False Memories Bring Out The Crazies (Blog7)

The main question alone reminds me of this show I’m overly obsessed with, Once Upon A Time.

Only instead of using technology to change all the fairy tale character’s memories, she uses magic.

Besides that, the short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Phillip K. Dick portrays a character who is seemingly normal at first, aside from the futuristic world he lives in, with hovercars and buttons on stovetops that can make coffee for you. Everything seems mundane until the main character Douglas Quail visits someone who can infuse a memory sequence of him going to Mars in his brain. When the sequence doesn’t take due to the fact that he had already been to Mars on a secret mission for the government things spiral out of control. The idea of memory implantation and creation seems a little too far out, but then again, I’m sure fifty years ago the idea that a woman could get fake breasts, or face-lifts, seemed far out as well. So it’s hard to tell which direction science will veer towards. I do not think that it will be a positive impact, though. Memories make us human. The things we’ve experienced and learned in life create who we are, which clearly the main character has shown us. One minute he was a desk-jockey who knew little to nothing about action and adventure, or how to handle assailants with weapons. Once his memory returned to him he became one dangerous SOB, capable of taking down the most dangerous of opponents.

Did I think Arnold Schwarzenegger was a good fit for the role of Doug Quail? Well, not really. I’ve never been one of his biggest fans, I think his accent is a little annoying and his acting is B-rated, in my opinion. Douglas Quail is supposedly a regular looking man, Arnold is anything but ordinary. His broad shoulders and tall frame make him intimidating and make you, as a viewer, question how someone so jacked could live a mundane life. I think Bruce Willis would’ve been a better fit for that role, much like his role in The Fifth Element.

The adaptation from short story to a film impacted the story in a lot of different ways. For example, in the short story there was a lot less violence than depicted in the movie. Also, the movie went into a lot of detail about Douglas’ mission on Mars. The writers and directors had opportunities to expand the storyline and turn it into another different story entirely. It seems as though the director’s did everything they could to turn it into a “feature film”, something to grasp the audience and attract viewers. Anything for the ratings, it seemed.

Techno-Futures (Blog6)

“Burning Chrome”

By William Gibson(1982)

Oh, boy. This story was strange. I have a small grasp at what the concept was but I’m not entirely sure I understood it.

Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but Jack and Bobby are some kind of Robin Hood hackers, not affiliated with the “heat” as they called law enforcement, but also not affiliated with Chrome and her mob. In fact, they set out to take down Chrome, take away all of her money so in a sense, stripping her of her power. I believe Chrome is a person but she’s had hormonal procedures that make her look young? I had a really hard time comprehending this story, but it seems as though the life that “Burning Chrome” depicted is one where plastic surgery is exploited to the maximum. You hear about people getting not just different eye colors but completely different eyes? And I’m guessing the “The House of Blue Lights” is some kind of whore house? It makes me wonder, is this going to be what our future holds for us? People getting so much surgery to look “perfect” they end up stripping the meaning of the word beauty? I can definitely see similarities, in that aspect, to present day’s issues with body image. Women, men, getting face-lifts to look younger, along with many other surgeries just to look like photoshopped pictures of plastic Barbie dolls. When the main character was describing Chrome I couldn’t help but think about the “Uncanny Valley” that we discussed in class. I feel like that was definitely portrayed in a couple of different instances,

“Chrome: I’d seen her maybe half a dozen times in the Gentleman Loser. Maybe she was slumming, or checking out the human condition, a condition she didn’t exactly aspire to. A sweet little heart-shaped face framing the nastiest pair of eyes you ever saw. She’d looked fourteen as long as anyone could remember, hyped out of anything like a normal metabolism on some massive program of serums and hormones.”-p.557

“He had the kind of uniform good looks you get after your seventh trip to the surgical boutique; he’d probably spend the rest of his life looking vaguely like each new season’s media front-runner; not too obvious a copy, but nothing too original, either.”-p.559

*********

“Computer Friendly”

By Eeileen Gunn(1989)

I think the author chose a child’s point of view because just like the child, the reader is learning all about this new world as well. So a lot of the same questions the child was asking, I found myself asking as well. At first, I didn’t see much sci-fi in the text. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, when will there be an alien dropping out of the sky or some kind of cataclysmic event? It seemed as though it was a regular girl who was getting dropped off at a school and when they kept talking about how smart she was and how she had to take tests to prove it I thought, “Oh, well this girl must be trying to get into some private school?”

 As I started reading more and more, I picked up little hints here and there of something off about this world the author threw us into.

“The monitor watched as they wiped the wall, then took their thumbprints.”p.640

Took their thumbprints? I couldn’t help but think, what kind of school is this? Are they keeping track of how many times she gets in trouble? As the story goes on it reveals more and more how strange the world is, like how her father’s memory gets wiped clean after being at work all day and his daughter has to guide him home. Also, her brother, he seems to already be at work. And he doesn’t come home every night for dinner. In fact, his parents don’t even talk about him much at all.

“Her parents didn’t talk much about her brother Bobby. He had done well on his tests, too. Now he was a milintel cyborg with go-nogo authority. He never called home, and her parents didn’t call him, either.”-p.644

The Culling

The Culling

By Steven Dos Santos (2013)

I’m a big fan of a good twist ending, but I can’t say that was something I enjoyed reading. Not that the story isn’t good, or that it bored me, but the raw emotion of betrayal stung. The emotions that are conveyed almost all too well through simple text in a book are almost too much to handle. Being that Lucky and his little brother Cole are living in a fantasy world doesn’t mean their world is anything fairy-tale like. A world of poverty, starvation, filth, disease and then only to be put through rings of mental and physical torture, on top of the mind games people, that are supposedly close to you, play. I’m excited to read more, and hopefully read about Lucky taking down that S.O.B. Cassius. I almost feel like in a way I saw it coming, because it was just too good to be true.

 I can see how this relates to humanity in the sense that there are actual countries living like this. Third-world, dictatorial countries that live in these conditions meanwhile, just like Cassius, the rulers of the country live lavishly.

 This story reminds me of two movies I’ve seen recently that are pretty good, the first is a comedy called “The Interview”, how lavish the leader of North Korea is living meanwhile his people are starving, how manipulative he was, compared to how manipulative Cassius was to Lucky.

Another movie, “Machine Gun Preacher” which is sadly based on true events about one man trying to make a difference against the Rebels in Africa. In a sense I can see a similarity in the situations of the book and situations that kids in other parts of the world unfortunately face today.

Insidious (ViewingBlog1)

Insidious

(2010, 103 minutes)

The long credits give this creepy film an eerie feel to something as simple as an opening scene. I feel the fact that this story takes place in an ordinary home, with an ordinary family, makes it more relatable to an everyday person. In the beginning the family starts out getting ready for school and work, the mother unpacking boxes as they just moved into a new home. The mother is cooking breakfast and on the phone with some automated machine, saying “Speak to an agent.” It’s clear that a normal, mundane life is trying to be portrayed.

Dalton, one of the two sons, took a pretty steep fall, which turned out to be nothing. There was seemingly no cause to why all of the sudden the next day he doesn’t wake up and he’s in a coma unlike any other, or so the doctor says,

“There is no brain damage, that we’ve detected. Technically, yes, he is in a coma. He doesn’t react to stimuli, he has no sleep-wake cycle but there’s no brain trauma or infection. The scans are all normal. To be honest, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Mom, “He can’t just not wake up? I mean, there’s gotta be something.”

Doc, “I’m sorry.”

Dad, “Okay so what do we do? Do we stay here? Do we-"

Doc, “Conduct further testing, it’s only been a couple of days, it could take a little longer.”

The horror of waking up for work like every other day, walking into your child’s bedroom and your child just being unresponsive, is like no other. I couldn’t imagine that kind of terror. The worst part about all of that is not knowing what happened to him or why he’s like this. You might start to blame yourself. It leaves not just the characters to wonder but the viewers, as well.

A couple of days in a coma turns into months, and Dalton’s moved home, where one of the creepiest scenes in the entire movie takes place. The mom is downstairs playing the piano with her baby girl sleeping in the upstairs bedroom when what sounds like a frequency interruption on the baby monitor catches her attention. She listens close as angry whispers turn into loud shouts that she can hear are coming from inside the house and even wakes her baby up.

The mom seems to experience the encounters with these entities the most, seeing as how she stays at home with the kids, so I almost began to wonder if she was going crazy until her other son says something eerily shocking,

“I’m scared Mom.”

“Scared of what?”

“Dalton. Can I change rooms?”

“Why would you wanna change rooms?”

“I don’t like when he walks around at night.”

Being that Dalton has been in a coma for months now, there’s no way he could’ve been walking around. So what was the little boy hearing? Evil entities that have manifested physically into our world enough to be able to actually be heard and seen.

You would think that because it seems as though there are other entities making contact that it would have something to do with the house. But when the family moves to a new home and the hauntings keep happening, the family has to assume it’s something other than a simple haunting.

Come to find out it’s a genetic sleep-jumping disorder that allows the host of the body, the person, to move through to an otherworld. In doing so, leaving their body an empty vessel, or portal, for the seemingly evil entities.

I really like this film because I believe that sleep represents freedom for a lot of people. A chance to escape all the horrors that surround you and to rest. Much like Freddy Krueger’s victims in “Nightmare On Elm Street”, there is no escape anymore for the little boy lost in this dark, insidious otherworld.

Some Very Emotional Robots (Blog5)

“Reason”

By Isaac Asimov (1941)

A real life-like robot, check it out

I feel as though the fact that QT experiences human emotions can represent a few different ideas and fear in man about technology. Humans have been the top of the food chain, the smartest out of all species, for so long, there is a fear that technology will one day replace everything that we are.

“’Look at you!’ he said finally. ‘I say this in no spirit of contempt but look at you! The material you are made of is soft and flabby, lacking endurance and strength, depending for energy upon the inefficient oxidation of organic material-‘”-p.165

While I was reading “Reason” by Isaac Asimov, I was under the impression that this robot was meant to symbolize a parent-child relationship. I’m not sure how everyone else interpreted the story, but that is mine. Especially when QT talks about being a newer, better, version of Mike and Donavan. That’s almost how it is with kids, as we grow older, we grow weaker and our kin take over what we’ve built. They become the future leaders and providers for this world. It is our job as parents to guide them into doing the right thing and following the right moral objectives. Sometimes our parents, are not what we had hoped they would be. Growing up, most kids have their Mom’s and Dad’s up on a pedestal, when we realize they are just human, we begin to question as to why they are superior to us. They make mistakes just like we do, why should we listen to them?

As a teenager, I rebelled against my parents, to the ultimate extreme. Not saying it was without good reason but when I did, it was after I had found someone else’s footsteps to follow. I had become friends with someone that had no problem taking control of my life and I had no problem letting her. So, I relate to QT in this story in that retrospect, when he finds someone he feels is worthy enough to be his “master”.

“’I like you two. You’re inferior creatures, with poor reasoning faculties, but I really feel a sort of affection for you. You have served the Master well, and he will reward you for that. Now that your service is over, you will probably not exist much longer, but as long as you do, you shall be provided food, clothing and shelter, so long as you stay out of the control room and the engine room.’”-QT p. 169

The QT models of robots were new, and this was the first of its’ kind thus far. Meant to take over for man, too dangerous of a job, the robot soon doubts and questions every little thing that the “earthmen” say. QT asks about his existence and doesn’t accept the answers given to him from Donavan and Mike.

While growing up, I questioned why I was here. What was the point of my own existence? I believe we all question that at one point in time. Though, it’s a very “human” question to have for a hunk of metal. I believe a lot of us can relate to some of the questions QT is asking. Some people get brought into this world as an accident or even planned, but not everyone understands why they were brought into existence. What’s the bigger picture as to why we all exist? Are we actually here to build things such as QT, to help Earth go on striving, even if the human race does not?

“Cutie continued imperturbably, ‘And the question that immediately arose was: Just what is the cause of my existence?’”-p.165

“Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”

By Brian W. Aldiss (1969)

“In Mrs. Swinton’s garden, it was always Summer.”-p. 444

Does the author mean this in a literal sense? I found myself questioning the very first line of this short story.  Another peculiar line is,

“She had tried to love him.”-p.444

Talking about a three year old little boy, which at this point I’m guessing is her child. How do you try to love your own child?

When I first started taking notes on this story, that is as far as I’d gotten before I just got consumed in the tale. This whole story is about social interaction with technology. It’s about humans relying on technologically-made beings for just about everything. Food, weight control and even companionship.

At first, I was thinking, all of this technology has made this mother stone cold and deadpan. Come to find out that her husband created this life, even if it’s in the form of a technological robot, and now they don’t bother to nurture or care for it. There’s something very disgusting about a child that gets ignored and cast aside. I believe it’s relatable to every day occurrences. Bad parents are everywhere, not just in stories to robot-children. It stems back to the question, why create a responsibility that you are not willing to care for? Why have a child, robot or not, that you will not bother to consider your own. As sickening as it is, there are too many children out there that can, unfortunately, relate to little David.

I feel the worst part about all of this is the fact that the little boy doesn’t even know he’s not real. It’s heartbreaking. It relates back to society today because every day I see mothers and fathers not paying attention to their kids because they’re too busy texting or talking on the phone or taking a selfie. Since when did spending time on your phone become more important than spending time with your child? Also, what kind of self-worth issues will that create for the child, much like little David’s, when a fake conversation on the phone or social networking through social media sites takes precedence over being a parent? The fact that this story was written in 1969 and it contains as many similarities to issues people are facing today is remarkable and very, very scary.

Another thing, completely unrelated to my point on technology, but I was very much reminded of the movie “Ted” (2012) when Teddy, the robot teddy-bear began to talk and could walk and act on his own free will.






UPDATE:

Is it ethical to stop the progress of technology?

This is a very gray-matter question. There is no black and white answer. I feel as though there are pros and cons to both sides. I believe continuing could possibly result in loss of jobs, laziness, and who knows? Maybe even unprecedented consequences in regards to human development. I also believe that if we hadn't continued to advance and research technology the ay we have we wouldn't have all the benefits we do today, such as medicinal research.

Walter, The Male Stripper

I feel my blog 4 entry is long enough and this short story/update deserves its' own space. Hence, why it has its' own post. Enjoy!

**WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT**
1. Walter, Age: 32
2. Male Stripper
3. Always sleeping with women
4. Wants to become famous
5. An artificial intelligence will be created and humans will have to scatter across the Galaxy.

My dream has always been to see myself on this big projector. I sit in this quiet movie theater, very aware of the last few dollar bills I have in my pocket from my Saturday night. I work at “Balls to the Walls” male strip club every weekend and it’s usually more than enough to provide for the rest of the week and to pay my mom the rent money. I only pay twenty-five dollars a week to sleep in my old room at my Mom’s until I can make it on the big screen. My name is Walter and I am a thirty-two year old male stripper. I say it to myself and it sounds like an Alcoholics Anonymous introduction. I shake my head and mutter to myself as I stand up, leaving the blonde bimbo I brought with me more dumbfounded than when I found her. I zip my jeans back up, pat her on the back of the head and whisper,

“Good job sweet tits, now I gotta bounce.”

She looks at me, gaze inquisitive, wipes her lips, shrugs her shoulders and then turns to stare back at the movie. The light of day seems so harsh after being in that dark theater for however long it took to bust a nut.

When my vision finally adjusts I notice two other women, brunette and a redhead. I let my gaze and imagination wander on the redhead. I wonder if the carpet matches the drapes. I snicker to myself as I walk down Main St. when I notice at the shop across the street, all of the television’s turn on simultaneously and a news report starts broadcasting an emergency bulletin. Apparently, some experiment went wrong and now they want us to remain calm as an artificial intelligence invades our world while we try to evacuate to another. Did I just hear this bitch right? She wants us to go to another planet? I listen closer and try to pay more attention to her words rather than her chest. But, damn that rack!! Not just another planet. She said the first 50,000 people to get to NASA can hitch a ride out of this Hellhole, and then what?! Did she just say we’re going to be scattered across the Galaxy? The fuck does that mean?!

The Apocalypse and Post-Apocalyptic Outrage (Blog 4)

I believe that stories such as the short story "The Star" by H.G. Wells, about asteroid's coming for Earth have a mass level of appeal and are commonly used because we, humanity, fear the unknown. Most people look up into the night sky and see stars and sometimes shooting ones. Our imaginations roam wild as we imagine what it's like out there in all that vast open space. Same goes with the ocean, that's why there are movies such as Lake Placid, Jaws etc. Just like space, we don't know much about what else is out there due to the fact that there's a certain point where we just can't travel anymore. I believe that creates an appeal from those of us who have an inkling for the thrill of being scared. The fact that we know so little, means that our creative perspectives on a possible outcome, are actually, in a sense, very possible.  Who's to say they're not?
There is no one person out there that could possibly know for certain what lies out in space, and there is no one person who could tell us what lies in the depths of the ocean; because there are just some places and creatures we cannot even exist within the same atmosphere of. There are some creatures that can only survive where we cannot. So, those circumstances and probabilities can become quite frightening and thrilling.

"A vast matter of it was bulky, heavy, rushing without warning out of the black mystery of the sky into the radiance of the sun." p.41

One thing I really like about this story especially, is the different perspectives he throws in. A lot of stories are based from the narrators' point of view, here he talks about all different places and the different impacts its having on people all over the world.

"And where science has not reached, men stared and feared, telling one another of the wars and pestilences that are foreshadowed by these fiery signs in the Heavens. Sturdy Boers, dusky Hottentots, Gold Coast Negroes, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, stood in the warmth of the sunrise watching the setting of  this strange new star." p.41-42

"Everywhere men marveled at it, but of all those who saw it none could have marveled more than those sailors, habitual watchers of the stars, who far away at sea had heard nothing of its advent and saw it now rise like a pigmy moon and climb zenithward and hang overhead and sink westward with the passing of the night." p.42

I also believe another appeal to a story such as this one, is that most people wonder what they would do in their last few precious moments alive on Earth. If the whole planet were to be destroyed and not one person would survive, it makes us appreciate all the little things we never did before. It would make us all see things in a different light. Things like work or making money would have no precedence over someone's final moments here on Earth. I believe it's to help make us realize that though, there isn't an asteroid coming at us now, that anything could happen and no matter what, death comes, even for the best of us.  So appreciate what you have while you have it, because you never know when your last moments will be. In a way, it's almost as if the story is saying, that death fears no man.

"'It is nearer.' Men writing in offices, struck with a realization, flung down their pens, men talking in a thousand places suddenly came upon a grotesque possibility in those words, 'It is nearer.'"p.42

I, personally, thought this was an incredible perspective on what would happen if there would be a cataclysmic event such as an astray meteor that hits Neptune and comes barreling for Earth and then just barely skims by but still has made an impact that would affect and end the lives of so many. It makes me wonder just what would I do in an event like this? What would I do if there was literally nothing I could do to save everyone I love except wait, pray, and take as much shelter as possible?

******

I almost feel like Octavia Butler's short story, "Speech Sounds" foreshadows where we're at now. Obviously, it's very exaggerated. But in a sense, with social networking the way it's going, slang is used in common conversation nowadays. It almost seems like no one actually says what they really mean. For example, "what's up?" in the literal sense, the sky. Nowadays it's a common way to ask how someone's doing, if they're upset, if they're okay, what they're thinking about, etc. It's almost like outside of professional or scholar use, literal English doesn't get used anymore. There are so many abbreviations for any little thing you could possibly want to communicate with someone. There's even an abbreviation to tell someone that you laughed at what they're saying. There's buttons you press just to let someone know you like how they look or what they have to say. As a society, actual human to human interaction, the effects that it will have evolutionary-wise is unprecedented. 

"The illness was stroke-swift in the way it cut people down and stroke-like in some of its effects. But it was highly specific. Language was always lost or severely impaired." p.571

Also, the way people would kill someone else just because they could talk. It's ridiculous that someone would kill someone else out of jealousy. Because they can convey what they're thinking better than someone else, and yet even in today's society people get killed for much less. This story does a good job at reflecting how ridiculous some people can be. How harsh of a world this can be. What people don't realize is how good they have it, they don't appreciate what's already given to them because they're more focused on what they've lost or what someone else has been given. 

For example the main character, Rye, learns that Obsidian can read, but cannot speak like she can. Spoken language has left him, yet fortunately, he can still read. Whereas if she wanted to say something, to channel a thought into words and actually verbally communicate them, she could, she just could no longer read or write. As a writer and avid reader myself, I understand her frustration. Though, her rage when she learns that he has what she does not, I do not understand. I guess I cannot understand.

"He could read, she realized belatedly. He could probably write, too. Abruptly, she hated him-deep, bitter, hatred. What did literacy mean to him-a grown man who played cops and robbers? But he was literate and she was not. She never would be. She felt sick to her stomach with hatred, frustration, and jealousy. And only a few inches from her hand was a loaded gun." p.573

What I feel like she neglects to realize is that's precisely the point, he has no use for literacy skills. He probably yearns for his vocals just as much as she yearns to regain her literacy. The grass is always greener on the other side.