[ExI] Kingsman

[Max More]

>
> ​
> It was a lot more interesting than you might expect for something

based off a comic book.
>

​Keith, clearly you don't read enough (good) comic books! (Or haven't
watched the several excellent comic book-based movies). I add my own
recommendation of Kingsman -- kind of a blend of James Bond, Austin Powers,
and (the first) Charlie's Angel's movie.

I'm not sure I'd call Gazelle "disabled". Having replacement blade-legs
didn't slow her down and made it much easier to slice people in two.

Here's a list of comics with transhumanist themes (plus some others that
are just really good), although I need to update it:

http://strategicphilosophy.blogspot.com/2009/05/comics-of-transhumanist-interest.html
​


On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 10:23 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Arel, my wife, is much more of a movie person than I am.  She wanted
> to see one, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” so we went this evening
>
> IMDB describes it thus:  “A super-secret spy organization recruits an
> unrefined but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive
> training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech
> genius.”
>
> It was a lot more interesting than you might expect for something
> based off a comic book.  It is set in a world where global warming is
> the consensus and said extremely rich tech genius dude by the name of
> Valentine (played by Samuel L. Jackson) decides the only way to cope
> is to kill most of the population.
>
> It’s full of comic book violence, but the underlying politics is
> rather interesting.  I didn't know the concerns about global warming
> and overpopulation had penetrated far enough into the culture to base
> a story on thwarting an evil genius whose idea of coping with global
> warming is by killing off most of the population by inducing them into
> a killing rage.  The fundamentalist church scene where the enraged
> congregation members are all armed and kill each other was an amusing
> twist.
>
> A few years ago I ran into a number of people with similar views to
> the Valentine character.  They didn’t think it was desirable to solve
> the energy problem and commented on one of my early power satellite
> article.  http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5485
>
> The raging debate over the desirability of solving the energy problem
> became so noisy that another blog commented on it.
>
> “If you take a few minutes to read this blog, and again the comments,
> you find the dissonance on full display.  On the one hand you have a
> person saying that there may be an energy answer after fossil fuels.
> On the other hand you have lots of people not only saying it is not
> possible, but directly arguing that a human die-back is more desirable
> than cheap energy.”
>
>
> http://www.futurist.com/2009/06/15/energy-and-the-future-space-based-power-and-cognitive-dissonance/
>
> My sum up comment to the whole thing was:
>
> "Perhaps it is incorrect of me to assume they are in favor of a die
> off when they reject that there even could be a solution to the
> carbon/energy problems.  Operationally though it's the same thing."
>
> It’s quite strange to have the attitudes of people you were debating
> some 6 years ago define a movie villain.
>
> Keith
>
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-- 
Max More, PhD
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader
President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
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