Well, that's a pretty accurate description of this clip. Other technology is unproven and unreliable. Theirs is new, unique, and totally reliable. No self respecting science fiction author would stoop so low...you need Hollywood to get this level of "disbelief-required" (or L Ron Hubbard, which is even worse).

Brain 2.0 will come online sooner than science fiction.

Augments into hacking hardware into our wetworks has been done successfully for years now, tho generally frowned upon still. William Gibson's ideas of brain adapters have so far been proven to have some merit.

(No this isn't directly discussed here, being more general about our upgradability).

Your video, Space Elevator – Science Fiction or the Future of Mankind?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

The biggest trouble with transporters is they were a cost-cutting measure on a science fiction TV show so the production company didn't have to do a bunch of effects shots with shuttlecraft every episode.

Holy Crap! I better get my ass down there and claim that 1/5 that's left. It might not be too long before it's useable land, perhaps the most inhabitable land left, certainly the most inhabitable unclaimed land on the planet....unless, that is, the ocean currents stop, then it might actually get COLDER there.

That's not science fiction fantasy or a problem we might face a thousand years down the road, it's a real predicted possibility in the near future...right now, in the middle of winter, it's well above freezing in the Arctic,

and it's cold arctic water that drives the ocean currents. If there's no cold water in the arctic, there's no ocean current, and the oceans 'die' fairly quickly, with everything else to follow shortly thereafter from toxic gasses if not starvation.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/

http://dirkloechel.deviantart.com/art/Size-Comparison-Science-Fiction-Spaceships-398790051
http://www.merzo.net/indexSD.html

Capitalism is a guideline or system of how to organise aspects of society (trade, labour and services for example), nothing more. How you use it defines its effect on us. I could sell you my child explicitly for the purpose of you raping it and it would show how evil capitalism is. Or I sell you my children's book explicitly for the purpose of you entertaining your own children and that would be quite nice.
The problem starts if you think everything needs to be a for profit business as capitalism should be unlimited. Then you live in a country that makes prisons privately owned businesses and thinks it's ok to bankrupt sick people and their families with medical bills.
Capitalism is as evil as the people controling it. Who allows these people to be evil? Who cares? Apparently not the majority.
However, all that is not the problem of this ad. The capitalism works to nobodies disadvantege here. Edeka tries to brand itself as family-friendly and established part of homelife. That is quite normal and acceptable for a grocery store. It is not like as if VW would be putting out ads on how honest they are.
The version of the ad I described as being better is as manipulative as this one with the exception that it doesn't make everyone look like assholes upon closer inspection.
Nobody nailed grandpa's door shut, he's allowed to step into the world and make new friends and other aquaintances. His isolation is understandable but mostly his own fault. I witnessed stuff like that myself, I have grandparents too.
On the other hand you bemoan the smombies of today. Do you see the irony of complaining about the screen-fixed stare of todays youth (and society in general) on an internet forum?
We created a distraction-addicted, short-term attention-spanned and self-affirming society on our own by willingly swallowing all the crap the distraction industry throws at us.
I don't have a twitter account because nothing I can say in 140 characters without established context is worth saying. That gotta mean something coming from me of all people.
I'm not on Facebook because I know what the 'StaSi' was and see no reason to do their work on my own person for Mr. Zuckerberg and his shareholders.
I have no internet connection on my cellphone because I prefer to know stuff instead of just looking it up. I don't write text messages all the time because I prefer spoken words with their complexity that simplifies communication instead of emojis that emulate things my face did since before cellphones stopped being science-fiction.
I choose not to stare at the palm of my hand and what's lying in it every 5 minutes because I can. Most of our modern society chooses differently. They chose poorly, as the real oldtimers would say.
And here we are, yet again, ranting about the evils of enticing screens in our lives, live on the internet. You know, we would not be this absurd joke if we'd sat at a dinnertable right now. With food and drink from Edeka.

Writing: All of these shows are what we might call 'clever,' which is generally a big selling point for me. Unexpected, heavily layered, structurally complex writing for comedic effect - a lot of recursive, iteratively growing humor. They're all also quite big on dialogue, and are comparatively 'dark'.

Themes: All of them also feature self-destructive and dysfunctional characters, to different degrees. In addition to this:

Rick & Morty: Does brilliant deconstruction of science fiction concepts without a condescending outside perspective. An amazing example is (spoilers) the time that Rick makes Cronenbergs of the entire global population, or the time that Morty's indecisiveness creates split quantum timelines.

Potentially good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5A5Mb__fiA

Always Sunny: Never shies away from exploring the darkest consequences of its incredibly self-absorbed, idiotic, low attention span, high energy, self-destructive cast.

Potentially good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_49P1RtqU0

Arrested Development: ...I'm not good at writing these synopses; I just wanted to see if I could figure out why I love these shows so much. Anyway, Arrested Development is the most heavily layered of all of them, so in just a few episodes it builds up an incredible library of call-backs, double meanings, etc. It's also less abrasive than the other two, if you have something against offensive shows.

...I don't know if there any good example scenes. You should just watch it.

One of my favourite chapters in may favourite book "The Ancestor's Tale" is about rats, and a quite erie science-fiction scenario with rodents having human level intelligence among their future descendants. They are almost certainly the best mammallian candidate for surviving the (human) apocalypse.

Not true, and that's why I posted the actual definition, rather than my personal feeling on what the word means. Then we can all start from the ACTUAL definition(s) rather than just making some up and arguing about it.

Your second paragraph/sentence makes no sense at all to me, and sounds like a disjointed red herring/straw man/bad attempt at creating a false argument you can shoot down....but it's so all over the place it's unfollowable.

You continue to confuse feminism with Feminism, and also continue to paint all Feminists in the worst possible light based on a few overboard examples rather than describing the normal, average Feminist.
For instance, many Feminists see pornography and prostitution as empowering and taking control of their own sexuality, and it was actually prudish anti-feminist men who tried to censor it in the courts.

In fact, there ARE many people in the civilized world who still think women don't deserve the same rights as men in many areas, and insist they are unable to perform tasks men can perform, must be coddled and subservient, and are lesser beings based purely on gender, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It's only because of this continuing misunderstanding on your part that you claim anyone said anything like "The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank... "...you are again confusing feminist with Feminist, and using the wrong one. We don't have Feminist advocacy to thank, we do however have feminist advocacy to thank for the advancements in women's rights...it's what the word means.


It doesn't sound at all like you 'appreciate the attempt at consensus building', or even understood my point, since you continue to conflate feminism with Feminism. I can't be certain, but it seems you are doing that intentionally in order to argue a moot point.



EDIT:sorry, I thought I quoted you @gorillaman, so I'll cut and paste....

gorillaman said:
Everyone has a different definition of feminism; that is to some extent the problem. Rather, this is the final bulwark to which its advocates retreat when their main arguments have been punctured and deflated.

"But surely," says the distorter of domestic violence and rape statistics - says the agitator who runs dissenting professors off campus - says the censor of allegedly harmful pornography - says the fascist who criminalises prostitution or BDSM - says the conspiracy theorist who sees systemic sexism in places it couldn't possibly exist, like science and silicon valley (and videogaming, and science fiction) - says the proponent of patriarchy theory in societies in which men are routinely sacrificed to war, to dangerous jobs, to extreme poverty; whose genitals are mutilated; whose children, houses and paychecks can be taken away essentially at the whim of their partners; for whom there is vanishingly little support in the event of domestic abuse or homelessness; who are assumed to be rapists and wife-beaters and paedophiles; and who are told, throughout all of this, that it is their privilege - "I'm just claiming that women have rights. How can you disagree with that?"

The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank and to which there is actually anyone in the civilised world who objects, is a laughable and insulting one.

Still, I'm sure we all appreciate the attempt at consensus building.

Everyone has a different definition of feminism; that is to some extent the problem. Rather, this is the final bulwark to which its advocates retreat when their main arguments have been punctured and deflated.

"But surely," says the distorter of domestic violence and rape statistics - says the agitator who runs dissenting professors off campus - says the censor of allegedly harmful pornography - says the fascist who criminalises prostitution or BDSM - says the conspiracy theorist who sees systemic sexism in places it couldn't possibly exist, like science and silicon valley (and videogaming, and science fiction) - says the proponent of patriarchy theory in societies in which men are routinely sacrificed to war, to dangerous jobs, to extreme poverty; whose genitals are mutilated; whose children, houses and paychecks can be taken away essentially at the whim of their partners; for whom there is vanishingly little support in the event of domestic abuse or homelessness; who are assumed to be rapists and wife-beaters and paedophiles; and who are told, throughout all of this, that it is their privilege - "I'm just claiming that women have rights. How can you disagree with that?"

The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank and to which there is actually anyone in the civilised world who objects, is a laughable and insulting one.

Still, I'm sure we all appreciate the attempt at consensus building.

I was a 15 year old boy that wore dresses, disliked superhero comics, played in a band, and competed in academics. When I was 30 I started reading superhero comic books (obsessively) but I still wear dresses.

Perhaps one day you will discover your superhero chi. It is never too late.

Deadpool on the other hand is a mostly childish, yet mindbending and fourth wall breaking character that spans the comic book multiverse beyond even Marvel comics, having a direct counterpart in DC that is less wacky, both of which reference each other incognito through narrative.

There's quite a bit of fun science fiction going on simultaneous with the 15 year old boy jargon, based in more than just the silliness of the comics themselves, but the politics of comics writers and artists. Far more interesting than the even more popular Star Wars B.S. happening this Christmas, which I think is a six year old boy demographic.

I would like to see those links, but they do not link correctly.

New scientist

Wired

Found them. What struck me as most relevant about either of the articles is from the Wired article that basically says, in the penultimate paragraph, that this finding doesn't necessarily mean anything because 1) there may be physical laws or phenomena that we do not yet understand governing the behaviour and 2) we know how a lattice works in our computer simulations - we do not know how a lattice might work if one were to physically exist, why should it act like anything we know?

However, it is a real possibility.

Absolutely. It's a mistake to make assumptions about what AI will be like. The doomsayers too often attribute human qualities to it. It's like speculating about alien intelligence. It will come in bits an pieces as we understand it more. My own guess is that, not weighed down by long obsolete genetic imperatives and human psychological pathologies, it will most likely be (in its higher form) an extraordinarily capable problem solver and prognosticator. It will lack the human flaws that typically motivate the killer AIs of science fiction. Of course, it will probably have it's own unique flaws. I do think it's wise to be wary of software that has developed beyond our capability to understand it (much as we don't understand the workings of our own consciousness).

Probably my primary concern about robotic weapons comes from a DARPA proposal I read about some time in the past. What they wanted was an autonomous, bird sized UAV. It would contain surveillance equipment and sensors, and be able to share the data it collects through a mesh network established with it's fellows and the commanders as well as receive orders. It would be intelligent enough to find a suitable strategic vantage point and hide itself. From there it would simply observe. With a large enough swarm of these, perhaps many thousands, you could send them into a city at night. They would each also potentially carry a small warhead allowing them to launch themselves at and destroy threats. Once these robots were entrenched, which might only take an hour or two, whoever controls them would effectively rule the city. Even if they were cut off from their command structure, they might still retain enough intelligence to recognize a particular individual, someone in a forbidden area, someone holding a weapon, or someone not brodcasting the right IFF signal, or any number of things. There might be no defense against such a thing (though there probably will be).

To me, that concept is terrifying. It's not huge hulking terminator-like war machines that could be the greatest threat, just flying, self-guiding, intelligent hand grenades. All someone would need is the capability to manufacture them. No raising an army, no speeches or threats, just a factory and a design. It's also not too far fetched to believe this capability might be available in just a matter of a few decades. They'll be easier to build than nuclear weapons, and oh so convenient and easy to deploy.

Um.... anyways, I dunno where I was going with that. Just lots of random pontificating, but because it's technology, it's silly to try to stop it with legislation. It will happen, as ChaosEngine rightly points out, the best course of action is to be on top of it and to understand it.

Here's a funny yet serious thought -- will anyone watch this video and read our comments while they're dying on Mars, cold, alone, asphixiating?

If only I had taken South Dakota seriously..! Why GOD?! WHY!!!!!!!! ...why couldn't I have been as smart as those people commenting on Videosift? Those geniuses! No, instead, I moved to Mars -- for the evil ends of SCIENCE.

Like a convoluted Martian ecological science fiction horror murder mystery movie poster from the 1980s --

SHE MOVED TO MARS TO FIND LOVE...
BUT ALL SHE FOUND...
WERE THE MARTIAN MEAN STREETS...
A NEW WORLD WITHOUT LAW...
WITH ALIEN ARTIFACTS...
JASON VORHEES RESURRECTED...
AND VERY... LITTLE... OXYGEN.

FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL...
STRAIGHT TO CAPITAL HILL...
EARTH!

bum bum buuuuum -- THE TERRESTRIAL CONSPIRACY.