i'm not angry, I'm disappointed 7: the future is dead

This is the kind of presentation designed to scare the bejesus out of someone with limited analytical capabilities, i.e. why is everything going so fast? Because you haven't been paying attention, dummy. Also, most of these numbers are kind of suspect. I mean, the computational ability of the human brain is not something you can compare to a computer that easily (I thought they already did this in the 80's), 25% of high IQ indians does not mean that these people are going to take your job tomorrow, etc. The future is scarier than ever, but it will be in cute pictographs with a fatboy slim soundtrack. So, is everything going to change in the blink of an eye? Probably not. This is all information technology and it's consequences, after all, and human beings are the only part of the system that all of these things are for. The only real game changer is thinking in terms of AI, that might really give us a whole new world.

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End Theme week here: So, what have we learned? Governments are weaker in intent, but economically decisive and information-rich. Corporations are inordinately powerful and beholden to no ideals beyond profit, individuals are free, but groups are targets. The right wing is resurgent, the liberal left is the new center, which cannot hold. Academia is distracted and bickering. Technology is reshaping everything, but in a much more shallow way than everyone thought. Our culture is surrounded by quotes most of the time, except when it's trying, mostly failing to make a point. Everyone under 30 is going to have to participate in changing a global economy based on maximising profits at all costs into something sustainable for longer, solve the energy crisis, the fresh water crisis, rising populations, all while maintaining social justice, personal freedoms and rights, hindered by religious and social conflicts, an unstable and highly volatile international political situation, ineffective, but paranoid and cynical governments and obscenely powerful corporations. The only hope is an extreme appeal to intelligence, reason and personal responsibility. We'll probably make it, but at what cost?

I'm not angry, I'm disappointed 6: Legitimate complaints and right wing activism

The left is the center and the right is the new revolution. This is the last point in the documentary, which is full of interesting snippets, but this is the meat. This guy is pretty awesome anyway, but he's also one of the few academics you see popping in lots and lots of political debates, the other obvious one being Dawkins, who's just a shade too zealous to be taken seriously by his opponents. But this point, and the elaboration on Berlusconi are essentially the reason behind the weird right wing revolution that's been growing since the late 70's. The people, individual freedoms, revolution. All these themes are right wing now. Reagan and Thatcher began this thing in the west, the ayatollah in the Iran. The resolute reclamation of rhetoric and narrative from the left. Now, the status quo is heavily under attack again. But the status quo is now the liberal left, and the future is bleak.

I'm not angry, I'm disappointed 5: Neutral zones

Political correctness is the new racism. This joke is right on the nose concerning the problem with political correctness, it's really just as bad to overcompensate. And we're right in the middle of it. Race should for all intents and purposes be over, except it's really not, nor is sexism, homophobia or really any kind of bigotry. And it's not going to go away by pretending there's a neutral way to address the issue, because those just don't last. Remember when it was progressive to call African-Americans negroes? There's no point in trying to forbid people to use any kind of word, the word disappears from polite conversation, but that doesn't mean it's gone. There isn't an easy answer for this, aside from subtly making sure racists or sexists ore otherwise feel like their idiots for thinking these things. The ridiculously heavy-handed measures in place these days are not only condescending, but counterproductive. They only feed into already overripe persecution complexes.

I'm not angry I'm disappointed 4: Living in a mediocre world

The inability of the powers that be not to take themselves seriously has led to, what in my opinion is the most fertile artistic period since the 1960's, that is if you can stand the irony. It's so difficult to be authentic when everything seems so reminiscent of a sitcom. The only defining paradigm is if you mean it seriously. Because if you do, and it's not great, you've failed. In fact it's a lot easier not to take it seriously at all. I think it's one of the main reasons there's so much weird Nerd culture leaking into the main stream these days. It's almost always genre fare, but it's still a hundred times better than a sitcom anyone under forty can see is blatantly manufactured. Technology has a lot to do with it, but it's not everything. It just allowed a certain saturation point to be reached a lot earlier than it would have otherwise. Information itself has become a different animal. At the risk of sounding like a cybergoth, it's like it's becoming self-aware, but thinks everything is either lame or sorta cool because at least it's it's own thing.

I'm not angry I'm disappointed 3: Corporate Anarchy

Government suffers from being disappointed in it's citizens as well. Over the last thirty years or so, more and more of it's former core tasks have been disappearing due to the mistaken belief that the market will solve everything. Of course, business aren't the least bit interested in anything aside from profit. Governments tend to think that profits are connected to efficiency through a nebulous process carefully obfuscated by their top economics. Now left with virtually nothing to do, they're turning on their own citizens. If you've wondered why there seems to be nothing they don't want to know about you, this is why. Governments have little else to do these days but mine data and legislate on the basis of this, and facilitate a market economy which is totally free, except when it's about to fail, in which case it's propped up to fail at a later date. They can now spend all of their time worrying about you, and intervene whenever they like. If they can't get to you, they'll wait for some private entity to get you.