The Issue Of Transcendence
I finally made it to see the movie Transcendence, sadly I was in an empty theater. Personally, I was quite pleased with the movie and I am not shocked that it could not catch the attention of the general public. In my opinion, it is an accurate assessment on how evolved scientists would behave, how people who are afraid of technology will behave, and everyone knows damn right well, you could count on the good ole USA to behave exactly as the movie predicts.
In many ways, this was a nice option for the Singularity, the concept that we can heal and repair anything is a wonderful thought and a beautiful goal. The item that everyone would become part of the whole network, is a concept most folks outside of the Transhumanist community is not going to be in favor of or even understand.
I am going to cover some of the items as to why Transcendence was not received well.
- We have covered this topic many times on the Wave Chronicle, but simply an American audience will struggle to understand the concepts behind the movie. How do you explain college level material to a population that reads and comprehends at a 7th grade level?
- In America, the concept of a Utopian society where everyone works together for a common good, is not a selling point in the year 2014. In another age, or another time, Americans who lived and believed in “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” may have openly embraced the concept.
- It also comes down to attention span and what the population deems important. Simply, a story such as this, is lost on the current population. Next time, maybe insert some evil aliens, and far more death and mayhem, may capture an American audience.
The movie also has some technical issues that I am going to point out.
- As I have covered in “The Liquid Mind – Humanity Uploading”, it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to upload someone’s humanity to a hard wired mainframe. I simply do not care, what math algorithm you use, it is not going to solve the issue of the minds interaction with brain chemicals. We must adapt to a new paradigm that will account for the chemical reactions within our brains.
- Current Western Societies will not adapt to a “Borg” mentality of protecting the hive. It is a nice concept but the West will never accept this mentality. An article covering this very topic is going to be published on the Wave Chronicle in the next 30 days, so give it a good read.
- The other missing item is the “For Profit” and “Rich Only” science and healthcare. Those folks exist and they would never let people be healed at no cost.
- I also do not believe that society will handle the loss of computers and computerized systems as well as portrayed in the movie. That end of the movie should have been far more negative than what it actually was.
The one fear that I did have watching Transcendence is the real possibility that anti-technology groups will exist in the future and this paradigm has not been accounted for, in the issues that we face in moving humanity forward.