Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

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> More generally, we have a decided lack of novels describing a better future.

Maybe that's because it's hard to be optimistic about the future starting from now? The worst case is that the environment goes to hell and we die, or the economy crashes and life becomes hell, or killer robots kill us all (at the behest of some state actor or just because they loooove paperclips). The best case is we get humans to not behave like humans (so some people are less miserable), and then we either upgrade ourselves into unrecognizable transhumans or we become pets to transhumans or incomprehensible AIs.

> To a considerable extent, futurism is still stuck in the 1960s. What passes for futurism today is a minor tweak on the present.

Maybe that's just because we've picked most of the low hanging fruit that we could see in the '60s, and what remains still feels pretty far off? The best possible future that we can hope for can be summed up as "now, but don't fuck it up."

Honestly, the first part of your response sounds pretty much like the very symptom of the problem discussed here. You presented a very bleak outlook, no doubt informed as much by dystopian fiction (and the culture enjoying it) as it is by rational analysis.

If everything seems destined to hell, with no one capable of doing anything about it, people just give up and live their lives focused on short-term needs. This ends up directly contributing to those world problems we're all worried about. Maybe an influx of positive fiction could help change the overall mood towards the idea that the brighter future is both possible and worth fighting for?

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Honestly, everyone here owes themselves to watch Disney's "Tomorrowland". Yes, it's a bit clichéd. But it's also heartwarming, and for me it was the first thing since many years that left me smiling and full of energy. The movie asks some very pointed questions about the state of the world, and covers this very topic: that our obsession with dystopias is forming a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that this is a kind of dumb thing to do to ourselves.

Cheerful concurrence. It is worth remembering that most of history and indeed the present can be described in very bleak terms given a little bit of effort.

Humans have good reason to fear the future. The future is very scary. However, the future has always been very scary, and it isn't any scarier now than it has been since the invention of record keeping, where basically the same threats were present. The past is also very scary to anyone who sits down and realises that the people in the past are basically the same as the people in the present.

The future isn't going to be any bleaker than the past, it will be just as full of hope, success and vibrancy.

Well, any dystopia you can conceive is probably going to be utopia to someone.

Everyone here owes themselves to watch Disney's "Tomorrowland".

"'We saved a seat for you?' That's a commercial."

I was just looking at stills from Tomorrowland, for inspiration for things to build in Second Life. Second Life is a good test for futuristic architecture, because, after you build it, you get to live, work, and play in it. You find out if anyone else wants to. Not much passes that test.

Tomorrowland is a theme park. Swooping roads with no offramps. Big round unflyable craft that land in cradles. Giant tubes full of plants. It's not a working future.

"Minority Report" is considered one of the better examples of futuristic urban design in film. It suffers from the usual problems. Giant arcology structures mean nobody in the interior volume has a window. The road network's connectivity is far too low. Overall, though, it looks halfway workable.

"I, Robot" is a bit more workable. Worlds with a lot of "nature", like "Avatar" and "Jurassic Park" do OK. The giant tree thing tends to be overdone.

There's a whole world building department at USC's film school.[1] Their videos are not impressive. There's a startup in this space.[2] Mostly they do title sequences and ads.

[1] http://worldbuilding.institute

[2] https://www.imaginaryforces.com/

Oh, so Second Life is still a thing? I was meaning to check it out for close to a decade now.

> Tomorrowland is a theme park. Swooping roads with no offramps. Big round unflyable craft that land in cradles. Giant tubes full of plants. It's not a working future.

Yeah, the architecture definitely isn't. It just looks nice. But that wasn't the thing I meant in my comment. I meant the underlying theme. Better future through competence, dreams and - yes - technology. And (spoilers) how all was almost lost when they unleashed the positive feedback loop of expecting dystopia and giving up. I like that movie because it's the first thing in a long time that rekindles this, perhaps childlike, positive thinking, that we can make things better.

"- Huxley's "Brave New World", Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", Orwell's "1984": once considered fiction, these futuristic novels are actually happening right now and they seem to be getting worse. Yes, Miss Newton?

- Can we fix it?

- Sorry?

- I get things are bad, but what are we doing to fix it?"

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Thanks for the thoughts on urban design in other sci-fi movies. I admit I never thought much about it when I watched them; I'll likely pay more attention from now on. Also anything in Second Life you recommend checking out?

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EDIT: Also for "commercial", it was great. I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw rockets landing old sci-fi/SpaceX style, and a launch loop just casually shooting a rocket the next moment. Sci-fi porn that scene was for sure.

I’m not sure why we need to be sarcastic about a future in which “we upgrade ourselves into transhuman”. There is nothing special about “humanity”. Emotions are likely result of chemicals. We will transform ourselves and what those beings feel most likely will not resemble what we feel today. They will have their culture and art and they will not care about ours at all. It is inevitable if there is no disastrous event happening. We just need to accept that. We are one tiny step in evolution like dinosaur.

>Emotions are likely result of chemicals.

Your entire brain is the result of chemicals. Emotions, as such, are a result of your interoceptive cortical systems.

Almost makes you wish it were the 1930s, eh?

Radium, the wonder drug!

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