4 ms·

This reminds me of how people get angry at me whenever I poke holes in the science of movies. Movies affect people's ideas of what is possible and what is impos

This reminds me of how people get angry at me whenever I poke holes in the science of movies. Movies affect people's ideas of what is possible and what is impossible. This is why I'm also quite against, in the general case, post-apocalyptic movies that predict a future based on non-science impossible things happening. Many spaceflight movies and TV shows for example show very bad things in the future giving people a false impression that the future will be worse than the past even that goes against direct evidence that throughout human history things have trended better, on average, every single year with a few moments of worsening.

walrus01 4y ago
> Many spaceflight movies and TV shows for example show very bad things in the future giving people a false impression that the future will be worse than the past I think The Expanse got it right, in that we're more likely in the near to medium term to get a bunch of oligarch type Jules-Pierre Maos (Hi Bezos!) running things behind the scenes. Not a utopia type technology + spaceflight + social inequity problems solved future.
- mlindner 4y ago
  The Expanse is one of the TV series that I was thinking of actually when I wrote that comment. It'd be too long to write down here but I feel like while The Expanse got many things right it also portrayed all sorts of fundamental things that were completely off. For example even in the first season things that are fundamentally off that result in very different futures: * The idea that we would actively intentionally re-create the situation of MAD in another context. MAD was an accident of historical happenstance and now that we know about it, we wouldn't try to re-create it. * The idea that a magical new engine would suddenly appear that made many of the things in the tv series possible. * The idea that Earth will for some reason simultaneously become a massive welfare state, yet still somehow have solar-system spanning power. * The idea that there would be a complete backtrack in labor rights and labor safety (the ice asteroid mining scene).
  - samatman 4y ago
    It sounds like fiction isn't your style, basically. It would be a boring landscape if all the predictions which went into every science-fiction story were the ones you happen to like. Add them up, you get Star Trek. That's great: but we already have Star Trek.
    - motoxpro 4y ago
      Agree, 100%. I storytelling without the imagination is a story that doesn't change your perspective in any way.
  - kiba 4y ago
    Utopia makes for very boring television. Dystopian megacorporations make the future interesting to watch. There's a reason why there's a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting time."
    - Joeboy 4y ago
      > Utopia makes for very boring television. The original Channel 4 version was brilliant (although the subject matter didn't age well, or maybe aged a bit too well). Didn't see the US remake but heard it was a dud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnN3WMwDsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnN3WMwDsk
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > There's a reason why there's a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting time." This cannot be true, because there is no such curse.
      - Anthony-G 4y ago
        Another myth busted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
    - mlindner 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Laaas 4y ago
There's a 4chan post somewhere with a hypothesis about how people are subconsciously unable to discern between fiction and reality, even though they might be able to consciously, just as you describe.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  Isaac Asimov had an essay about how, in order for fantasy to exist as a genre, you first have to understand that some things aren't real. It's been awhile since I read it, but I believe he does address that many people have a problem with fantasy because they don't really distinguish between talking about something and believing in something. Reading a story about witches becomes believing in witches or trying to be a witch.
- Fezzik 4y ago
  Are people surprised by this? The vast (super?) majority of people on this planet seem to consciously claim to know or believe in supernatural things they cannot possibly know and that there is absolutely no evidence for. People appear to be extraordinarily bad at distinguishing between reality and their hopes and dreams.
taberiand 4y ago
How do you reconcile your prediction of a better future with the current scientific projections of the effects that climate change (and a myriad other environmental challenges and resources issues) will have? Especially given that our current position at the top of the trend of improvement is in enormous part due to fossil fuels - the primary contributor to climate change and our expected future trajectory. Past performance is not indicative of future results and quite frankly, to me, it all looks downhill from here.
dghughes 4y ago
I find explosions are the worst specifically the sound of them. Far away exploding things don't make a sound the instant the explosive explodes there's a delay. What funny is the delay makes it dramatic it's intuitive to humans far away means delay.
chordalkeyboard 4y ago
> giving people a false impression that the future will be worse than the past even that goes against direct evidence that throughout human history things have trended better, on average, every single year with a few moments of worsening. This is called 'Whig history' and in my view it is an incorrect characterization of history that gives people a false impression that things will get better without them having to understand the enabling factors that lead to social improvement, ironically leading to the possibility of a decrease in prosperity and social welfare as people take improvement for granted and fail to bring it about through their actions.
emkoemko 4y ago
its art.... leave it alone, these films are not documentaries
stephen_g 4y ago
There is also the massive problem of torture and confessions through torture being so commonplace in movies and TV, which makes people more comfortable with it. It also gives people the false idea that it's effective. In the real world (and the article here is a good example of it), generally most confessions from torture tend to be false because people will make up whatever they think they need to say to make it stop (unless they're trained to resist it, but obviously in that case they'll feed the interrogator false information).

walrus01 4y ago

> Many spaceflight movies and TV shows for example show very bad things in the future giving people a false impression that the future will be worse than the past I think The Expanse got it right, in that we're more likely in the near to medium term to get a bunch of oligarch type Jules-Pierre Maos (Hi Bezos!) running things behind the scenes. Not a utopia type technology + spaceflight + social inequity problems solved future.

mlindner 4y ago
The Expanse is one of the TV series that I was thinking of actually when I wrote that comment. It'd be too long to write down here but I feel like while The Expanse got many things right it also portrayed all sorts of fundamental things that were completely off. For example even in the first season things that are fundamentally off that result in very different futures: * The idea that we would actively intentionally re-create the situation of MAD in another context. MAD was an accident of historical happenstance and now that we know about it, we wouldn't try to re-create it. * The idea that a magical new engine would suddenly appear that made many of the things in the tv series possible. * The idea that Earth will for some reason simultaneously become a massive welfare state, yet still somehow have solar-system spanning power. * The idea that there would be a complete backtrack in labor rights and labor safety (the ice asteroid mining scene).
- samatman 4y ago
  It sounds like fiction isn't your style, basically. It would be a boring landscape if all the predictions which went into every science-fiction story were the ones you happen to like. Add them up, you get Star Trek. That's great: but we already have Star Trek.
  - motoxpro 4y ago
    Agree, 100%. I storytelling without the imagination is a story that doesn't change your perspective in any way.
- kiba 4y ago
  Utopia makes for very boring television. Dystopian megacorporations make the future interesting to watch. There's a reason why there's a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting time."
  - Joeboy 4y ago
    > Utopia makes for very boring television. The original Channel 4 version was brilliant (although the subject matter didn't age well, or maybe aged a bit too well). Didn't see the US remake but heard it was a dud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnN3WMwDsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnN3WMwDsk
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > There's a reason why there's a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting time." This cannot be true, because there is no such curse.
    - Anthony-G 4y ago
      Another myth busted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
  - mlindner 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Laaas 4y ago

There's a 4chan post somewhere with a hypothesis about how people are subconsciously unable to discern between fiction and reality, even though they might be able to consciously, just as you describe.

saalweachter 4y ago
Isaac Asimov had an essay about how, in order for fantasy to exist as a genre, you first have to understand that some things aren't real. It's been awhile since I read it, but I believe he does address that many people have a problem with fantasy because they don't really distinguish between talking about something and believing in something. Reading a story about witches becomes believing in witches or trying to be a witch.
Fezzik 4y ago
Are people surprised by this? The vast (super?) majority of people on this planet seem to consciously claim to know or believe in supernatural things they cannot possibly know and that there is absolutely no evidence for. People appear to be extraordinarily bad at distinguishing between reality and their hopes and dreams.

taberiand 4y ago

How do you reconcile your prediction of a better future with the current scientific projections of the effects that climate change (and a myriad other environmental challenges and resources issues) will have? Especially given that our current position at the top of the trend of improvement is in enormous part due to fossil fuels - the primary contributor to climate change and our expected future trajectory. Past performance is not indicative of future results and quite frankly, to me, it all looks downhill from here.

dghughes 4y ago

I find explosions are the worst specifically the sound of them. Far away exploding things don't make a sound the instant the explosive explodes there's a delay. What funny is the delay makes it dramatic it's intuitive to humans far away means delay.

chordalkeyboard 4y ago

> giving people a false impression that the future will be worse than the past even that goes against direct evidence that throughout human history things have trended better, on average, every single year with a few moments of worsening. This is called 'Whig history' and in my view it is an incorrect characterization of history that gives people a false impression that things will get better without them having to understand the enabling factors that lead to social improvement, ironically leading to the possibility of a decrease in prosperity and social welfare as people take improvement for granted and fail to bring it about through their actions.

emkoemko 4y ago

its art.... leave it alone, these films are not documentaries

stephen_g 4y ago

There is also the massive problem of torture and confessions through torture being so commonplace in movies and TV, which makes people more comfortable with it. It also gives people the false idea that it's effective. In the real world (and the article here is a good example of it), generally most confessions from torture tend to be false because people will make up whatever they think they need to say to make it stop (unless they're trained to resist it, but obviously in that case they'll feed the interrogator false information).