Last night I saw Transformers: Revenge of the fallen; overall, it was (of course) a fairly terrible film. Some great action sequences went some way towards making up for the childish plot, cliched characters and relationships and some really, really bad attempts at slapstick/"American style" vulgar comedy.
But there was one scene which really meant something to me. The lead character, Sam, has been "chosen" by the Transformers (the good robots) and the US secret service to act as some kind of liaison between the Transformers and the US government, he also has some kind of family history of involvement with the Transformers; but he "just wants a normal life" - he is a reluctant hero. He starts university and finds that his roommate, Leo, runs a conspiracy theory website that collects reports about the presence of alien robots on Earth. Sam obviously has to pretend that he doesn't know anything about the Transformers, and Sam and Leo get into an argument about whether the conspiracy is true or not, with Sam lying to Leo, and Leo insisting that he'll get to the bottom of the mystery.
Later, Leo and Sam get pulled into a major fight between the Transformers and the Decepticons, and the Decepticons force the government to make Sam a wanted man. Leo gets scared and starts to panic: having been shot at and chased by alien robots and now by the police too, he tells Sam that he's going to turn himself - and all the rest of the fugitives - in to the authorities.
Sam then retorts: "Well this is what you wanted! You've got your conspiracy theory, now stop complaining!"
The very outspoken transhumanist/singularitarian community may, in time, find itself in Leo's position.
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19 hours ago
6 comments:
You think so? I like to think that the S/T community will in Sam's position, only willingly. That character's whole problem was that despite having the responsibility of the knowledge of these robo-aliens (not to mention access to their technology/knowledge!) he felt the need to pretend to be "normal". What he could learn from University instead of the transformers is beyond me, and I can't imagine any S/T who would similarly choose the "old" over the "new" just to feel "normal".
But that was a terrible, terrible film. I caught it in the theatre a couple days ago and was very distressed when the audience actually applauded at the end.
There are certain elements of the transhumanist/singularitarian trope (ahem KURZWEIL) who spend all of their emotional energy hoping beyond hope that really advanced technologies will be developed within their lifetimes. They are like Leo: he spent all of his time trying to prove that he was right, but when reality gave him that irrefutable proof, he suddenly got all scared and wet his pants.
And yes, it was an awful film. The only real message I got from it was some good old-fashioned glorification of the US military. There were some cool explosions towards the end, though.
I think that there are certain other elements who will find themselves in sam's position, though. Those such as Nick Bostrom or Michael Annissimov who constantly emphasize risks may react emotionally more like Sam.
Roko refers to the "cliched characters and relationships and some really, really bad attempts at . . . comedy" of the 2009 Transformers movie.
Well, I liked the characters, relationships and attempts at comedy of the previous (2007) Transformers movie, which had the same lead character (Sam Witwicky) but then I am an ugly American.
Roko,
The Singularitarian community grossly overestimate their own importance; in reality they're just a bunch of arseholes obsessed with their own IQs, they're nobodies with no relevance to the real future.
These people may have high-IQs but you could put a thinking test in front them that a 7-year old could solve and they couldn't; people like this are unable to see any perspective other than their own.
I understand you've already gotten involved with this community but I can tell you you're just wasting your time.
Cheers
Marc_Geddes said... *rant*
So what?
Even if the S^ community is a bunch of idiots, they could STILL end up in the same position as Leo in the film.
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