3 ms·

The humans in Wall-E are all fat and happy. Plus they get a second chance at rebuilding the world. Sounds like a good deal to me?

mvdtnz 3y ago
If your takeaway from Wall-E was that the human characters were aspirational I don't even know what to say. Suffice to say most people don't see it that way.
- tycho-newman 3y ago
  The human characters in Wall-E had more to look forward to than most of us. Perhaps that is why apocalyptic fiction is compelling. It is as way of wiping the slate clean.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    We'll have to agree to disagree. Most of the things I look forward to involve getting out of my chair.
  - lusus_naturae 3y ago
    Why would "wiping the slate clean" mean anything? The behaviors that lead to the previous slate don't magically go away. Our behaviors are innate and ingrained into us one away or another (nature, nurture etc.). I don't imagine society would evolve differently even if it started all over again, unless something fundamentally changes about the human condition or human nature. Edit: had a question about unions, asked and answered by the article...
    - tycho-newman 3y ago
      Perhaps that apocalyptic event is the closest thing we can imagine to changing fundamentally.
      - lusus_naturae 3y ago
        History says no--look at any event that was considered apocalyptic for a given population. Pompeii? Black death? Spanish flu?
        tycho-newman 3y ago
        In my timeline, those events produced very fundamental changes in their societies. Extinction of that society counts as a fundamental change.
        lusus_naturae 3y ago
        Sure, but what about people changed in general? Our relatively short life spans and the increasing amount of information renders it difficult to keep a perfect thread of lessons learnt from history (and people are inclined to learn different lessons from the same events). Future generations also have their own morals, ethics philosophies (as they should), and so anything we think was accomplished by some big event in the past may just as well as had not happened. So no, I am not convinced that apocalyptic events are needed for human cultural evolution. The catalyst of cultural evolution is almost always a desire for a better way to live. Even if everyone was the same religion, caste, race, class, education level, IQ etc. , fundamentally people will always behave the same.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >The behaviors that lead to the previous slate don't magically go away. no, but the people do. At some point that's as close to a clean slate as we can get. Breaking down dynasties when they get too big, even if in centuries' time we get more dynasties.

mvdtnz 3y ago

If your takeaway from Wall-E was that the human characters were aspirational I don't even know what to say. Suffice to say most people don't see it that way.

tycho-newman 3y ago
The human characters in Wall-E had more to look forward to than most of us. Perhaps that is why apocalyptic fiction is compelling. It is as way of wiping the slate clean.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  We'll have to agree to disagree. Most of the things I look forward to involve getting out of my chair.
- lusus_naturae 3y ago
  Why would "wiping the slate clean" mean anything? The behaviors that lead to the previous slate don't magically go away. Our behaviors are innate and ingrained into us one away or another (nature, nurture etc.). I don't imagine society would evolve differently even if it started all over again, unless something fundamentally changes about the human condition or human nature. Edit: had a question about unions, asked and answered by the article...
  - tycho-newman 3y ago
    Perhaps that apocalyptic event is the closest thing we can imagine to changing fundamentally.
    - lusus_naturae 3y ago
      History says no--look at any event that was considered apocalyptic for a given population. Pompeii? Black death? Spanish flu?
      - tycho-newman 3y ago
        In my timeline, those events produced very fundamental changes in their societies. Extinction of that society counts as a fundamental change.
        lusus_naturae 3y ago
        Sure, but what about people changed in general? Our relatively short life spans and the increasing amount of information renders it difficult to keep a perfect thread of lessons learnt from history (and people are inclined to learn different lessons from the same events). Future generations also have their own morals, ethics philosophies (as they should), and so anything we think was accomplished by some big event in the past may just as well as had not happened. So no, I am not convinced that apocalyptic events are needed for human cultural evolution. The catalyst of cultural evolution is almost always a desire for a better way to live. Even if everyone was the same religion, caste, race, class, education level, IQ etc. , fundamentally people will always behave the same.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >The behaviors that lead to the previous slate don't magically go away. no, but the people do. At some point that's as close to a clean slate as we can get. Breaking down dynasties when they get too big, even if in centuries' time we get more dynasties.