I've known Rich since last spring, so he didn't say anything to me that wasn't something we hadn't talked about before, but it was a real delight to see some of his creations. I've always been kind of jealous of his major, because that's a pretty kickass thing to be involved in. I also enjoyed seeing more videos of Little Big Planet because, like I said, it's only been something I've ever been told about.
Steampunk
Retro is cool, but these guys take it to a whole new level. While from an anthropological perspective it's really interesting, I can't ever see myself getting involved in something like that. I feel like it's something you'd see on an episode of Bones or CSI; sadly enough that's where the majority of my knowledge about culty subcultures comes from.
Brain Scan Technology
I don't like this. It creeps me out. Irrational but true.
The end.
Plato's Cave
This was cool, a great graphic representation of this concept, which is so influential on so many bits of culture from movies to music. A band of my friends from high school wrote a song based on the Allegory of the Cave. I juryrigged it up on YouTube in case anyone's interested.
The Watcher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxMwFthmUa8
Sorry for not being more glib. There's some idiot using a jackhammer on my building literally outside my window. It's making it hard to compose sentences.
Haha, I felt the same about the brain scan technology. Merging man and machine? No thank you.
ReplyDeleteTOTALLY agree with what you said about Steampunk, I feel the same way. Also, side note, I appreciated the fact that you included the man using a jackhammer outside your window.
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ReplyDeleteSteampunk-- I didn't think of the word until you said it: cult. Many subcultures are culty, but this seems really exclusive, though I don't find it enticing, so I wouldn't mind being on the outside of it.
Comment 2:
Brain Scan Technology-- see Surrogates. It takes the brain scan tech to a whole new level!
About steampunk, I think it's really odd that i knew nothing really about it until we talked about it in class but yet it seems like it's been documented a lot aesthetically in mainstream movies and books. I guess it's the kind of thing that goes unnoticed until it's given a classification. There are so many subcultures that I sort of just see them as one entity until they are clearly distinguished by someone else.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to respectfully disagree on the brain scan stuff. I honestly think something like that has the power to positevly change an individual's life. The fact that that one guy still goes to work every day absolutely boggles my mind. So, yeah, I'm mos def PRO brain scan tech.
ReplyDeleteOkay I'm doubling it up on this ala Victoria...Angela - thanks for sharing that thing from your friend's band. I am very pro representations of philsophical concepts other than textual. Visual, audio, bring it on...I think it makes learning so much easier. Or perhaps I just am lazy - it seems to go both ways.
ReplyDeleteYes, the brain scan, taken to an extreme degree can be very Big Brotheresque but for the most part, medicine is helping us stay alive longer, making the journey a bit more bearable. I am pro bran scan as well.
ReplyDeleteThat's so funny that you also learn about subcultures from cop shows! Me too!
ReplyDeleteI disagree about the Brain Scan tech as well--like what are the chances that guy would've offed himself without the technology to communicate? With it he maintains his marriage (that woman is mother teresa) and runs a lab---that's amazing and inspiring. Also, what's scarier about machines than say hormones? Millions of people take hormones every day (birth control pills, steroids) and don't seem at all creeped out by it when they are wildly affecting their own body chemistry. Yet introduce the sci-fi element of "machinery" and people get creeped out?
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