RE: I Really Hate The Concept Of Free Will
November 25, 2014 at 12:28 pm
(This post was last modified: November 25, 2014 at 1:09 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Wha.....? Minority Report...it's not...
obs: no, no, no. That's what the reader/viewer is supposed to accept, that's what every character accepts, that's what sets up the drama. The rest of the narrative concerns precisely how that isn't true, how such a system could be gamed, and why it would be a bad idea to charge someone with pre-crime even if it was statistically successful. What is first put forward as a utopian future quickly devolves into a dystopian nightmare...and that's -precisely- what Philip K Dick was good at. Making the future seem just around the corner, not so much different than today...but much, much worse.
Seriously, one of the best Sci-fi authors of all time, here's a list of how much PKD we all know..without even knowing it....(and that would tickle him pink...I'm sure)
A Scanner Darkly. -(great movie btw..Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr...rotoscope..no less)
The Adjustment Bureau.
Paycheck.
Total Recall.
Next.
Screamers.
Blade Runner....Blade Runner ffs! (admittedly a loose adaptation, an amalgam of a bunch of -now- iconic sci fi...but the main thrust is Dicks (ladies).
there are more.....obvs...I'm a fan.
(Look at the swift way he handles the precogs in Minority Report. No real explanation, they can just do what they do for "reasons"...that allows the reader to focus on the moral dilemma rather than how it might be accomplished, that's also why he made the police force so gentle and their manner of incarceration uncontroversial. No distractions, you either realized you were for pre-crime or against it, obviously PKD was against it.)
obs: no, no, no. That's what the reader/viewer is supposed to accept, that's what every character accepts, that's what sets up the drama. The rest of the narrative concerns precisely how that isn't true, how such a system could be gamed, and why it would be a bad idea to charge someone with pre-crime even if it was statistically successful. What is first put forward as a utopian future quickly devolves into a dystopian nightmare...and that's -precisely- what Philip K Dick was good at. Making the future seem just around the corner, not so much different than today...but much, much worse.Seriously, one of the best Sci-fi authors of all time, here's a list of how much PKD we all know..without even knowing it....(and that would tickle him pink...I'm sure)
A Scanner Darkly. -(great movie btw..Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr...rotoscope..no less)
The Adjustment Bureau.
Paycheck.
Total Recall.
Next.
Screamers.
Blade Runner....Blade Runner ffs! (admittedly a loose adaptation, an amalgam of a bunch of -now- iconic sci fi...but the main thrust is Dicks (ladies).
there are more.....obvs...I'm a fan.
(Look at the swift way he handles the precogs in Minority Report. No real explanation, they can just do what they do for "reasons"...that allows the reader to focus on the moral dilemma rather than how it might be accomplished, that's also why he made the police force so gentle and their manner of incarceration uncontroversial. No distractions, you either realized you were for pre-crime or against it, obviously PKD was against it.)
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