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New Nick Harkaway? Excellent!
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:27 PM on March 18, 2024

Genre humor... from sf, we'd be remiss to lack:
-the very great Stanislaw Lem
-Phil Dick
-Robert Sheckley
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:28 PM on March 18, 2024

Very neat.
And an unexpected bonus of a Space:1999 ad!
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:16 PM on March 15, 2024

there may be romance in this list
There is!

The Time Machine - Traveler/Wells and Weena
Superman - Supes and Lois, of course
The Terminator - romance is essential to the whole story
Time After Time - Wells and bank clerk
12 Monkeys - romance is key, and more so in the source film, La Jetée

etc.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:05 PM on March 15, 2024

Star Trek IV: entertainment value is only 6?! Bah.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:07 PM on March 15, 2024

the smart folks at SpaceX seem to be doing a good job.

They aren't though

SpaceX is the world's most widely used orbital carrier. It might be the most widely used in history, at least at an annual basis. NASA relies on them for what seems like most launches; is NASA erring here?
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:23 PM on March 14, 2024

Why is the asshole billionaire getting money from the government to make his toys? Money that could go towards helping people with housing, health care, education. Money that could go toward towards solving problems with our environment.

This is an expression of a long-running progressive anti-space argument dating back to the 1960s. It applied to public space then, and to the mix of public with private now. We see it here on the blue from time to… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:07 AM on March 15, 2024

Gift link.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:39 PM on March 13, 2024

"Undo Civil Rights Progress…?" is from the article's title.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:18 PM on March 13, 2024

the labor theory of value is still human supremacist, and hence unsustainable, and hence suicidal. We'd ideally adopt ideologies that value the natural world similarly to, or more than, human achievements.

jeffburdges, this sounds like deep ecology. Were you thinking of that?
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:31 PM on March 10, 2024

Saito sounds so bad on the historical Marx that I'd worry they are making a straw man out of Saito, but the Guardian article for the earlier FPP suggests probably not.

I haven't read him yet, but it sounds like Saito is following the well-worn Marxist traditional path of focusing on one of Marx's (or Engels') texts (or one co-written) to tease out a specific reading which becomes or supports a theoretical branch. For example, in the 1960s some read… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:35 PM on March 10, 2024

I recommend Mann's _Wizard and the Prophet_, which zompist referenced in the linked review.
A fascinating dual biography of two opposed 20th century figures, one calling for increasing agricultural output, the other urging humanity to react to hitting planetary boundaries.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:05 AM on March 11, 2024

but they're some green anarchism, no?

Eh, in a sense, like some other 1990s ecological activists were, but more to the point is their belief that we shouldn't embrace human supremacy, and instead view humans as one more species among others.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2024

contraception would lead to vice, and this made him priggish

Remember that Malthus was a curate, not just some random writer.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:50 PM on March 11, 2024

mittens, do you think population declines will reduce the number of potential servants?
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:51 PM on March 11, 2024

what if population doesn't decline under degrowth?

Fascinating thought. The collapse in birthrates is a clear effect of modernity/development (and especially improvements in womens' rights to education, work, and bodily autonomy). If we undo modernity, perhaps people will return to the pre-industrial norm of lots of kids for agricultural labor
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:12 AM on March 12, 2024

"Habsburg AI" is a great phrase.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:36 AM on March 12, 2024

Meanwhile, I'll keep writing my blog. And making my videos.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:36 AM on March 12, 2024

By only using an aquarium, ink and water, this film is also an attempt to represent the giant with the small without any computed generated imagery.

!! Gorgeous.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:30 AM on March 12, 2024

they're very famous but essentially local symbols (to the UK, and to England more specifically)

Plenty of Americans have a persistent love for the British monarchs.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:27 AM on March 12, 2024

I can't not hear this post's title in William S. Burroughs' voice.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:15 PM on March 10, 2024

Well done post, Iris Gambol.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:59 PM on March 10, 2024

Zeihan is predicting-- I mean currently predicting-- that the US will no longer protect commercial shipping

Yes, and I can't understand this. In the book of his I read and the videos I've seen he just asserts this, but doesn't explain why.
And that was before the Red Sea, which he found (if I recall correctly) "interesting."
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:46 PM on March 7, 2024

Zeihan's intentional empire retraction sounds like a fantasy.
Agreed. I've read one of his books and listened to a bunch of his videos and can't find him explaining how this would actually happen.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:18 PM on March 10, 2024

someone was asking in this thread about someone doing predictions of the future that were different from the ones featured in the main links.

I'd welcome other viewpoints. too.

As a futurist, I can see what I can find that fits the blue.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:19 PM on March 10, 2024

The Soviet War and Peace is so good overall, far better than the terrible US version. Agreed on how Bondarchuk practiced well there, then took things farther still with Waterloo.

I appreciate how the linked article digs into some films from other sources, like Yugoslavia.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:26 PM on March 10, 2024

Excellent.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 2:44 PM on March 9, 2024

When I was a kid I had an Othello set but not the rules, so I wrote my own. I wish I still had them.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:29 PM on March 8, 2024

Superb post, Rhaomi.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:41 AM on March 7, 2024

Thorzdad, Rooster Teeth is - was, sigh - an unusual thing. It started off as some gamers making funny machinima videos, then grew, adding new media, people, and projects. RT had such a great sense of fun.

Check the linked Wikipedia article for more.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:40 AM on March 7, 2024

Love the Alien version.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:50 AM on March 7, 2024

Agreed, Dip Flash, especially for passages like this:

the adoption of agriculture was not a definitive, one-way transition. Many societies ‘experimented’ with agriculture without becoming fully reliant on it. In other cases, societies that were at one stage fully reliant on agriculture later returned to hunting and gathering.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:48 PM on March 6, 2024

I've seen that as well, drewbage1847. Natural consequence of not talking about G_nX.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:42 PM on March 6, 2024

NASA, now release your own RPG system. For space adventures, baby

Naveller?
NURPS?
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:42 AM on March 5, 2024

Ah, I remember booting up Doom from a stack of floppies.

-signed, a GenXer
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:51 PM on March 4, 2024

Spectakelman indeed! What a fine name.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:35 PM on March 4, 2024

MetaFilter: pretty much everything I read as a kid was problematic at best.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:07 PM on March 4, 2024

Dear GenjiandProust, I'm so glad you do these roundups. They are very rich and go straight to my podcatcher.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:54 PM on March 3, 2024

Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature delights me. I love your term "Borgesian horror" for it, Kattullus. As an academic who studies academia I enjoy all of the portrayals and satire.

Its erratic schedule actually fits the mood, with various bits of irregular, strange content appearing when you least expect it.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:58 PM on March 3, 2024

"Consider, if you will, the political climate of the late 1940s"

Not the 40s, but an alternate climate change 1970s is the subject of this game.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:33 AM on March 3, 2024

we should coninsider paths that weld together what animals do and what more sustainable human societies do. Nations could reduce other nations CO2 emissions, plastic use, fertilizer use, etc. Acts of war should include mining coal, building refineries, raising cattle, etc.

jeffburdges, would this be a global society with fewer people and more localized communities?
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:38 AM on March 3, 2024

danjo, thank you for sharing this video. I've heard Schmachtenberger on Great Simplication before (as jeffburdges notes) but this one was... more introductory, and also more intense.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:53 AM on March 3, 2024

I'm reminded of the Dark Mountain Uncivilization Manifesto, which I still haven't been able to take aboard since the last time I mentioned it.


ob1quixote, re: Dark Mountain, we had a good conversation with one of its authors last year.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:33 PM on March 3, 2024

jeffburdges, thank you for taking the time to reply.

That vision of degrowth is very appealing in this context. I'm not seeing it get much traction in the US so far, though. Perhaps it'll take the real collapse and the violence you mentioned.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:36 PM on March 3, 2024

MetaFilter: for the metatronic among us
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:46 PM on March 2, 2024

A Laurie Anderson Bible sounds like fun.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:34 PM on March 2, 2024

You know, it's been said that history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:03 AM on February 28, 2024

positive fortune telling enhanced the likelihood that college students gambled for money

Which might explain the content of ads for this practice (which is growing a lot now, in the US).
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:18 PM on February 25, 2024

There's a dark plotline about this in Extrapolations (for the 10 of us who saw it).
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:58 AM on February 25, 2024

More on Zone Rouge, if it's new to you:

"The zone rouge was defined just after the war as "Completely devastated. Damage to properties: 100%. Damage to Agriculture: 100%. Impossible to clean. Human life impossible".

Under French law, activities such as housing, farming, or forestry were temporarily or permanently forbidden in the Zone Rouge, because of the vast amounts of human and animal remains, and millions of items of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:55 PM on February 24, 2024