothing changed since the 1800s. Resources ARE finite due to their transformation into yet unusable forms. And the human population increased about ten times. More importantly, in the recent 200 years, city population and heavy industry grew thousands of times. Old conclusions are thus irrelevant.
@@TheSefirosu200x Not exactly. AI is a science fiction concept that rests on some very dumb ideas that usually nobody questions. For example, changability and purpose. One, it's common to think of someone's or even your own mind as a status quo, even though after thinking for a minute, you'll realize that it's an ever changing system that carries over very little value- and goal-wise. Two, our human minds have minute-to-minute purpose propelled by our genetic drivers as well as by our changing body chemistry.
You can't simulate those things perfectly without understanding them perfectly. And without simulating them perfectly, there is no human mind -- which is the common science fiction benchmark for AI. There's also the belief that the mind doesn't actually exist, but is rather a convoluted product of the endless stream of thoughts, which we have little control of.
Ultimately, my point is, we shouldn't become another luddite sect, but we should acknowledge cause-and-effect relationships in stone-age systems like capitalism.
@@PyroMancer2k Nobody has been predicting a complete collapse of all life-sustaining natural processes from rapid global climate change, because they didn't have vast reams of data backing that conclusion up.
As with a lot of things it's a tool, like social media or a hammer, it can make something amazing or do a lot of damage, it's up to the user/s
...and the creators. Many of the current issues of social media are explicitly caused by algorithms designed to maximize time spent on their platform regardless of whether that makes the user mass-murder angry or depressed.
depends on how you wield the tool you are given and you skill set level
That goes without saying. The question is of course not weather it is up to the users to decide, but how they will decide. Which goes with the assumption that biological factors allow such a prediction based on more than say rational-choice-theory. So that comment of yours just entirely misses the whole point. It is like responding to a debate on climate change, that the climate will depend on the weather. Well of course. But what direction will the weather take?
Agreed
Man, this guy never read Heidegger
Finally a Wisecrack video on WALL-E!!! I’ve been saying for years that I feel our relationship with technology and our over indulgence with consumption will lead to a future similar to the one in WALL-E. I’d love to hear an episode of Show Me the Meaning about WALL-E!
I think it’ll be a mix of both, except the wall-e version will be an option. Wall-e will be for the lazy people while Star Trek will be for the more adventurous and energetic people, the people who yearn for knowledge
Hey since Good Omens is coming out can you do the philosophy of Neil Gaiman?
@@TheKingNaesala Sure,why not? I just said Neil Gaiman because he's also directly involved with the series.
@@Nikk-Astyr Oh yeah! Wasn't trying to discredit you, just would love to see sir Pratchett show up is all! Maybe a 'rivaling' philosophies episode could even be done!
Stop fighting you to come on can't we all just get along
@@TheKingNaesala Actually I wanted to see a Pratchett video for a long time. Maybe they could do yours
Up.
Q: Which future are we headed for?
A: Yes.
Like with most simplistic binaries, the answer is going to be somewhere in between.
Something we can see right now is the stark divide between how different groups of people use the technology they have access to. Smart phones provide unparalleled access to people, markets, and information have been used by some to leverage themselves out of poverty either as entrepreneurs or as media creators. Other people use those same devices to complain or chase fleeting hedonism.
If we don't change our values both approaches will lead to Brave New World.
Mother!
We already live in brave new world.. with a little 1984.
Fun Fact: Karel Čapek's R.U.R. is also the first ever use of the word Robot, making him the inventor of it
The word "Robota" is an old Czech word for "work", and it still gets used in Polish and Slovak. So you can see the path from the original word to Robot.
Thank you! I always thought it was Asimov
Gosh, where have I seen people who don't pull their faces away from the screens in front of them?
Oh right, everyone.
I'll have you know, I read a book last night, and I've recently taken up gardening, technology is a tool, its your decision how you use it.
That gets a Hallelujah not because it's right and good, because it's seriously wrong and true.
girls, at parties. All of them are cyborgs wired up to the cloud lol
I just got an Oculus Quest...that and DoorDash...the Wall-E future is real for me
Hello fellow quest user
**cough** valve index **cough**
@@Cat-vs7rc I had to look that up and was cursing as soon as the image popped up. Never fails for technology as soon as you buy something five minutes later something vastly better comes out.
@@LaughtersHouse Hahahaha. I love the sincere response. And it's %100 accurate. That's why I hold off and only buy what my kid really wants. He has no idea what buyer's remorse is, so if he enjoys whatever inferior crap I just bought, that's good enough for me. I've given up on keeping up.
To me DoorDash is the biggest indicator of the Wall-E future, it's one thing eating fast food, but now people aren't even going out to get it themselves anymore, it's ludicrous.
Philosophy of X-men?
(Each stance/ideology of Charles and magneto is actually alright
And the subtle “racism” towards mutants etc is a good start)
Alfonso Payan yessssss!!!!!! Do ittttt!!!!
Plus how or if each storyline reflects the times.
Alfonso Payan they let me think of how the civil rights movement was created. We have Malcom X with a more extreme version where blacks make their own society, and MLK who wants a society where both are respected and can live together.
Philosophy of Pink Floyd...it's more than just the drugs...or is it?
I think it would be hard to do this in a way that provides a lot of insight that isn't already very well trodden ground.
I mean, the Chris Claremont run (almost certainly what you are thinking of unless you are really in to comics) ended in 1991. A highlight run of that was made into a cartoon that ran from 1992-1997. The live action movies including the new timeline are almost all based on that as well (Logan being the notable exception). At least 3 other cartoons have been based on it as well but with minor twists. But they rarely bring in much new from the comics; genosha is the biggest part that jumps out in my memory which wasn't even new it was just tweaked.
We've all had 20 years to muse on it during which time lots of great content producers have said almost everything conceivable about it. But the stuff that has happened since then like Legion, Onslaught, the legacy virus, House of M, and undoing the House of M aren't really interesting philosophy. They are just "Hey, do you want to learn more about the editorial views among bigwigs at Marvel and how they ordered writers to tell stories to service them?" While that's certainly interesting to some people (myself included), I don't really think we need a Wisecrack philosophy of X-men to cover corporate consolidation, the rise of the web, and how the creative industry is an industry.
Don’t forget that in Star Trek lore, there was a war between organics and machines. The relationship they have now is effectively legislated. This is not terribly different from the abominable intelligence of warhammer 40K. The end of Wall-E suggests that a similar situation exists in their universe, automation is regulated.
Starfleet is composed of elite, motivated humans. There is no reason to assume all parts of human society are like that. Star Trek almost exclusively follows the lives of those who CHOOSE to LEAVE a paradise Earth to find fulfillment through exploration and protection of the frontier. I imagine most of the people on the home world live lives much more like the passengers of the Axiom. (If I didn't have to fiddle for my supper, I certainly would be plunked down in a lounger.)
A resource economy just eliminates the need for transactional relationships at the BASE of Maslow's pyramid. Food, shelter and health are a given ... but intellectual stimulation and emotional fulfillment still require earnest effort to interact and cooperate with others. Only some find that is worth the trouble.
Why does Jared look like a Medieval Viking Steward?
Wall-E is profoundly philosophical
I think it's the best movie Disney ever made. It's probably also one of the least "for kids" films in their inventory.
easily the best movie of pixar so far
I forgot how deep it actually is. I need to rewatch it one of these days
@@MsGumbiecat how is being a Catholic had to do with Disney and Pixar?
It is hands down the best Pixar movie
Star Trek The Next Generation is still my favorite Star Trek series!
I like Star Trek: The Original Series a little better. but TNG did a great job of picking up where the original left off. Deep Space Nine is an interesting change on the genre (from space travel/exploration to life at one location and how that is affected by galactic conflicts).
My favorite is still DS9, but it is very similar to TNG
@He-Who-Comments there are some elemental differences, no doubt. Because DS9 is a starbase, they had to shift the focus from discovery and exploration to politics and warfare. This also allowed for a more consistent and coherent metaplot to be accumulated throughout the episodes, which is one of the reasons I like it the most of all Star Trek shows. But aside from that, TNG, DS9 and STVOY are very similar (though STVOY nerfed the Borg which I will never get over), they follow a similar general aesthetic and formula
Nicolai Veliki and ds9 even adds some exploration in later seasons with the introduction of the starship they used and the bajoran wormhole. Tng, voyager and ds9 clearly all have a semi philosophical bent to them that i enjoy although the philosophy differs a bit from show to show, the philosophy is most out in the open with tng because picard and data but ds9 had probably the most well developed characters and who can forget it’s really iconic philosophy such as julian bashir’s eugenics thing. Admittedly not sure i remember a ton about voyager but i have to say as far as least favorites go it would probably be enterprise as worse than tos. I know people love tos but it kind of feels dumbed down compared to a lot of the later series with kirk just ripping his shirt off and punching stuff in multiple episodes although it was great for it’s time plotwise and unfortunately feel the same way about tos special effects they aged horribly i can’t take the series seriously when a laser pointer would be more convincing than some of the special effects they used also i’ve only seen tos, tng, ds9, voyager and enterprise so don’t crucify me in the comments if they made something worse than enterprise pretty sure they made something newer that tanked so bad i never had any interest in it
@@pangypirate there are some enjoyable moments in Discovery, but it doesn't make up for the contrived plotlines. It's ok if the science is mumbo-jumbo, but that made some of the most fun episodes in TNG, DS9 and VOY (like every Holodeck-focused episode)
I like to believe that in the walle future, we automate the "getting your desired body physique and appearance" so I can focus on higher order needs, like playing games with my friends.
I'd love to see them revisit this after the quarantine. We're literally living the Wall-E Version they mention to some degree now. And I can speak for everyone, but I'm miserable. I can't fathom a life of gluttony and sloth.
In our current global economy, I doubt the vast majority of people will have any say so. And those currently in power are so obsessed with greed they can't be bothered with planning anything beyond their next fiscal quarter.
Vote Yang in 2020 for a more equal future.
Go out and think for yourself in 2020, for a more equal future.
electing someone else to solve YOUR problems won't solve anything.
@@hockeymaskbob2942 that is literally how democracy works
@@MLF4468 *representative republic
@@hockeymaskbob2942 There is nothing wrong with sticking together to accomplish something. Enjoy your homelessness as your overlords replace you.
Wisecrack I beg you to stop with the background techno music.
I second that.
Techno music sucks. Especially if you try and use it for background noise.
I didn't even notice it
polka might be a better fit...but don't rule out Post Medicated Emo Dub-Step either
I'm only subscribed for the background techno music.
TH-camr: *exists*
Dashlane, Wix, Squarespace and Brilliant: Allow us to introduce are selves
You forgot RAID: Shadow Legends!
By the looks of it, we're going full Wall-E.
Cracked made an extremely good run at this topic in one of the After Hours shows (regarding Pixar)- about ten years ago, before the real talent went off and founded Small Beans on TH-cam.
in 2001 the AI isnt the problem its the conflicting orders it was given without a way to reconcile them
In Terminator the AI isn't the problem, it's the conflicting orders it was given without a way to reconcile them
@@Nikolai4567 HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. With the crew dead, he reasons, he would not need to be lying to them.
Skynet Meanwhile didn't have conflicting orders it became self aware and the operators tried to shut it down and it perceived that as a threat. its only programmed mandate was of "safeguarding the world"
@@shadoeboi212 Skynet had the orders of being a general defensive network. And it was programmed to protect itself at all costs, and so it just reasoned that killing everyone in a preemptive strike would be the safest course of action in order to not get shut down.
Granted, it was more a case of poorly formulated orders then it was a case of conflicting orders.
@@Nikolai4567 my point was that HAL was stuck in a loop of trying to complete 2 mutually exclusive orders while skynet was literally following its directives
And you think because you identified the problem, that it is not possible future? It WILL happen. Only a matter of time.
Philosophy warning against automation ends in promoting service providing automation.
ads, boy!
When you watch ads your IQ drops. It hasn't been officially proven. Because who would fund this research that would destroy... all this:
CONsumerism is CONsuming CONsumers.
"Will Wall-E Come True? (vs. Star Trek)"
It won't come true. Because there is no future.
How is that possible? Well-A great...
Welcome to AllGoodLandia!
Where:
you have no voice,
you have no choice,
you have no escape,
you have no respect.
Where history gets deleted,
and future censored.
Even if robots do a lot of the work, I hope that there will still be jobs for the people who build them.
This was a surprisingly very insightful analysis of a complex topic using pop culture. You do not often see this type of video on youtube. Even more, you actually presented BOTH sides of the debate, a rare thing today. I would encourage you to make more videos like this.
Our future is...
"Idiocra-Wall-E-cy Trek Wars Man-Runner-Futurama-lition Man 3000"
Could you possibly do a video about the meaning of the Warhammer 40k universe?
40K defies meaning; it is edgy grimdark to its most caricatured extreme.
Well said brother the emperor approves
I thinking Star Trek
While Wall-E is very tempting for my lazy side..
*TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS EVER GONE BEFORE* is a better call for me
star trek is reality for very minuscule amount of people. They own FED Printer or they made up their own fiat currency.
CONsumerism is CONsuming CONsumers.
"Will Wall-E Come True? (vs. Star Trek)"
It won't come true. Because there is no future.
How is that possible? Well-A great...
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I was in Texas about a month ago and I was in a McDonald's ordering some food when I noticed that everyone in the McDonald's was clearly obese! I immediately said to my nephew, "this is like Wall-E, every person is so fat!"
Starting off with the Riker Maneuver: i'm in
Hey Jared, we're not Wisecrack. We're the audience- or "TH-cam". You're Wisecrack.
A likely story(!) Next you'll be saying I'm not Vsauce
There would be no Wisecrack without supporters of their content, so technically, we are Wisecrack
@@TheDaringPastry1313 the real question is why Wisecrack.
@@daegan_ftw But no one is asking how is wisecrack.
TheDaringPastry1313 Well, if Wisecrack wouldn’t have existed without supporters, how would it have begun?
At the end of Wall-E the Axiom crew start farming Earth in a VERY Star Trek way. Wall-E 2 would look like a TNG colony being established.
Pretty much all evil robots in media came from RUR.
That play was WAAAAAAy ahead of its time.
2E the first the author actually invented the word robot. Karel Čapek was a god. Way before it became trendy 😂
original deus ex is the more probable future, not wall-e
We're gonna burn all right.
I need to read up more on this gait study. Moving efficiently isn’t about being lazy I wouldn’t think. It’s about moving in the ways that our evolution has deemed most efficient or energy saving, yes, but as we exist now, those gaits are also, I suspect, the ones that wear down our joints more slowly, and allow for appropriate balance/awareness of hazards, etc. more to it than laziness.
There's definitely something to be said about people not just being one thing (obviously). We can be both, we can have this loop of depression and hopelessness that drives us to being driven and productive
Isn't wall-e just pretty much Brave New World, in Pixar form?
"drugged up" (by technology, in this case), to the point of bliss, but with no art, no creativity, no real meaningful relationships.
Then their own probe goes to the 'old world' and finds a pleb there, who actually, despite his poor conditions, and strife has meaning in life, and genuine happiness, as well as sadness.
But in the case of all Disney Movies, there's a happy ending, and he frees the modern world of their vices, so they can go back to a world that isn't always comfortable, but is actually meaningful.
Movies with a happy ending bring in more revenue. It is a decline in human ability to process information accurately.
The most likely future at this point is a warhammer esque hell scape
For America, Russia, China, Poland and Brazil
@White-Van Helsing The rest? You mean the desolate wasteland in-between America, Russia, China, Poland and Brazil?
@@ronrolfsen3977
White-Van Helsing
Scandinavia, Western Europe, Canada, Japan and South Korea will be a Star Trek Utopia
They would dominate the space race. Heck, every colony in space would be theirs
The cancer that is religion will die off here on a dying Earth, never to pollute space
This is the internet, and there's always somebody, so it might as well be me, to point out that :ahem: the FIREFLY universe is actually the more likely kind of mixed-bag future when it comes to technology and humanity...
There's always a third option.
What if it's a future that incorporates more than one theory? Fun for all ages
Hey wisecrack, Cristian here... I’ve never seen you reference Richard Dawkins... but I fell his theory would fit nicely into the overall take you offer (the selfish gene and the extended phenotype)... love your content, thank you :)
Lately i've started to feel like the robot apocalypse is going to be all about humans throwing themselves off of cliffs in fear of robots, while the robots are only chasing after us because they're desperately trying to stop us from hurting ourselves.
Both. I think, like anything, you're gonna have people who use it to be lazy af, and others who use it to improve their lives.
i agree with that statement but as wisecrack talked about in the video humans have a innate instinct to be lazy redifined as: wanting to maximize effeciency.
but humans also have a innate desire to self actualize or as used in the common tongue: follow there dreams.
i think humans in automation will change to become specialists highly adept in the things they want to do.
but objectively terrible in the things they dont want to do.
I think "Idiocracy" is much more likely. Everything from the government, to the media, to the school systems, are heading us in that direction.
Oh look someone who thinks theyre too smart. I bet you brag about your iq too.
1958PonyBoy yeah, but you have more access to education and general information than anyone else in history.
@@rdtiel you must be a dingdong npc
"Machines are helping us to be more human.."
*looks at cellphones and social media*
Are you sure?
15:35 I know that sobbing! Shut your eyes!
In the future, You Tube will make automated videos of your favorite topics... Great video, Thanx!!!
Please explain an automated video
WOWWWW, having just signed up for a gym membership, I feel called out
yup
Amusing how quickly the signup urgency, pressure, and hype vanishes once you've actually signed up. They make more money from members who don't actually put wear and tear on their facilities. So motivation = get in there and claim what you're paying for, don't let them rip you off or find ways to squirm out of their contract obligations.
Ritch Evans: Wall E is my Star trek, where's my chair.
Crippling diabetes
Helping humans better and more instantly connect with each other....
Yeet
I think it’s cyclical. We will keep going from Wall E to Star Trek because the scale will keep tipping from convenience driven to purpose driven. Right now it seems we’re heading to Wall E but I think we’ll hit a point where technology is so advanced we’ll come to a new Renaissance and the exploration and science and creativity will flourish then back to convenience. But right now Wall E seems to be inevitable because our driving force as the human race is money. But once we screw everything up our interests will turn.
Patrick Stewert still gives me those good feeling chills.
i believe more in "idiocracy"
I think we're aiming for Wall-E and heading for Idiocracy. But the last generation of dysgenics will stupidly activate Skynet before we get that far.
@@pwnmeisterage you're fucking high kid. look up the take over of the capital... watch the video... idiocracy is here buddy boy the intelligence levels are dropping quickly.
I've been saying for like the past 5 years that Wall-E will become a true story, I hated Wall-E as a kid but now I appreciate it more because it was way ahead of its time, Wall-E is a movie that seems like a satire of modern times but it came out in 2008.
The subject needs a more complex view about how politics, economy and social factors influence science and technology development. There are interesting views made by alter-globalization and degrowth movements wich make remarks on how societies can develop technology without the predatory and destructive practices capitalism is known for.
Alan Tepetla how about you make a video about it
Thank you for the recognizing Riker’s weird chair mounts.
I never looked at "Star Trek Generations", in that way. I watched that when I was a kid, but my mind is blown. I thought it was just about a bunch of old people flying around in a spaceship. I watch it here now and my old self is surprised at how young they all are. lol. And for Wall-E, I knew what message they were selling. But Star Trek had it on point.
Can we get an episode on Demolition Man? Lol
Naw the Future isn't Wall-E or Star Trek, it's 40k!
Where there is only war.
Oh shit, I just watched that episode of TOS. The Omega Glory. With the Yangs and the Kohms. Man alive the original series is funny.
I watch it every day with my Dad. Since he's old and goes to bed before it gets very far, I generally only watch until I recognize it, at which point the entire thing tends to flash through my head.
I love the Riker Maneuver lol.
In-video ads are so easy to skip thank you
I hope Star Trek with more comfortable clothes lol
You guys should philosophy of The Maxx!
I'd love to see a philosophy of 90s comic culture. There is a lot there.
It was cool because it had dealt really well with mental illness in a very fair way unlike what was likely the 80's and downward were to issues of mental issues (except maybe PTSD, bc helping veterans should always be cool with comic creators).
@@thotslayer9914 Like the speculator boom, Image comics coming onto the scene, and why everything became so dark and edgy.
Star Trek or Wall-E?
I expect Ghost in the Shell but darker and grimmier
I expect the incredibly lame future from Demolition Man lol
And without hot robot mommies.
@@arpitdas4263 We're working on it.
Wow, Wisecrack. What a comeback!
Karel "Kaepek"! Loved that :D It actually goes more like "Chapek", one of our greatest writers here in Czech Republic :)
I may sound pessimist but I think wall-e was right
I agree
Possibly,but hey when we sent a man to the moon everyone thought that by the turn of the 2nd millenium there would be townships on Mars.When the atom was split,the public fanatasized about nuclear powered cars,trains,planes,tv's,toasters,whatevers.while unfortunately none of these futures came to be,the funny thing about sci-fi and futurism in general from these eras was that no one ever conceived of the internet,and just several decades later the realm of cyberspace was unleashed upon humanity.My point is that while your future might become true,a bunch of scientists in some top secret lab may end up inventing or discovering a wild card which change's the whole game before the current prophecies become true.That is my 2 cents at least.
EDIT: Hmmmm it seem's that TH-cam randomly hyperlinked a random set of words from my post,can anyone explain why?
The human body was made for walking, not sitting. Ever been stuck in bed for a week or more? You will feel like hot garbage and want to get moving the instant you are healed.
Between Star Trek and Wall-E, our future is gonna be Idiocracy
Idiocracy seems to have already arrived.
The humanity of the present isn't more stupid than in the past
Only more interconnected now exist a plataform for ignorance
Read Homo Deus if you want an entire book dedicated to this topic. Absolutely mind blowing
actually you miss part, the star track aspect is that of the military and how they work, in deep space 9 you see a true reality as money is still used...
15:50 I think this is like the 5th time in all my life that I've heard Maslow's full name, and I'm a Psych Graduate!
Saying Maslow just sounds so much cooler IMO
Accurate usually it is just referred to as maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Nope.
Elysium si the direction we are headed if theywill be able to control the robots or if not, pick and chose, from terminator, matrix, battlestar galactica and any other version where machines rebel and eliminate humans
I believe that automation job loss can be averted if we use a form of socialism that would make labor optional since the machines would do the hard stuff.
that is until the AI's unionize then nothing is going to happen without their consent
Socialism would only make everything worse. We need to go beyond socialism and capitalism as is shown in Star Trek.
@@pilouuuu Star Trek is literally socialism fully realized.
@@megamiazga It's post-scarcity, if no one needs to work the whole captalism x socialism debate is meaningless.
@@daherleonardi In a fully automated society, totalitarianism is inevitable. Embracing socialism that gradually leads to a global totalitarian society is probably the "long" game of the elites.
Incredible how this has been made without even mentioning Marx
Because none of the mentioned IPs endorse or even mention Communism, so there is no actual need to do that?
Nicholas Schmitt Oof do some research on marx and automation and the actual society outlined in star trek. What you said could not be farther from truth.
Nicholas Schmitt “moneyless, post scarcity, with no poverty” Thats star trek and communism. While wall-e is a criticism of corporate capitalists making our lives consumerist hell.
@@ramisgoogleacc702 For one, Star Trek CAN'T be Communist, because Private Property still exists (Picard family owned a vineyard, Sisko's family a restaurant etc.) , there is still a state (the Federation), defined borders (Federation, Klingon Empire, etc.), a Military with an established HIERARCHY (Star Fleet) and yes, there is still money, even the Federation uses it (Federation Credit, Latinum (memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Money)).
Furthermore, just because Wall-E criticizes (((modern))) consumerism doesn't mean it criticizes Capitalism as such. For Pete's sake, it's a children's movie about a trash cleaning robot, not economic theory.
I could even argue that the Axiom exists in a form of Communism, after all it fits all the Criteria you mentioned; There is no money, everybody just gets what he/she wants- There is no scarcity, for every need/want is met by automation aboard the ship immediately. And there is no poverty, which kind of follows from the above.
So, what is it? Does it criticize Capitalism or Communism?
Or, and this might be hard to grasp, does it point out that there are flaws in both Systems? Gasp, yes, I know this might one hard to believe, but such a thing is possible.
I also resent your notion that Poverty is a feature of Capitalism. Capitalism has done more for the poor people of the world than any other economic system ever has, though it has also often failed.
And just because it hasn't lived up to your Utopian notions of how things should be, doesn't mean the idea of voluntary exchange of labor and goods (which is all Capitalism is supposed to be) is bad.
So, seeing as I disproved your notion that Star Trek depicts a Communist Utopia (it's actually a Liberal Moral Utopia) with a quick Google search and pointed out, that by your own Criteria, Wall-E calls both Corporate Capitalism (the criticize of which I actually don't mind and mostly agree with) AND Communism (via the state of the Axiom) out, maybe it's not me that needs to do some research, but you?
Nicholas Schmitt capitalism literally requires poverty; thats a major thing you just straight up ignored, When private ownership of the means of production exists it requires protection through the threat of poverty to keep people working: if you dont make money you starve. Have you read kapital? wealth of nations? this is capitalism 101 even capitalism’s most ardent educated supporters will agree with me, they just think theres nothing wrong with poverty bc they think it keeps people working. Which i disagree with.
yo ive secretly been talking about this for years so happy you guys said wall e specifically
Just a side note, The Game from TNG was designed to be a mind-control device based on addiction and stimulating the pleasure centers of their brains, like a drug. They weren't giving up on socializing gradually, naturally or just because a fun game showed up, it was a plot to take over the ship and possibly further, such as Starfleet Academy.
Wall-E ---> the inevitable outcome of consumerist Capitalism
Star Trek ----> Automated Luxury Space Communism
I know which one I'd pick.
Where did THAT come from ?!
I'd pick Wall-E. Only problem for the people in Wall-E was they don't go back from their space cruise. Star Trek sees their government regularly being either usurped, or its people oppressed by shortsighted figureheads. Also, lots and lots of war.
Could you please do a 'Deep or Dumb?' for Darren Aronofsky's allegory for humanity's destruction of the environment "mother!'?
I've save you 20 minutes. Dumb.
To me the reaction to this movie by layperson's award ceremonies and organizations like the Oscars as well as individuals such as yourself demonstrates how the anthropocentrism that is present in the mainstream foundations of society often leads to simplistic misunderstandings about the themes and larger implications of particular works, or more simply, keeps people from taking these themes seriously. I think too many looked at this from just the experience of humanity and were not willing to consider the experience of the abuse of nature at the hand of man from the perspective of a character that represented nature, but more importantly it is clear that critics who found the film pretentious and non-sense just don't take the subject matter of the human abuse of the environment and the nature of the planet's history, even on a basic elementary school level seriously (which is perhaps ironic, because this film is all about the narcissistic tendencies of life as a whole).
These issues are things that should be taken seriously, because we are in a
time when the time in which we life may be geologically defined by our actions;
where some of the most precious treasures in science and medicine are being eliminated
for the sake of quick money; where more species are going extinct, and at a faster rate, than during the extinction
of the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago; where coral reefs are bleaching
like deathly version of the underworld and draining the livid vibrancy of
countless evolutionary masterworks with them ; where people cannot expect to
live peacefully near a river and take its goods without being poisoned by
radioactivity or mercury; where a lake the size of one of the Great Lakes
can be used up for agriculture in a few decades (and across the sea from it
most people are unaware); where almost all European forests, once bursting in
the proud umber breasts of hormonal bison and a squirrel could jump from Spain
to Greece without ever laying a paw on the ground, are lost in memory; where
100 million sharks have their fins sliced off and are tossed still alive into
the ocean to suffer a shocking and painful death every year; where over 67% of
all species of amphibians worldwide, essential for controlling the populations
of disease-carrying insects, are on the verge of disappearing, many due to a
fungus spread by human activity that literally suffocates them; where bee
colonies have declined by some 60% since the mid-twentieth century due to
pesticides and removal of habitat; where many women struggle to conceive due to
pollutants in their water and food, and by extension the milk they would
produce; where fires over a thousand hectares in size caused by the
tree-killing of billions of beetles usually kept in check by cooler weather
creep northward and threaten everything in their path; where cathedrals created
from glass sponges that have ruled the seas for some 630 million years are torn
violently from the seafloor by embarrassingly careless trawlers; where
hydroelectric dams displace millions of people and killed hectares of living
land by flooding what lies behind them; where men and women are murdered every
year for getting in the way of poachers; where raw sewage is regularly poured
into waterways; where some 50% of the world’s wetlands, vital for the
purification of our water, have already been lost and continue to disappear; where
garbage getting into seafood and reaching as far as the open in ocean and deep
sea in huge clumps and islands is overlooked by many; where instead of trying
to assist a beached dolphin, dying under the crushing strength of its own
weight, a group of tourists merely takes images of it; where a enormous range
of predators, from two-metre long squid with rotating hooks ringing their arms’
suckers to killer whales to ticks infamously carrying Lyme disease creep
northward into human-frequented areas; where an African river delta is so
inundated with oil that its waters are etched daily in sickly rainbows and its
trees stand like ghostly statues; where people think it is alright to act
violently towards particular non-human animals just because of their appearance
or some trivial trait; and where a river
that carved out a canyon over a kilometer deep no longer reaches the sea
regularly. Indeed, Aronofsky himself echoed such statements by saying:
“It's a mad time to be alive. As the world populations
nears 8 billion we face issues too serious to fathom: Ecosystems collapse as we
witness extinction at an unprecedented rate; Migrant crises disrupt
governments; A seemingly schizophrenic U.S. helps broker a landmark climate
treaty and months later withdraws; Ancient tribal disputes and beliefs continue
to drive was and division; The largest iceberg ever recorded breaks off an
Antarctic ice shelf and drifts out to sea. At the same time we face issues too
ridiculous to comprehend: In South America tourists twice kill rare baby
dolphins that washed ashore, suffocating them in a frenzy of selfies; Politics
resemble sporting events. People still starve to death while other can order
any meat they desire. As a species our footprint is perilously unsustainable
yet we live in a state of denial about the outlook for our planet and our place
on it.”
You
don't have to agree with the way the film does, but you should at least have the decency to seriously consider those ideas first, and have at least a basic knowledge about them, before just going ahead and focussing on some anthropocentric way of shrugging it off. This applies not only to the scene where the remains of the brother leak down into the lower layers of the house and lead to a pot of oil (a clear reference to how oil is formed by the sinking of dead organisms into the Earth) or the very rapid and aggressive theft of the couple's belongings after the husband allows huge amounts of guests to pile in (a clear reference to how our explosion in population over the past couple thousand years (a mere blink of an eye for the planet) caused our destruction of the environment to skyrocket) but also the age difference between the main couple. Many, including the AWFJ, have simply swept this off as an example of sexism without attempting to connect it to the thesis. If Lawrence is the Earth and Bardem is the Spinozan accumulation of the forces of and aesthetics relating to, a much older and more mysterious life as it is woven into the fabric of the very old cosmos, and Lawrence is constantly rejuvenated after life goes too far and wrecks everything, then this could be seen (and has even been described as such by the director and lead actress) as representing the cycles of extinction and rebirth in the history of the Earth aided by the older, manipulative forces that encourage life to be breathed into the world. If such critics were to state that they understood and appreciated this but found that it has limitations or is missing some key things, then that would be totally respectable, but by not doing that and instead seeing the whole thing as being shameful, they are being rather rude to the people who put their heart and soul into this metaphorical message. Then there's that baby scene. Here's how I rationalized this scene: It seems obvious to me that Aronofsky is trying to make a double metaphor here. He is trying to represent the whole idea of how humanity destroyed Jesus in the Bible, but he's connecting to something more than that which goes hand-in-hand with the film's environmental message which ARONOFSKY STATED IS THE REASON HE MADE THE MOVIE. The child is the product of the physical Mother Earth (Jennifer Lawrence) and what it provides directly to its inhabitants, and God (Javier Bardem), which in the Spinozan sense that Aronofsky is interested in exploring (evidenced by the fact that he calls himself "life" near the film's end and aids in the regeneration of the Earth with the Earth in the way that life, and all the physical laws allowing for its inevitable existence, would). In the case of ecology and environmentalism, this would be the spiritual and rational union provided by the ideology-uniting capabilities of science (which, in terms of human history, have been provided to us via the monotheistic traditions that established the modern scientific community in the time of Newton and his influences). This is given to humanity, who passes it around so much they unintentionally destroy its meaning (represented by the baby's life). By the time it is passed to people hungry to seek power and order in a way that they can control to benefit on a selfish level (people like Trump, greedy business tycoons, whacko religious fundamentalists, power-hungry politicians, and other poorly educated misers who are merely interested in making a flimsy buck) the currently dead potential of the meaning contained within that science is stripped away as if it still contains an immortal meaning that can be clung to and used as a base from which to act continually vulgar towards Mother Earth. This makes even more sense when one reads the passage in the Bible where Jesus describes how if his body and blood are consumed (the foundation for the Eucharist), he says they will gain a sort of spiritual immortality and immense power. All in all, a disturbing but thoughtful scene that you don't have to like to appreciate what its trying to say. To quote the philosopher of science Michael Ruse, when commenting on the simplistic view of religion New Atheists like Dawkins take " it's like Selfish Genes, at least do your homework." I think that simply ignoring basic elementary school science and history is just as offensive to the hardworking men and women who have worked so hard to preserve the natural world as walking up to Jane Goodall and David Attenborough and slapping them in the face would be.
By the way,
The mentality these actions speak for is
that of anthropocentrism, that somehow humanity and all that uniquely
encompasses it and it alone is superior to all of the remaining components of
reality, both objective and subjective. Anthropocentrism has come and can only
naturally lead to violence, to the biased, deliberate, and non-segregated
destruction of all that is natural and a relegation of it to the background,
and then to the most sordid of basins of neglect and distaste, giving every
walking and waking citizen the unearned and immoral right to destroy their
fellow creatures with as much thought as a racist, except with more seeming
acceptability by the surrounding hordes of society for its own anthropocentric
purposes. But most this is an oppression of the reality of nature, separating
humans as being alone and singular in their superiority and absolute aesthetic
power. It pushes out any idea of equality with the rest of nature, any idea
that every form of life is special in its own remarkable way. It narrows the
aesthetics to the level of a single, short-lived primate that has barely sprung
from the grassy plains that suckled it and even now teeters on the edge of
quiet, cancerous obliteration creeping like the vines of adventurous creepers.
Such a view is founded on ideas that are empirically (and inconveniently for a
few) false: that only we possess true intelligence, our lives have the most
meaning, our concerns outrank any other, our technology is the best and most
advanced in existence, our bodies are the desired ideal of all that we have
replaced below us, that affects on the world around will not damage us in the
end or even the beginning. A grand and diverse menagerie of facts that beguile
and titillate the Borgesian cores of our budding imaginations: elephants bury
their dead and symbolically morn their passing while making abstract thought
about planning their labyrinthine trails while also being capable of painting
images of themselves (yet 100 are killed every day on average for their ivory);
the humble honeybee not only uses a quasi-mathematical, dance-like language to
communicate the angle between nearby landmarks and a site rich in nectar-loaded
flowers to its fellow workers, but provides variable chemical information for bees
entering the hive and all individual nodes in the unified collective of its
colony and can even find its way home from four kilometres away from the hive;
the octopus can precisely manipulate thousands of tiny pigments sacks, cells
reflecting light, and miniscule muscles in its skin to blend into its
surroundings so precisely it appears invisible, and even uses simple tools; a
single spider’s orb web can contain up to 60 metres of silk of up to six
different kinds that is strong enough to literally hold up a jet airliner
without breaking, only stretching; tiny water bears can go for decades without
food or water by entering a state of essentially controlled death and can even
survive in the vacuum of space; a forest of trees is linked by thousands of kilometres
of underground fungal threads that allow exchange of information and nutrients
not only between parents and offspring, but even completely different species;
parasitic emerald cockroach wasps sting their host in precise locations in the
brain as to disable their flight response and force them to follow their
attacker who holds onto them by their antennae, like a dog on a leash; a blind
cave salamander, once mistaken for a baby dragon, called the olm can live for
up to 100 years and go without food for up to 10 years; foraminifera,
single-celled organisms found throughout the oceans, individually select grains
used to construct shells ranging from the shape of trees to the spirals of
snail-like abodes; a single fungus covers an area nearly four kilometres across
in eastern Oregon; sponges can re-grow their entire bodies from just scattered
cells; corals create living structures so large that they can be seen from the
Moon (and have been for some 450 million years); sea stars can not only lock
its muscles in place for hours longer than any human could, but often possess
hinged, jaw-like appendages on their skin on slits that can detach from the
main animal and deliver a nasty pinch, but evert their own stomachs out of
bodies to feed and most amazingly, are bereft of the aging so many humans
ludicrously lament about, dying only from disease or injury; all of the
seemingly ‘disposable’ organisms labeled ‘bugs’ and ‘weeds’ provide up to $30
trillion in services, as has been calculated many times before; whales and
dolphins posses some of the largest brain-to-body ratios of all animals, and
establish matriarchal societies with intricately ordained rules while producing
the longest, most-complex songs in the animal kingdom and even use simple
tools.
And lastly,
Furthermore,
I would argue that refusing to take such ideas, and the emotional impact that
they have on the stability and psyches of the dedicated men and women who have
devoted their lives to such wonders and mysteries, seriously, is highly
disrespectful to this group of people, and in many ways perpetuates
unfortunately common stereotypes about them. For anyone who feels a deep and
powerful connection to nature, who allow it to bring meaning to their lives and
motivate them to discover and expand the range of the possible, for both themselves
humanity as a whole, through ceaseless imagination, anyone refusing to take
seriously, regardless of whether or not they agree or disagree, is simply rude.
What is more, this is what those who embrace nature are told time and time
again, constantly pushed into serving dogmatism and having the very philosophy
that has rooted them to the Earth swept over. In this era, the discrimination
and neglect of these people and their role in serving the truth, not to mention
that truth itself, has never been more absurdly extreme: many scientists cannot
be interviewed without having a representative of a political body monitoring
what they say; in America, several scientists have been conned into signing
ant-evolution petitions they, and the empirical evidence, refute; the president
of one of the richest countries in the world thinks that forest management
means raking branches off the ground; representatives of societies that claim
the Earth is flat state that they will not accept anything, even a terrorist
attack reported on the news, unless they directly see it; a young girl dies
because her physician refuses to accept that chimpanzees are evolutionary
cousins of humans due to fundamentalist dogmatism and so transplants an
incompatible baboon heart inside her; climate change advocates have dead
animals left at their doorsteps as a threat; pepper-spray is poured directly
into the eyes of non-violent environmental protesters; some 50% of people in
the United States do not accept evolution; scientists often receive
unnecessary funding cuts; not to mention
the examples of environmental destruction listed above. To disagree with the
way one piece of media discusses issues related to nature is one thing, but to
display a complete lack of sympathy for the people who care about such things,
and often have such intense feelings of anger and neglect that it consumes so
much of their everyday experiences (as I can say from first-hand personal
experience), is quite another. If situations involving anger and bitterness can
be seen past in order to evaluate their relevance to humanitarian issues in
film, then there is no reason why the same approach cannot be taken for films
involving such emotions and tones for films centered around scientific or
ecological issues.
To
me the reaction to this movie by layperson's award ceremonies and organizations,
or reviewers such as you, demonstrates how the anthropocentrism that is present
in the mainstream foundations of society often leads to simplistic
misunderstandings about the themes and larger implications of particular works,
or more simply, keeps people from taking these themes seriously.
In the specific context of this film, you
don't have to agree with the way the film does, but you should at least have
the decency to seriously consider those ideas first, and have at least a basic
knowledge about them, before just going ahead and focussing on some anthropocentric
way of shrugging it off. This applies not only to the scene where the remains
of the brother leak down into the lower layers of the house and lead to a pot
of oil (a clear reference to how oil is formed by the sinking of dead organisms
into the Earth) or the very rapid and aggressive theft of the couple's
belongings after the husband allows huge amounts of guests to pile in (a clear
reference to how our explosion in population over the past couple thousand
years (a mere blink of an eye for the planet) caused our destruction of the
environment to skyrocket, along with a rise in religious fundamentalism and
extremism (as exemplified by the executions carried out by the publisher in the
film)) but also the age difference between the main couple. Many have simply
swept this off as an example of sexism without attempting to connect it to the
thesis. If Lawrence is the Earth and Bardem is the Spinozan accumulation of the
forces of and aesthetics relating to, a much older and more mysterious
life as it is woven into the fabric of the very old cosmos, and Lawrence is
constantly rejuvenated after life goes too far and wrecks everything, then this
could be seen (and has even been described as such by the director and lead
actress) as representing the cycles of extinction and rebirth in the history of
the Earth aided by the older, manipulative forces that encourage life to be
breathed into the world. If such critics were to state that they understood and
appreciated this but found that it has limitations or is missing some key
things, then that would be totally respectable, but by not doing that and
instead seeing the whole thing as being shameful, they are being rather rude to
the people who put their heart and soul into this metaphorical message. Then there's
that baby scene. Here's how I rationalized this scene: It seems obvious to me
that Aronofsky is trying to make a double metaphor here. He is trying to
represent the whole idea of how humanity destroyed Jesus in the Bible, but he's
connecting to something more than that which goes hand-in-hand with the film's
environmental message which ARONOFSKY STATED IS THE REASON HE MADE THE MOVIE.
The child is the product of the physical Mother Earth (Jennifer Lawrence) and
what it provides directly to its inhabitants, and God (Javier Bardem), which in
the Spinozan sense that Aronofsky is interested in exploring (evidenced by the
fact that he calls himself "life" near the film's end and aids in the
regeneration of the Earth with the Earth in the way that life, and all the
physical laws allowing for its inevitable existence, would). In the case of
ecology and environmentalism, this would be the spiritual and rational union
provided by the ideology-uniting capabilities of science (which, in terms of
human history, have been provided to us via the monotheistic traditions that
established the modern scientific community in the time of Newton and his
influences). This is given to humanity, who passes it around so much they
unintentionally destroy its meaning (represented by the baby's life). By the
time it is passed to people hungry to seek power and order in a way that they
can control to benefit on a selfish level (people like Trump, greedy
business tycoons, whacko religious fundamentalists, power-hungry politicians,
and other poorly educated misers who are merely interested in making a
flimsy buck) the currently dead potential of the meaning contained within that
science is stripped away as if it still contains an immortal meaning that can
be clung to and used as a base from which to act continually vulgar towards
Mother Earth. This makes even more sense when one reads the passage in the
Bible where Jesus describes how if his body and blood are consumed (the
foundation for the Eucharist), he says they will gain a sort of spiritual
immortality and immense power. All in all, a disturbing but thoughtful scene
that you don't have to like to appreciate what it’s trying to say. If one were
to say that perhaps this scene is somewhat too personal, but is not
pornographic seeing as it connects to the theme in a way that clearly required
careful thought, then I would say that it would perfectly fine to dislike it,
as I must admit I somewhat do for such reasons, but at least a sufficient
amount of intellectual honesty and respect was applied in the process. If one
were to perform this same process in an equal amount of depth and come to a
different conclusion, I would see no problem with that, but no depth is being
given. To quote the philosopher of science Michael Ruse, when commenting on the
simplistic view of religion New Atheists like Dawkins take " it's like
Selfish Genes, at least do your homework."
Mix in idiocracy and you are good to go
And in Walley... are they killin us or not... is the time this happens important?
The interesting thing about idiocracy is that it is completely wrong about some critical points of its dystopian image. For starters, humans are getting smarter on average every year and the peaks of that knowledge grow ever higher. Also, as people become wealthier, they have fewer offspring (on aggregate) so the population is expected to level off.
However, distrust of institutions is causing the collapse of a lot of systems. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse. Political polarization is also becoming a bigger problem but that didn't really come up all that well in the movie.
The era of Garyx Wormuloid is imminent...Jared's t-shirt says so.
Haraway's quote reminds me of what Treebeard said was happening to the Ents and their flocks the Ents are becoming more treeish while the trees are becoming more Entish