8 ms·

I always find it interesting that sci-fi depictions of "evolved" humans (i.e. many years in the future) usually depict very tall, thin - even willowy - figures.

by ErrantX 17y ago

I always find it interesting that sci-fi depictions of "evolved" humans (i.e. many years in the future) usually depict very tall, thin - even willowy - figures. That seems to fly in the face of general trend :)

gfodor 17y ago
Except in Wall-e
- hackermom 17y ago
  Interestingly, WALL-E really nails the reality of western man's search for perfected convenience.
  - axod 17y ago
    It really should have been billed as "Not a fun kids movie" IMHO. Still surprises me that people liked that movie.
    - adamhowell 17y ago
      It's still the only movie my 3-yr-old daughter will sit through. The first 30 minutes is some of the best storytelling ever put to film, IMHO. So much told with so little. Other Pixar movies like Monsters, Inc. or Cars are either too scary or too talky. Wall-E is the perfect balance, and such a well told story that I never tire of it, either.
      - eldenbishop 17y ago
        My friends kid can only watch the beginning. When the humans show up, he starts crying. To scary.
    - run4yourlives 17y ago
      What do mean? Movies that have points are not to be enjoyed? A movie cannot be entertaining and insightful?
      - axod 17y ago
        It's just more of an adult / documentary thing IMHO. They spent way too much trying to make some principled point rather than entertain. Same with 'Up'. I think perhaps they were catering to people who nominate Oscars or something. My kids were bored. Gimmie Princess and the frog, Hercules, Aladdin, Little Mermaid etc etc any day.
        zackattack 17y ago
        i fell asleep
        narag 17y ago
        I don't know why you're downvoted, even if I disagree. I and my son enjoyed the film a lot. IIRC he was 4 or 5 then. Maybe your kids were older?
        axod 17y ago
        They were 3 / 6 / 10. "Up" was a similar story. Looking forward to Toy Story 3 though definitely. Much more fun.
  - narag 17y ago
    ...the reality of western man's... What do you mean "western"? What do you mean "man"? Edit: Sometimes it seems that "too terse" comments are disliked or misunderstood. So let me explain: it seems that people in the USA, as others have already said in other comments, don't really realise that you're a special case in this matter. Of course there are fat people here in Europe, but not in the same proportion and magnitude. I don't think it's related just to habits. Something bad is in the food additives for sure. The other question is just evil, so I'm guilty :-) While the more politically correct "person" is often more and more used to refer to both men and women, you (with a "mom" nick) used "men" to restrict, at the same time you were using "western" to expand.
    - xiaoma 17y ago
      Don't let the existence of worse problems elsewhere blind you. From the WHO: Obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. Its prevalence has tripled in many countries in the WHO European Region since the 1980s, and the numbers of those affected continue to rise at an alarming rate, particularly among children. Obesity is already responsible for 2-8% of health costs and 10-13% of deaths in different parts of the Region.
      - narag 17y ago
        I'm not blind to this problem myself. I'm afraid whatever happens to the USA could come soon to us. That's why this issue interests me so much and that's why I've changed my habits about food, losing 15 kg since last summer. I also keep a lot of attention over my son in this matter. It's true that now we see morbidly obese persons more often than twenty years ago. But it's not common... yet.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      > you (with a "mom" nick) used "men" to restrict man is a historically recognised contraction of human. I think your analysing it too deeply ;) (I also doubt you will find many people here who abide by the idea of political correctness) (and your comparison doesn't work too well; is Europe on a par with the East in terms of obesity problems? If not then the original statement is, surely, correct).
- adamhowell 17y ago
  They got a lot of shit for it at the time, too. Every time I see everyone in a train or line looking down at their phones, I also can't help but think of Wall-e.
  - roc 17y ago
    > "They got a lot of shit for it at the time, too." A good deal of it very well-deserved. For a movie exposing the blind-alley of rampant consumerism, it was being sold via a dizzying array of Cheap Plastic Crap, much of it bundled with the very junk food the movie skewered.
    - derefr 17y ago
      Isn't that for the best, though? If you want to communicate a moral message, you should target it so the people most in need of it will consume it as part of their daily routine, instead of having to go out of their way to find it.
      - roc 17y ago
        Do as I say, not as I do? Is that still a popular way to communicate moral messages? Even coming from Disney in the first place the message came across as the old argument of a priest-of-past-sins being preferable to a priest-of-purity.
        pohl 17y ago
        What, exactly, are you implying is the "as I do" part here? Are you saying that the employees that make up Pixar are, on the whole, frequent and regular customers of the fast food industry? I would expect that living in/near the bay area would give them good odds of being in a different demographic.
        roc 17y ago
        I was running with derefr's suggestion that it was intentional targeting. Intentionally try to send a message to a demographic by placing Wall-E in their natural path would be a decision made by the corporation well above the level of Pixar's animators. That body would almost certainly be the same one that green-lit the avalanche of Cheap Plastic Crap. So, even if they believed Pixar's message, and were intentionally trying to preach to those at-risk, they were saying "you should learn from Wall-E" (do as I say) while simultaneously saying "also, buy this plastic crap" (not as I do).
- btilly 17y ago
  And Idiocracy.
- epi0Bauqu 17y ago
  and Idiocracy
- tensafefrogs 17y ago
  Am I the only one that immediately thought of Wall-E when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad?
gaius 17y ago
One thing that's always bemused me about scifi is future superhumans adapted for ultimate survival (e.g. the Nietzscheans in Andromeda) are tall, muscular, lean, brave, intelligent, etc. Whereas for survival, you want humans that are small (so they need less food), weak because they have slow metabolisms, hairy to keep the heat in, fat because they are good at storing food in case of famine, cowardly so they avoid risk at any cost, dumb so they just repeat procedures that are known to work, and so on.
- cema 17y ago
  You don't want them dumb: adaptability is paramount for evolution. Smart people are more adaptable.
  - gaius 17y ago
    OK yeah, but you'd still want basically hobbits, not supermodels.
    - endtime 17y ago
      You're forgetting something important...I don't know about you, but I'd be more inclined to make babies with a supermodel than a hobbit.
      - daeken 17y ago
        Well, really depends on the hobbit...
- DrSprout 17y ago
  You're at least partially confusing individual survivability with group survivability. Absolute cowardice, while beneficial to an individual, is ultimately so problematic for the group that it will result in everyone's death. Dumbly repeating procedures that are known to work without analysis will not only cause stagnation, but also likely cause industrial and environmental collapse unless a system is so tightly controlled that it is impossible for any procedure to lose effectiveness. And unless technological improvement is impossible, this is clearly a suboptimal survival strategy, as survivability may not be improved.
SamAtt 17y ago
I'm not sure I agree with that. I think the fast food industry gives a false impression because they started out with fattening food. But all the current fast food places were founded a relatively short time ago (McDonalds: '55, Burger King: '53, KFC: '52, Taco Bell: '62, Pizza Hut: '58) and as they've evolved their menus have become healthier. Beyond that technology is paving the way for a less fattening diet. Diet soft drinks, soy burgers, and other low calorie foods have gotten dramatically better tasting in just the last 20 years or so (It's actually getting to the point where those Diet Dr. Pepper ads are almost true). At the same time we've developed Appetite Suppressants (the most popular of which, Hoodia gordonii, wasn't even patented until 1996) and other prescription drugs to fight obesity. So really the trend seems to be towards healthier, less fattening food. We're just at the beginning of the curve.
- timwiseman 17y ago
  * they've evolved their menus have become healthier.* Have you looked at the nutrition facts lately? Or seen the new commercials for KFC heart attack of two pieces of fried chicken with bacon and cheese in between? I wasn't around when the fast food places you mention were founded, but if this is the trend towards healthier then I am amazed people survived for any length of time after they emerged. (Granted, many have added healthier options lately, but that is in addition to pushing junk food to even greater extremes.)
  - patrickgzill 17y ago
    Quarter Double Pounder with Cheese is is worse than the KFC Double Down, believe it or not!
  - SamAtt 17y ago
    Given the healthy options didn't exist up until a few years ago I'd call that moving towards healthier menu items. Of course they're going to try to appeal to already existing audience that wants junk food but in the end we've gone from "no healthy options" to "a variety of healthy options" in less than a decade while the junk food items have declined (McDonalds doing away with Super Sizing as just one example)
MikeCapone 17y ago
If humans survive long enough to become highly advanced technologically, we'll almost certainly have a high degree of control over our bodies. Tall, thin and handsome is probably to be expected. See Iain M. Banks's Culture novels for a fictional depiction of this pushed to the extreme (people there can even chose to switch from one sex to the other whenever they feel like it).
- Periodic 17y ago
  That's always been the dream, hasn't it? Eventually technology will become good enough that we won't have to worry about being responsible. One thing I've become annoyed with lately is how little planning anyone does. Who needs to make solid plans when you can can just call someone via cell phones and make the plans as you go? It makes coordinating more than a few people very hard.
- exit 17y ago
  if we can manipulate neurological details like gender, why not lock ourselves into a happy-loop and be done with history?
  - MikeCapone 17y ago
    A wirehead future is possible (and scary to me). We can do better, though. Check out Yudkowsky's Fun Theory sequence for more on this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/
  - jafl5272 17y ago
    http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
alexgartrell 17y ago
I think the general trend is a social one. I suspect that the naturally thin people are having more children on average than the obese people, so the evolutionary trend will be towards faster metabolisms.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
sliverstorm 17y ago
Naturally. We wish for things that we don't have. It's the same as flying cars- there sure as heck isn't a trend indicating we will have such a thing, let alone cars at all. It's the same as how everyone in the movies is beautiful, nobody in the future will go hungry, and even aspirations to 'the good ol days', even though everyone back then was too busy dying of dysentery, cholera, starvation, or drowning in caulked wagons to realize just how great they had it.

by ErrantX 17y ago

gfodor 17y ago

Except in Wall-e

hackermom 17y ago
Interestingly, WALL-E really nails the reality of western man's search for perfected convenience.
- axod 17y ago
  It really should have been billed as "Not a fun kids movie" IMHO. Still surprises me that people liked that movie.
  - adamhowell 17y ago
    It's still the only movie my 3-yr-old daughter will sit through. The first 30 minutes is some of the best storytelling ever put to film, IMHO. So much told with so little. Other Pixar movies like Monsters, Inc. or Cars are either too scary or too talky. Wall-E is the perfect balance, and such a well told story that I never tire of it, either.
    - eldenbishop 17y ago
      My friends kid can only watch the beginning. When the humans show up, he starts crying. To scary.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    What do mean? Movies that have points are not to be enjoyed? A movie cannot be entertaining and insightful?
    - axod 17y ago
      It's just more of an adult / documentary thing IMHO. They spent way too much trying to make some principled point rather than entertain. Same with 'Up'. I think perhaps they were catering to people who nominate Oscars or something. My kids were bored. Gimmie Princess and the frog, Hercules, Aladdin, Little Mermaid etc etc any day.
      - zackattack 17y ago
        i fell asleep
      - narag 17y ago
        I don't know why you're downvoted, even if I disagree. I and my son enjoyed the film a lot. IIRC he was 4 or 5 then. Maybe your kids were older?
        axod 17y ago
        They were 3 / 6 / 10. "Up" was a similar story. Looking forward to Toy Story 3 though definitely. Much more fun.
- narag 17y ago
  ...the reality of western man's... What do you mean "western"? What do you mean "man"? Edit: Sometimes it seems that "too terse" comments are disliked or misunderstood. So let me explain: it seems that people in the USA, as others have already said in other comments, don't really realise that you're a special case in this matter. Of course there are fat people here in Europe, but not in the same proportion and magnitude. I don't think it's related just to habits. Something bad is in the food additives for sure. The other question is just evil, so I'm guilty :-) While the more politically correct "person" is often more and more used to refer to both men and women, you (with a "mom" nick) used "men" to restrict, at the same time you were using "western" to expand.
  - xiaoma 17y ago
    Don't let the existence of worse problems elsewhere blind you. From the WHO: Obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. Its prevalence has tripled in many countries in the WHO European Region since the 1980s, and the numbers of those affected continue to rise at an alarming rate, particularly among children. Obesity is already responsible for 2-8% of health costs and 10-13% of deaths in different parts of the Region.
    - narag 17y ago
      I'm not blind to this problem myself. I'm afraid whatever happens to the USA could come soon to us. That's why this issue interests me so much and that's why I've changed my habits about food, losing 15 kg since last summer. I also keep a lot of attention over my son in this matter. It's true that now we see morbidly obese persons more often than twenty years ago. But it's not common... yet.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    > you (with a "mom" nick) used "men" to restrict man is a historically recognised contraction of human. I think your analysing it too deeply ;) (I also doubt you will find many people here who abide by the idea of political correctness) (and your comparison doesn't work too well; is Europe on a par with the East in terms of obesity problems? If not then the original statement is, surely, correct).
adamhowell 17y ago
They got a lot of shit for it at the time, too. Every time I see everyone in a train or line looking down at their phones, I also can't help but think of Wall-e.
- roc 17y ago
  > "They got a lot of shit for it at the time, too." A good deal of it very well-deserved. For a movie exposing the blind-alley of rampant consumerism, it was being sold via a dizzying array of Cheap Plastic Crap, much of it bundled with the very junk food the movie skewered.
  - derefr 17y ago
    Isn't that for the best, though? If you want to communicate a moral message, you should target it so the people most in need of it will consume it as part of their daily routine, instead of having to go out of their way to find it.
    - roc 17y ago
      Do as I say, not as I do? Is that still a popular way to communicate moral messages? Even coming from Disney in the first place the message came across as the old argument of a priest-of-past-sins being preferable to a priest-of-purity.
      - pohl 17y ago
        What, exactly, are you implying is the "as I do" part here? Are you saying that the employees that make up Pixar are, on the whole, frequent and regular customers of the fast food industry? I would expect that living in/near the bay area would give them good odds of being in a different demographic.
        roc 17y ago
        I was running with derefr's suggestion that it was intentional targeting. Intentionally try to send a message to a demographic by placing Wall-E in their natural path would be a decision made by the corporation well above the level of Pixar's animators. That body would almost certainly be the same one that green-lit the avalanche of Cheap Plastic Crap. So, even if they believed Pixar's message, and were intentionally trying to preach to those at-risk, they were saying "you should learn from Wall-E" (do as I say) while simultaneously saying "also, buy this plastic crap" (not as I do).
btilly 17y ago
And Idiocracy.
epi0Bauqu 17y ago
and Idiocracy
tensafefrogs 17y ago
Am I the only one that immediately thought of Wall-E when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad?

gaius 17y ago

One thing that's always bemused me about scifi is future superhumans adapted for ultimate survival (e.g. the Nietzscheans in Andromeda) are tall, muscular, lean, brave, intelligent, etc. Whereas for survival, you want humans that are small (so they need less food), weak because they have slow metabolisms, hairy to keep the heat in, fat because they are good at storing food in case of famine, cowardly so they avoid risk at any cost, dumb so they just repeat procedures that are known to work, and so on.

cema 17y ago
You don't want them dumb: adaptability is paramount for evolution. Smart people are more adaptable.
- gaius 17y ago
  OK yeah, but you'd still want basically hobbits, not supermodels.
  - endtime 17y ago
    You're forgetting something important...I don't know about you, but I'd be more inclined to make babies with a supermodel than a hobbit.
    - daeken 17y ago
      Well, really depends on the hobbit...
DrSprout 17y ago
You're at least partially confusing individual survivability with group survivability. Absolute cowardice, while beneficial to an individual, is ultimately so problematic for the group that it will result in everyone's death. Dumbly repeating procedures that are known to work without analysis will not only cause stagnation, but also likely cause industrial and environmental collapse unless a system is so tightly controlled that it is impossible for any procedure to lose effectiveness. And unless technological improvement is impossible, this is clearly a suboptimal survival strategy, as survivability may not be improved.

SamAtt 17y ago

I'm not sure I agree with that. I think the fast food industry gives a false impression because they started out with fattening food. But all the current fast food places were founded a relatively short time ago (McDonalds: '55, Burger King: '53, KFC: '52, Taco Bell: '62, Pizza Hut: '58) and as they've evolved their menus have become healthier. Beyond that technology is paving the way for a less fattening diet. Diet soft drinks, soy burgers, and other low calorie foods have gotten dramatically better tasting in just the last 20 years or so (It's actually getting to the point where those Diet Dr. Pepper ads are almost true). At the same time we've developed Appetite Suppressants (the most popular of which, Hoodia gordonii, wasn't even patented until 1996) and other prescription drugs to fight obesity. So really the trend seems to be towards healthier, less fattening food. We're just at the beginning of the curve.

timwiseman 17y ago
* they've evolved their menus have become healthier.* Have you looked at the nutrition facts lately? Or seen the new commercials for KFC heart attack of two pieces of fried chicken with bacon and cheese in between? I wasn't around when the fast food places you mention were founded, but if this is the trend towards healthier then I am amazed people survived for any length of time after they emerged. (Granted, many have added healthier options lately, but that is in addition to pushing junk food to even greater extremes.)
- patrickgzill 17y ago
  Quarter Double Pounder with Cheese is is worse than the KFC Double Down, believe it or not!
- SamAtt 17y ago
  Given the healthy options didn't exist up until a few years ago I'd call that moving towards healthier menu items. Of course they're going to try to appeal to already existing audience that wants junk food but in the end we've gone from "no healthy options" to "a variety of healthy options" in less than a decade while the junk food items have declined (McDonalds doing away with Super Sizing as just one example)

MikeCapone 17y ago

If humans survive long enough to become highly advanced technologically, we'll almost certainly have a high degree of control over our bodies. Tall, thin and handsome is probably to be expected. See Iain M. Banks's Culture novels for a fictional depiction of this pushed to the extreme (people there can even chose to switch from one sex to the other whenever they feel like it).

Periodic 17y ago
That's always been the dream, hasn't it? Eventually technology will become good enough that we won't have to worry about being responsible. One thing I've become annoyed with lately is how little planning anyone does. Who needs to make solid plans when you can can just call someone via cell phones and make the plans as you go? It makes coordinating more than a few people very hard.
exit 17y ago
if we can manipulate neurological details like gender, why not lock ourselves into a happy-loop and be done with history?
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  A wirehead future is possible (and scary to me). We can do better, though. Check out Yudkowsky's Fun Theory sequence for more on this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/
- jafl5272 17y ago
  http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/

alexgartrell 17y ago

I think the general trend is a social one. I suspect that the naturally thin people are having more children on average than the obese people, so the evolutionary trend will be towards faster metabolisms.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

sliverstorm 17y ago

Naturally. We wish for things that we don't have. It's the same as flying cars- there sure as heck isn't a trend indicating we will have such a thing, let alone cars at all. It's the same as how everyone in the movies is beautiful, nobody in the future will go hungry, and even aspirations to 'the good ol days', even though everyone back then was too busy dying of dysentery, cholera, starvation, or drowning in caulked wagons to realize just how great they had it.