[extropy-chat] Future friendly movies

[Mike Lorrey]

I concur. Such movies should also, besides portraying science and
transhumanism positively, show the true dark underbelly of luddism. One
movie I think actually did this quite well was "AI", which portrayed
the AI boy sympathetically and humanity and its fears of AI negatively.

I have long thought that the Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle novel "Fallen
Angels" would make a good transhumanist movie. Neal Stephenson's
"Cryptonomicon" would do well also.

--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have long been persuaded that the best way to promote a positive
> and 
> hopeful attitude toward future developments in science and technology
> is 
> through movies. Apparently the idea has been taken up by the US 
> establishment.
>
Slashdot<http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/05/1413200&from=rss>:
> 
> *According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is funding classes in 
> screenplay writing for 15
>
scientists<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/movies/04flyb.html?ex=1280808000&en=b35c2085878bcf51&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>.
> The idea is to encourage kids to go into science and engineering
> through 
> mainstream media and thereby presumably bolster long-term US national
> 
> security. While it sounds like a lot of fun for the researchers
> involved, 
> and anything that stems the spiral of the US into a culture of 
> anti-intellectualism is a good thing in my book. Will glamorizing
> science in 
> the movies make kids pay better attention in chemistry class?
> *In the New York Times
>
article<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/movies/04flyb.html?ex=1280808000&en=b35c2085878bcf51&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>the
> idea is using movies to make science sexy again so that American kids
> chose technical careers and replenish a pool of US experts on
> technologies 
> for national security. Professional scientists and science
> communicators are 
> asked to contribute to film making as they are the ones who can
> develop 
> realistic future scenarios: "to reconcile the cinematic suspension of
> 
> disbelief with the scientific method and with their basic purpose of 
> bringing accuracy to the screen".Teaching screenwriting to scientists
> was 
> the brainstorm of Martin Gundersen, a professor of electrical
> engineering at 
> the University of Southern California and sometime Hollywood
> technical 
> adviser. Recently, he was asked to review screenplays by the Sloan 
> Foundation, which awards prizes for scientific accuracy, and found
> most to 
> be "pretty dismal," as he put it."My thought was, since scientists
> have to 
> write so much, for technical journals and papers, why not consider
> them as a 
> creative source?" Dr. Gundersen said.
> I believe the same concepts can be used to promote a friendlier
> attitude 
> toward radical, "transhumanist" scientific advances and their
> deployment in 
> society through technological (and legal) developments. We need
> movies set 
> in believable and "accurate" future scenarios and with a positive or
> at 
> least non-threatening view of future technologies such as radical
> life 
> extension, Mind Machine Interfaces (MMI), and eventually mind
> uploading.
> I think Matrix was a horrible movie as it had a very dark atmosphere
> and 
> made viewers actually scared of the future. There are many excellent
> science 
> fiction novels that could be turned to good pro-science,
> "transhumanist" 
> movies. I am sure we can help the movie industry with ideas and
> scenarios.
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> 


Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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