LHC it my way
It was a preposterous theory, but one that I wish was true – that a particle is sabotaging a machine from the future to stop itself being discovered. It’s what happens when scientists watch too much scifi. Thank the Terminator franchise for that one.
That said, it makes me wonder how much of what NASA does is inspired by pulpy novels with lurid covers and weekly TV episodes with shaky sets.
There’s an article here that suggests that the answer to that is probably more than you’d expect… Computers, face recognition technology, cloning…
But that raises a very interesting point. That era of sci-fi is arguably more optimistic than some of our current fare, especially the stuff that makes it into popular culture. Take Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. There’s a grim tale…
In fact, a few films I’ve seen recently have had a distinctly anti-technology bias. Gamer and Surrogates stand out. They raise questions of how far we actually want technology to interfere with our lives, and whether we are ready for a world in which the boundaries between mechanical and organic are blurred… and if we really want more of Bruce Willis.
Do we really want more of Bruce Willis?
I suppose what I’m getting at is this… have we finally finished with the idea that technology will solve our problems and help us live more fulfilling and varied lives and adopted?
Is the hoverboard – a symbol of technology that we are (still) waiting for – becoming less of a cool way of getting around and more of a sinister ploy to destroy our legs before enslaving the human race?
It would be really handy if someone or something would travel from the future to tell us which.*
__________________________________________
* special note – beware of falling for the Great Joe Bivin’s trick: “Walk into a room looking slightly disorientated (and possibly naked) before asking for the date and then, upon the reply, shouting the phrase, ‘it worked!’.”
I had one of those Hadron Colliders once… worst car I ever owned.
Let me guess… the flux capacitors kept failing?
I blame the Libyans.
My husband likes to make jokes about Large Hardon Colliders. It’s such an easy transposition error to make… the difference between “dr” and “rd”… and such a vast chasm in meaning.
Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #585
i thought it was kind of ironic when you posted that last comic just as a started re-reading “A Clockwork Orange”
now I’m getting suspicious.
anti-technology messages in SF have always kind of bothered me, most of them seem to be the product of a writer’s lack of research and warped logic.
The big error isn’t that science will solve all our problems- it’s the idea that human life without problems is even possible. We’re very good at creating our own problems, no matter the level of technology involved.
BTW, Adam, you didn’t send me your address!
Joseph Hewitt´s last blog ..Hello Mudder
Well said
Presentations Expert´s last blog ..Personality Development Programme
I like your attempts to blackmail/male?? the people of the future.
Ben´s last blog ..Grass Seeds
I really like this strip….
I think the technology advancement is an inevitable step that humankind will take… I just can’t decide if its going to be like watching a train wreck happen but not being able to stop it….
(I’m guessing that “we” may not beable to take it too far with current paranoia, and ethics….)
And its a good point about how NASA is inspired, after 9/11 the F.I.B. were asked if they ever made contingency plans against terrorism that crops in hollywood films (namely because the topic was that 9/11 did seem like something out of a movie at the time), and their response was that if they made a contingency plan for every film ever produced in Hollywood that contains terrorism or a terrorist attack, they’d never do anything else but that………….
“Do we really want more of Bruce Willis?”
Definitely yes, but like he was in “Die Hard” and not “Fifth Element”!
Nina´s last blog ..Kontakt bei Problemen
Naw he’s too old for Die Hard now. Fifth Element, too. Willis is another one of those actors who needs to find a new shtick or pack it in. Most of the ones that spring to mind are comedians, though, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey. I foresee a dystopian future wherein these actors have continued to make worse and worse movies and it destroys civilization. Which it would.
The Great Joe Bivins´s last blog ..Day Thirty-Five: Blogsperiment Results Show
I like the GJB trick… I may try that. I know someone at the physics department at Penn State… I wonder if I could get her to sneak me in somewhere I shouldn’t be able to get to, and make a bright flash with some smoke, too…?
Also, I’m down for more Bruce Willis. Provided it’s like Twelve Monkeys.
Wasn’t there a deep space probe that NASA launched last year that they had a write in contest to name? Steven Colbert asked al of his viewers to write in, and he won, but NASA didn’t want to call it the Colbert, so they went with the second place winner instead: the Enterprise
Your recollection of the NASA thing seems to be a hodge podge of actual events. NASA had a contest to name a new module for the ISS, which Stephen Colbert hijacked (mostly in response to Scientology having already hijacked it by writing in “Xenu”). Colbert won but NASA ended up calling it Tranquility, and instead named a treadmill C.O.L.B.E.R.T.
But back when they were working on the space shuttles they had a contest to name one of the first prototype shuttles and Star Trek fans managed to get it named OV-101 Enterprise. Unfortunately they never used the Enterprise for space flights. But there is a great picture of the cast of Star Trek standing near it all dressed in casual seventies attire (taken sometime before the first Star Trek film).
The Great Joe Bivins´s last blog ..Day Thirty-Five: Blogsperiment Results Show
Oh THAT’s what it was. Thanks for straightening me out. Did you look it up, or is your memory actually better than mine? (I could’ve fact checked… but I was lazy.)
Roo´s last blog ..Walking away.
I remembered all of it except what they ended up calling the ISS node in question and the number of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. I was keenly following the Colbert thing back when it was happening and being a Trekkie I was quite familiar with the Enterprise space shuttle story. I’m lazy, too, but I’m also obsessive compulsive, so I almost always fact check.
The Great Joe Bivins´s last blog ..Day Thirty-Five: Blogsperiment Results Show
I hear lazy OCD’s all have iPhones or ‘Droids these days…
Roo´s last blog ..Walking away.
have we finally finished with the idea that technology will solve our problems and help us live more fulfilling and varied lives and adopted?
Is that the assumption we readers must make? In other words, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that human kind unavoidably believes that technology will more likely be our friend than foe?
I’d like to see virtual reality become commercially viable first….^J^
Movies about and set in the past are really about the present; movies set in the future are really about our hyper-self-awareness and anxiety. And, when the world in the future goes to pot, technology always reverts back to some strange hodge-podge of Industrial Revolution aesthetics with dotcom boom functionality.
Yes, i exaggerate…. no space crafts are being manipulated by any HALs.
sitting pugs´s last blog ..Off Topic: Today’s Verse 32
I don’t know why any one wants Bruce Willis. Like so many other Hollywood male leads, he can’t act and he looks silly.
Ben´s last blog ..Smoke and Bubbles
Could the Norwegian spiral be the higgs bosen????
http://gizmodo.com/5422574/giant-mysterious-spiral-takes-over-the-skies-of-norway
On a side note: when you said:
beware of falling for the Great Joe Bivin’s trick: “Walk into a room looking slightly disorientated (and possibly naked) before asking for the date and then, upon the reply, shouting the phrase, ‘it worked!’.”
I had to read it twice to understand it. The first time, I thought it said “asking for a date.”
But on the other hand, that’s probably how I would go about it, if I were still in the market for a significant other. Run naked into a roomful of strangers, ask if any of them want to date me, and give a shout of elation if it actually worked.
Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #594
I think you’ve unconsciously mined the premise of a romantic comedy which has yet to be made.
The Great Joe Bivins´s last blog ..HAIC: The Lost Story