247. Zombie Sci-Fi Technologies

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ม.ค. 2024
  • Gretchen, stop trying to make Vactrains happen! It's not going to happen!
    - Links for the Curious -
    Hong, S.-H. Technofutures in Stasis: Smart Machines, Ubiquitous Computing, and the Future That Keeps Coming Back. (2021).
    Kehlenbach, E. S. The Subatomic Person: A New Ontology of Big Data. Theory & Event 25, 851-872 (2022).
    1. O’Neill, E. by T. & Hornik, E. by M. High speed transport system. (1995).
    2. Derrida, J., Kamuf, P. & Derrida, J. Specters of Marx: the state of the debt, the work of mourning and the new international. (Routledge, 2011).
    3. Geels, F. W. & Smit, W. A. Failed technology futures: pitfalls and lessons from a historical survey. Futures 32, 867-885 (2000).
    4. Graeber, D. Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit.
    5. Hawkins, A. J. The hyperloop is dead for real this time. The Verge www.theverge.com/2023/12/21/2... (2023).
    6. Hong, S. PREDICTIONS WITHOUT FUTURES*. History and Theory 61, 371-390 (2022).
    7. Isaacson, W. Elon Musk. (Simon & Schuster, 2023).
    8. Salter, R. M. Trans-Planetary Subway Systems: A Burgeoning Capability. www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P609... (1978).
    9. Tiffany, K. Why Go With an Evil-Looking Orb? The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/technolog... (2023).
    10. Daryl Oster - Speedy Travel in a Vacuum Tube | ideacity. www.ideacity.ca/video/daryl-o....
    11. Tube Travel. TV Tropes tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph....
    12. The SciFi Story Robert H. Goddard Published 100 Years Ago. Gizmodo gizmodo.com/the-scifi-story-r... (2014).
    13. Wayback Machine. web.archive.org/web/201406300... (2014).
    14. Vactrain. Wikipedia (2024).

ความคิดเห็น • 34

  • @AnkitSingh-dv9pd
    @AnkitSingh-dv9pd 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    Thunk never disappoints

    • @bthomson
      @bthomson 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Just a bit of a left-handed compliment? thunk shines out like the shimmer of shook foil!

  • @CaraiseLink
    @CaraiseLink 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    [Sitting on a bench scattering bread crumbs on the watery void of the internet] Don't mind me, just feeding the algorithms.

    • @THUNKShow
      @THUNKShow  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Much appreciated! 🍞🦆🦆🦆🦆

  • @joshuasummers7554
    @joshuasummers7554 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +12

    Observing something like the "hyperloop", watching a billionaire go full throttle unearthing dead tech ideas to build his brand and portfolio, to him and all his "hop ons" basically going off a cliff togther, has been incredibly educational.
    Jokes aside though, I did hate those "hyperloop pod competitions ", where they basically tricked hopeful young engineers into helping them with free RnD for years 🤷

    • @alastairzotos
      @alastairzotos 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I heard Musk never really intended the hyperloop to actually be built. It was meant to sabotage any California HSR, which would ultimately lead to more Tesla sales

  • @tomholroyd7519
    @tomholroyd7519 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    ST:TNG literally had an addictive video game that was the focus of a whole episode --- created by brain hackers trying to take over the ship

    • @THUNKShow
      @THUNKShow  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      True! The point I was making was more how the writers dreamt up communicators & tricorders, but didn't connect them to the dangers we see manifesting in smartphones.

  • @undercoverduck
    @undercoverduck 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Absolutely amazing video as always. Love how you manoeuvred through the interactions between art, tech, society, and philosophy.

    • @bthomson
      @bthomson 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Serpentine Shelly!

  • @PetersonSilva
    @PetersonSilva 12 วันที่ผ่านมา +1

    aaaayy a reference to the left hand of darkness? I love this video even more

  • @bthomson
    @bthomson 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Not quite a void! Videos from thunk provide jewel- like projections! 💎

  • @Macieks300
    @Macieks300 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    AI is also a good example of this. When AI like ChatGPT became part of mainstream popular culture last year I remember a lot of non-technical people were referring to sci-fi stories for proof of something that the current real AI is or will be. When all people know about AI is based on Terminator or Asimov's books it hinders talking about how real world AI behaves greatly. But of course it turns out that real AI is orders of magnitude more complicated than AI from sci-fi stories.
    It's also true that AI is hyped to such high levels as your NFT and Bitcoin examples. People say that it's just yet another thing tech bros hype and it will again not live up to its hype. But in my opinion AI is actually an exception to this rule and thinking that it works the same as NFTs just because it's a new technology is pretty ignorant. What's also pretty bad and actually harmful is ignoring progress in AI and experts saying that AGI can appear in a couple next years. People are so used to hearing that some technology is x years away that they stopped trusting experts no matter if this time it may be true or not.

  • @anakimluke
    @anakimluke 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    No newton today but I forgive you because I DID laugh at the intro joke >:( It's over! My bar is too low now!!

    • @bthomson
      @bthomson 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Miss the pup!

  • @boiwaif
    @boiwaif 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    retrofuturism, lost futures, etc. it would literally be easier to just suspend a rail line at higher altitudes and a much cooler idea

    • @THUNKShow
      @THUNKShow  6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      *rhythmically pounding table*
      Sky train SKY TRAIN SKY TRAIN!!!

  • @thomasrdiehl
    @thomasrdiehl 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Some points on the communicators: I know trekkies love flip phone,s but let's be real: It's just a convenient shape to get something as large as a phone to fit into a pocket easily. It's likely inspired more by pocket mirrors than it is by the communicator.
    To add to that, the flap on the communicators does not even serve any function. In flip phones, you get half the phone in each side. But what does that flap on the communicator even do? It just seems to be a lid that doesn't even protect against dirt due to having all these holes. At best it serves as an antenna, something that would be vastly oversized if implemented that way in a modern phone. Not to mention they have no way of selecting a recipient, acting much more like walkie-talkies than phones. Seems to me to be a complete coincidence they look somewhat alike.
    Here's a fun one: People seem to treat 1984 as something that actually happened when talking about Newspeak. They just take it as an example of how language can shape our thinking not recognizing that, because it's an idea from a novel, whether it actually works or not depends mostly on if the author wanted it to work and does not provide an actual example of something like this working in the real world.

    • @THUNKShow
      @THUNKShow  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Good guess - the flip-up part on original communicators is an antenna!
      I do think there's an interesting phenomenon in how people parse science fiction that grants greater priority to the specific failures illustrated in the story, even if those failures are just what the author imagined would be best for the narrative. Everyone's panicked about a killer AI, nobody's worried about the very real & obvious paperclip optimization happening with corporations, or the use of AI for sentencing in the judicial system.

    • @thomasrdiehl
      @thomasrdiehl 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@THUNKShowTrue for both authors and readers, the state of media literacy specific to sf is odd.
      Authors are weird about worldbuilding and readers are weird about sf not actually being in the business of predicting the future (with exceptions).

  • @namnatulco
    @namnatulco 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I'm wondering whether your thesis also translates to sociological aspects of sci-fi, since those are also quite persistent (e.g., star trek's post-scarcity society or Ursula leguin's anarchist moon, as well as all the dystopian stuff you already mentioned in the video).

  • @YT-Lucas
    @YT-Lucas 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    7:55 - I can't believe you would just steal people's NFTs like that

    • @THUNKShow
      @THUNKShow  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      CHEESE IT, IT'S THE NFT COPS

    • @bthomson
      @bthomson 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      🧀👮

  • @uwtartarus
    @uwtartarus 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    There was a TNG episode that had an addictive video game. 🤔

    • @THUNKShow
      @THUNKShow  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      True! The point I was making was more how the writers dreamt up communicators & tricorders, but didn't connect them to the dangers we see manifesting in smartphones.

    • @uwtartarus
      @uwtartarus 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@THUNKShow 💯

  • @ineshahuja9359
    @ineshahuja9359 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    i love you

  • @IanMacLeansnv
    @IanMacLeansnv 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I hardly see any of what you're talking about, unless it's hard sci-fi and not even then. Entertainment not only avoids technical details, it avoids logistics. The scale of construction, the majority of the time, demands matter conversion. Yet nobody treats this as a plot element.