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Philosophy of Ghost in the Shell
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yuchi 9y agoSome admin should add a [spoiler] flag to it. Fantastic read. It’s sad such great content has no right to stay on Wikipedia, where this article originated. (I’m not implying the rules of Wikipedia are wrong.)
- _e 9y agoThat is why there is a "Talk" section for each Wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ghost_in_the_Shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ghost_in_the_Shell
- franciscop 9y agoFor a story that has decades? IMO it'd be akin to a [spoiler] alert when talking about LOTR or similar.
- js2 9y agoI didn't finally watch Citizen Kane till a few years ago, and somehow I'd made it my whole life without the end being spoiled. I can't say the same for Soylent Green.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y agoThe reading experience is really rough on mobile: huge font with weird spacing to keep it justified.
- jerf 9y agoIt's pretty big by default on my desktop view too, though the justification is probably less intrusive than what you're seeing. Still enough that it's something I noticed immediately, though, and I'm not even a designer.
- baby 9y agoIt looks really good on desktop. I find it really annoying that we now have to design/develop for different screensizes. The web used to be much more simpler when we were just making 1024*768 pages with <table>s
- badosu 9y ago"Best viewed in 800x600"
- exodust 9y agoWe don't need to design/develop for different screen sizes when it's just text and a few images. The developer in this case decided to use font-size 130% which is too big. Combined with justified text, it will be painful to read on a small screen. Justified text is more suited to print.
- Nadya 9y ago>The web used to be much more simpler when we were just making 1024768 pages with <table>s* The problem is mostly with overdesigned websites, not ensuring it works for all devices. Simple designs and sticking with mostly default settings will be responsive-by-default. In this case, 130% font size is fine but I feel it should have more line height (1.7 vs 1.45) and text should be aligned left instead of justified for smaller devices. Two small changes. [0] http://i.imgur.com/VRJ14eF.png http://i.imgur.com/VRJ14eF.png
- MichaelAO 9y agoSorry about that! I was surprised to see the page deleted from Wikipedia so just quickly made a Strikingly website. I'll see how center align looks.
- dredmorbius 9y agohttps://outline.com/H888XT https://outline.com/H888XT
- flavio81 9y agoLet me guess, just as Ruby on Rails, is Ghost in the Shell a new framework for web development using Bash? (just kidding...)
- shakna 9y agoIf that's what you want there's always Bash on Balls! [0] [0] https://github.com/jneen/balls https://github.com/jneen/balls
- felipelemos 9y agoOHMG
- mindcrime 9y agoI can't see any reason to favor that over COBOL on COGS[0]. [0]: http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM
- flavio81 9y agoWhy should I work with COBOL ON COGS when I can be using a more modern framework such as COBOL ON WHEELCHAIR? http://adrianzandberg.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/ http://adrianzandberg.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/
- mindcrime 9y agoOMG, somebody actually invested the time to create a real web framework for COBOL!?!??? ROFLMFAO... I have to try this out now.
- franciscop 9y agoToo late: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14182406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14182406
- firasd 9y agoWe're in an interesting cultural moment for narratives like this, between Her, Ex Machina, GITS, Alien: Covenant, the upcoming Blade Runner 2049, and the great TV show Westworld. This is my favorite essay on these themes, tying together threads spanning from ancient myths to contemporary movies: "The Robots Are Winning!" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/robots-are-winning/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/robots-are-winnin... One interesting thing I've understood when discussing GITS the anime vs the new movie is that in the anime, Motoko embraces her cybernetic body, so the question is: What does it mean to be human? But in the new movie, Major is the first cybernetic body, so the question is more: Who am I? This an interesting essay by Hideo Kojima about the differences: http://www.glixel.com/news/hideo-kojima-on-the-philosophy-behind-ghost-in-the-shell-w475805 http://www.glixel.com/news/hideo-kojima-on-the-philosophy-be... By the way, people into GITS might like this post we made about shots in the movie recreated from the anime: https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-shell-how-shots-from-the-2017-movie-allude-to-the-anime-972a7dfb74e8 https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-sh...
- ethbro 9y agoPre-dating the manga GitS by a year, the Cyberpunk PPRPG from R Talsorian ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 ) was a surprisingly well put-together and interesting world. One of my favorite features was cyberpsychosis. As a gameplay element, it was an answer to "Why don't you just buy godlike cyber replacements for your body?" But as a lore element, they bored down into the question. If you've got your neural processing running at multiples of human normal, or have a bulletproof body capable of lifting cars, then how do you relate to all the unmodified people around you? Musn't your relationship with them fundamentally change? And doesn't it seem logical that the amount of change would be related to the extremeness of your augmentation?
- firasd 9y agoThat's interesting. I recently learned about a philosophical thought experiment that may apply here, it's called "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F
- franciscop 9y agoI think it might be appropriate to do a brief introduction for western readers about Japanese (Shintoist+Budist) philosophy first. If you're an old school manga/anime consumer you probably know a bit about it indirectly with Studio Ghibli movies and others. In most modern philosophy spirits are assigned to humans (with exceptions), while in Japan everything in nature has a spirit/energy [1]. This makes the concept of nature different between our cultures, animals even more different so the concept of a robot is really different. So a Ghost in the shell for us westerns is kind of obvious; a robot has nothing, it is a shell by default, and you can add a human consciousness which is just a group of thoughts like you'd add a different program. However for the Japanese culture where everything has vital energy this is not entirely the same concept. An empty shell/robot is a void much larger than what a robot is for us and a normal, working robot in the real world has something making it move. Heck, even "electricity" includes the word "気" (spirit/energy). Of course I am not good at explaining all of this and just know it because I like learning about it. But I do think that there are important cultural differences when watching this movie and many details are lost from a western point of view. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami
- taneq 9y ago> So a Ghost in the shell for us westerns is kind of obvious; a robot has nothing, it is a shell by default, and you can add a human consciousness. I don't think it's obvious at all. If you can add a human consciousness to a(n entirely non-human-biological) robot, then that "human consciousness" is no different in nature to the robot's software. A difference in degree, certainly, but not of kind. Yet most westerners would claim a difference in kind between software and a "person". Point taken, though, about the way the film's interpretation changes depending on the cultural mindset of the watcher. I'll do some reading. :)
- franciscop 9y agoAh sorry, I was trying to make emphasis on the part that the robot is an empty shell for us and not specially on human consciousness being easy to swap/just software (for which I agree with you). Edit: After thinking and reading about it, I think that is actually the opposite in the other direction. What might shock us is the concept of the spirit being transfered, while for Shintoism that is not such a shocking concept since they are not so concerned with the afterlife and their spirit will just join nature: "The afterlife, and belief, are not major concerns in Shinto; the emphasis is on fitting into this world instead of preparing for the next, and on ritual and observance rather than on faith." - interesting read: https://www.japanspecialist.co.uk/travel-tips/shinto-buddhism/ https://www.japanspecialist.co.uk/travel-tips/shinto-buddhis...
- mirimir 9y agoI rather like Hannu Rajaniemi's take on "ghost-dubbing" among the Sobornost in the Flower Prince trilogy. He posits that each initial individual ("Prime") can create unlimited copies ("gogols") which may be full or edited. Although they have individual consciousness, they're all managed by a "metaself". There's a downside, though. The masses become gogol slaves, used basically as appliances by the Primes. Edit: Also, the Primes make highly numerous copies of slave gogols, introducing random variation, and then select for performance on some task.
- zxcmx 9y agoDavid Brin's book Kiln People is a really fun book which runs along these lines as well.
- dkarapetyan 9y ago> Gouda notes that there is a tendency within a Stand Alone Complex for the masses to unconsciously project their inadequacies and common desires onto a leader. Sounds very familiar.
- knightofmars 9y agoThe about tag at the bottom points to a wikipedia page that was deleted but this content also lives here: http://ghostintheshell.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy http://ghostintheshell.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy
- MichaelAO 9y agoThanks for the note, just added the link to the site.
- waldir 9y agoIt would probably make sense to also link to the deletion discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- justin66 9y agoThat article has an extremely strange title. It links to a few philosophical topics, like dualism, without exploring them and then gives a plot synopsis.
- exelius 9y agoStand Alone Complex is actually an amazing social commentary on emergent resistance movements among a group of marginalized people in the era of "fake news" or "false memories". It was way ahead of its time -- and even more relevant today than it was a decade ago. Trump is basically the galvanizing "cult of personality" figure who was able to connect with a population that was marginalized by both the government and the media -- much like Hideo Kuze was to the refugees. In the case of Trump, he energized the people, but also similar to Kuze, he can't really control every aspect of the emergent behavior (anti-semitism in Trump's case, etc). I would even say that it's similar to the Kuze storyline in that the "cult of personality" figure is actually being manipulated by a foreign power (ironically the American Empire in SAC) for their own ends. Similar comparisons can be made with Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, or any other movements that start with legitimate gripes but are manipulated by false information to different ends. It's definitely not a new phenomenon, but SAC was amazingly prophetic about how it would play out in an age of instant communication. It's unfortunate that it's so difficult to approach (you won't really "get it" until your second or third watch through) -- I don't know any other show that had multiple episodes that were essentially philosophical lectures by the main characters / tachikomas .
- peterwwillis 9y agoWhile Kuze is kind of a launching point, Trump is more like one of the other members of the Individual Eleven. He's a byproduct of a collective group that is already spawning copycats. He's had lateral movement from social power to personal power, and harnesses both, which other copycats simply have failed to do so far. He's a sort of evolved organism. I heard an example of it today in a program by the Guardian, covering the special election in Montana. The reporter interviewed an old (80? 90?) lady, who said this one candidate was clearly ridiculous because he had a TV ad where he shot a television. The reporter then mentioned how the opposing candidate - her candidate - ran an identical ad. She said they were completely different examples. He then said she probably only thought they were different because one of them was for the candidate she wanted, and she agreed. Another example was when the reporter asked her why she supported Trump regardless of his failures or scandals, and she said because he is a real, normal person. The reporter offered that many people find him the opposite of a normal person, and she replied that they don't know what they're talking about. "Gouda notes that there is a tendency within a Stand Alone Complex for the masses to unconsciously project their inadequacies and common desires onto a leader." I think this kind of self-manipulation in order to achieve a specific goal is essentially a form of Stand Alone Complex, in the form of thought patterns being duplicated among a group, with no explicit intention to do so. In order to achieve an unspoken specific social change the people follow an icon, and do anything they need to do to continue following that icon and eventually achieve the goal.
- failrate 9y agoRelated to this, I've been considering how we can accurately report on incidences such as arsons or shootings without giving them a narratively appealing context. My naive approach was to replace "terrorist" with "some asshole", so that the news report "Terrorists detonated a bomb" would become "some assholes detonated a bomb". This is a joke example of a real concept. I think that our news sources have tried to do something similar by referring to ISIS as "Daesh", but the significance was lost on non-Arabic-speakers, and its usage never caught on.
- Dangeranger 9y agoJohn Oliver used this strategy effectively in his HBO coverage of the 2015 Paris Bataclan attack by calling the attackers "Unconscionable, flaming assholes, possibly working with other fucking assholes". Donald Trump has recently begun calling terrorists "Losers". George W. Bush called Al Qaeda members "thugs and killers". You are also correct that Daesh is preferred in Arabic media over the term ISIS, and although the former is really an acronym, it is close to to the Arabic words 'Daes', 'one who crushes something underfoot' and 'Dahes', translated as 'one who sows discord'. Members of the group also really hate the term being used to describe them, which helped spur it's usage. It's a strategy that's been used for some time and has proven effective in some cases in discouraging copycat behaviors.
- zmix 9y agoApart from the philosophy I find it interesting to note, that the website has all external links routed via the Web Archive, even those, which are not going to get lost that easily, like Wikipedia's.
- kayoone 9y agosince the sites content was originally a wikipedia article which got deleted, i think this is a good choice to preserve the articles in the form they have been linked too. Archive.org is so amazing, but it is sad that it does not work for a lot websites nowadays.
- awjr 9y agoReading this reminds me why I was disgusted with the recent remake of Ghost in the Shell. The merging of minds between Kusanagi and the Puppet Master was the finalé in the journey Kusanagi took through the film. To remove that final step from the remake made me angry.
- lee 9y agoSpoiler alert: Not only that, but making the "Puppet Master" Kusanagi's ex boyfriend is so cringe-worthy.