I was watching a review of the old THX 1138 film last night.
And it reminded me of other reviews of horror from different generations.
Many people say that horror in media often reflects what the people fear the most at a given time in history.
In the 50s we had space invasions. Aliens invading and killing everyone. Or the body snatchers. Manchurian candidate. War of the worlds. People’s fear of society spies and brain washing. Nuclear weapons.
Later 50s we started getting creature features. Unknown monsters lurking in the shadows.
In the 60s we moved to psychological horror and fear of terrible people living next door. Neighbors and community members who hid who they really were. Hidden rot. Rosemary’s baby. Psycho. People were really paranoid about satanism and spies.
70s and early 80s. Vietnam war. Slashers. Being chased by an unstoppable enemy. An enemy with an unknowable persistent motivation.
Mid to late 80s also saw a boom in dark scifi. Showcasing a common belief/fear that China and Japan would dominate the world. Alien. Blade runner. Both of these styles relied heavily on the idea of Asian culture becoming dominant and even modern cyberpunk continues this trend.
Alien and blade runner, are set in the same universe and start to tackle issues of how capitalism devalues human life.
This may have been one of the first films to really make that a big part of the plot.
But aside from these two, the 90s bright back slashers. 2000s had more supernatural horror. But now we have came back to the 80s fear of capitalism.
People are realizing again that the direction things are going is not only a dystopian one, but one that is closer than ever before.
They realize we are so close to losing to corrupt billionaires.
Even the new alien earth showcases the world being owned by a few companies.
We see every aspect of human life be comodofied. Sold. Bought. With the expectation that you should want to sell whatever you have.
Media in games like fallout and the actual cyberpunk 2077 games shows how much people fear these outcomes.
Where you can only get medical care if you pay for expensive subscription.
Where you can be auto evicted by a computer.
The whole idea of fallout is companies manufactured nuclear Armageddon to take more control from the people. And when the people tried to rebuild. They bombed them again. All while the rich lived in life extension tanks. Or had their brains put in robots.
The zero dawn horizon is a pretty depressing game about how a robotics company made murder bots. That were fueled by organic matter. Made a back door for government to access. And then they were coded wrong and literally ate everything on the planet.
This shit is real though. That’s why these games and shows hit so hard.
We know these delusional billionaires really are planning on doing shit like that.
I just see the fear we all have being more prominent in gritty media. And the fact that it’s there says a lot about the state we are in.
I’m so tired of these fucking assholes who think they’re so smart only because they’re too wealthy to encounter people willing to tell them how fucking stupid they are.
They think they are so smart because they have no ethics.
“Look at me, I figured out how to exploit people and do extortion and lie, I’m a fucking genius and basically a god”.
Sociopaths. All of them.
Power doesnt corrupt. Its just far too easy for the already corrupted to seize and hold onto power, while the uncorrupted are too honest to beat them to it.
All boils down to that.
Any society who cares about its weakest members would ostracize such scum. Instead we celebrate them on TV and event make them our representatives. It really shows what society values: people that can make that singular number go up, the faster the better, regardless of sacrifice.
They are really wanting to be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
The “manifesto” is an excerpt from the CEO’s book, posted as a twitter thread, reposted below for anyone curious about the flavor palate of boots.
Because we get asked a lot.
The Technological Republic, in brief.
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Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
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We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
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Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
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The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
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The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
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National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
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If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
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Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
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We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
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The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
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Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
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The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
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No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
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American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
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The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
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We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
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Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
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The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
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The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
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The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
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Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
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We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska
These people talk like they’re somewhere between JRPG villains and Hideo Kojima. My eyes glazed over a few times trying to parse this pseudophilosophical nonsense. If this had come from someone with far less power, I’d have dismissed it as the ramblings of a crazy person.
Incidentally, I happen to be watching Minority Report right now. I hope that’s not going to be the future I live in someday.
Edit: oh neat. This is my 500th comment.
iPhone. ? Really. Not antibiotics? Vaccines? modern medicine ?
The fucking iPhone?
Shows how small minded these losers are.
Really? How about modern sewage, water treatment, garbage removal, electrification?
I mean yeah. Sewage removal is definitely a big one. Indoor plumbing.
Definitely on a top 10 list.
I like to divide the modern living arrangement into three broad categories I’ve wisely named the 21st century, 20th century, and 19th century.
When 21st century inventions go down, I can’t watch AI slop videos or catch up on the freshest t-porn. Life goes on. Don’t care in the slightest. Because the 20th century inventions are still there.
When 20th century inventions go down, I can’t cook food easily and I need to start burning things for light. Hot water will only last a day or two. Food in the freezer will have to start to go. But as long as 19th century inventions are there it’s livable.
When 19th century inventions go down, it’s pretty much the end of civilization.
Whilst the industrial revolution started with mechanical power; the harnessing of steam essentially. The modern world owes everything to the mastery of the electron and the photon, and more generally the exquisite control of electromagnetism.
The manipulation of electrons enables the iPhone; touted as the possible pinnacle of achievement; basically every industrial process on the planet is monitored and controlled by electromagnetic means.
Our true highest achievement is the ongoing development of the control of electromagnetic phenomena; we bend electrons and photons to our will, manipulate matter on the smallest scales using these forces, measure the bending of the fabric of reality, and probe the secrets of the universe. The iPhone is but one small aspect of this continuum of knowledge.
My manifesto: We must punish these people swiftly and effectively. Failing to do so is why we are in this situation now.
I only got to 8 so far and it’s already fucking bonkers. It’s all fear and power and control to these people. “If we don’t build the apocalypse first someone else will!” oh… good argument. I suppose they remember the last time there was a race to build a weapon, who won that and what happened and they don’t want a taste of their own medicine.
I’m not reading all that because it’s clearly written by someone who has completely forgotten what grass looks like, but this bit:
National service should be a universal duty
Go to hell, you can throw me in jail before I do anything to help the military.
You know what, I 100% agree with that statement. It doesn’t have to be military, but many countries have mandatory service usually right after high school.
I think it would instill a sense of responsibility towards their community, a sense of hard work, pride, etc. I’m talking about like working in a park, wildlife clean-up, homeless shelter food stocking, and yes also military. I don’t think the military part should be mandatory, but if some people want to go that route as their “national service” then that should be an option.
We have already made it extremely hard to be a young adult in this country, why not add an extra helping of shit on their plates, to make older people feel better about their choices?
I see let the wealthy and people over 50 contribute this mandatory service.
Yes a civic service duty would be helpful, but I’m not sure making it mandatory would work out unless it were presented as one of several options.
I’m sure it’s not the way the manifest is meant but as I see it: You can either have no army, which would be nice but unfortunately that’s not how this world functions. Or you have a army. This army currently is made of people who either want to fight or they don’t see another way to pay their bills.So they find it good to follow orders or don’t have a choice. I find neither of them trustworthy to handle a weapon.
Now image that this army is mostly built on people between 20 and 30 years old, everyone does it’s service for about a year (except higher ranks where you need more experience, let’s not go to much into details). The major part of the soldiers are people with normal lives waiting for them after finishing their duty. Do you think those people would engage in a meaningless war? Or turn against their own if someone like Trump wants them to? They would fight to defend their owns but the majority wouldn’t follow unethical orders.
I’m sure it’s not the way the manifest is meant but as I see it: You can either have no army, which would be nice but unfortunately that’s not how this world functions.
Costa Rica says hello.
The major part of the soldiers are people with normal lives waiting for them after finishing their duty. Do you think those people would engage in a meaningless war? Or turn against their own if someone like Trump wants them to?
Are we memory holing that the National Guard was deployed against multiple US cities within the past year?
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It’s like Project 25: Extra Bonus DLC
This shit makes dystopian cyberpunk stories cute fairytales I can read to my toddlers. An alternative has to be worked towards. For all our interest.
It’s almost enough to make Chuck Schumer mumble “Careful now!”
I say this from the bottom of my heart…
Fuck Chuck.
Ya know the more and longer this shit goes for the more I start thinking those whackjobs back in the 70s to the 90s who thought technology was the devil may have been on to something. Still think they’re wrong but I do think the world would improve if you had to install your own OS on computers and laptops, perhaps that would collapse the underlying social infrastructure these shitstains require to exist.
Is it that technology is evil though, or is it the people who own the technology, or the economic system in which this all takes place?
It’s always just how humans are channeling their own shittiness through the medium.
Technology is morally inert, but I thinks it’s moreso that people on average can’t responsibly interact with technology both due to a lack of understanding and it’s secondary effects due to said lack of understanding. While our current issues are due to the is definitely being exasperated by the current economic system and those who largely own it I think a lot of it is inherently an issue with widespread technological integration.
For example the job market it entirely fucked in part due to online applications and companies who feed on that problem. But the core issue with online applications is that there’s basically no easy way to the flow of applications resulting in a practically unsortable mess in sheer quantity. Meanwhile for in person application submission the control is built in from needing the person to physically show up with a print out.
IDK this is just something that’s been bouncing around in my head for a bit. That over computerized infrastructure and interconnectivity is actively detrimental at least insofar as ease of use in concerned.
You should take a look at Benjamin, Horkheimer and Adorno and the other members of the School of Frankfurt. They did a lot of thinking in the 40s-50s around mass media, the advances of technology and the regressions of our societies because of it.
I don’t recall the exact book but one of them advanced a theory that basically said what you’re suggesting. That technology now advances faster than humans’ ability to spiritually receive, understand and integrate it. So instead of mastering it, we’re being enslaved by it.
Thanks for the suggestion I may look into it. Though I personally think one of the main problems is near instant and universal information transfer, bit it does probably have a good bit of overlap.
Seems a little late for that… but by all means do SOMETHING.
“Alarms” are sounding, what more do you want???
Exactly, came to post:
“Democrats should develop an actionable agenda of democratic reform in case they return to power,” Mudde wrote. “This cannot be limited to institutional reforms, but must include reining in the power and wealth of technofascist companies and individuals.”
University of Michigan political scientist Donald Moynihan published an analysis of the Palantir manifesto and concluded that “on the whole, the manifesto’s vision… is that of a US government and its tech allies as dominant players, unconstrained by accountability.”
😳
Don’t really need the ‘techno’ part
