Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

Going back to the Horizon games, another way Ted Faro was just the worst was that he's not only the idiot who unleashed the killer robot swarm that wipes out life on Earth, he's also the reason it grew to be unstoppable. He feared the bad PR from people finding out the robots were out of control and suppressed news about the problem. This allowed the swarm to grow large enough that by the time everyone inevitably found out, it was too late to stop it.

If you squint, you can see a climate change analogy considering in real life oil companies suppressed information about it for years. Which is ironic since in the game, said idiot was once considered a savior for solving the climate crisis.

Edited by M84 on Apr 25th 2024 at 10:55:11 PM

How exactly do you suppress news about that sort of thing? I'd imagine even during early stages there'd be fotage of giant robots eating everything.

Considering the guy was also the world's first trillionaire with the resources and influence to match, pretty easily.

If COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing climate change crisis have taught me anything...it's actually pretty damn easy to suppress news about even the most glaringly obvious and serious incidents...

Oh, and just a quick question for clarification: Is discussion of more academic literary/media theory and criticism within the purview of this thread?

To emphasize the whole "rich people fucked the world over" theme in the Horizon games, the sequel has Far Zenith. These rich jerks devoted all of their resources to escape Earth rather than try to help deal with the Faro Plague. They figured out immortality and then spent thousands of years doing little of value on their colony.

But then they did the same thing Ted Faro did. They ended up creating an unstoppable AI threat that could potentially end humanity again. Their response was to flee again. The only reason they go back to Earth is so they can take the GAIA AI from Earth so they can build another colony elsewhere. The fact doing this would doom new humanity on Earth doesn't matter to them since they're still as selfish as ever.

And yes, by the end of the sequel, the AI threat they unleashed is still out there and still heading towards Earth.

And just to reinforce the theme, the AI threat NEMESIS is just the uploaded minds of a bunch of Far Zenith's members who thought this would make them even more immortal. So it's really an amalgamation of the minds of a bunch of selfish rich people driven to omnicide due to its isolation.

Edited by M84 on Apr 25th 2024 at 11:29:47 PM

Well yeah. As long as it's politics in media then it's fine.

Speaking of COVID, I recently saw a mini review of the History of Trunks from TFS, and they noted how people are going about their daily lives in the bad future despite the Androids running around and mass murdering everyone they find.

There was a lot of discussion on that part, and they brought up how COVID taught them people will do stupid shit as long as it doesn't inconvenience them personally and it's affecting other people.

Eh, I feel like the threat of death by virus and two living capricious nukes are entirely different things.

Aaron Sorkin is writing a “quasi sequel” to The Social Network due to his belief that Facebook caused the January 6 insurrection. Source is the Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/aaron-sorkin-social-network-sequel-january-6-1235011415/

What do we think of this?

I think it certainly holds some water.

Facebook certainly holds some culpability on what happened, though not just on the failed coup mind you, but also on not cracking down on misinformation echo chambers before things escalated to the actual insurrection.

Facebook has certainly gotten a more sinister reputation with all the stuff that's come out since Social Network.

Covering up genocides for foreign governments for example.

Facebook didn’t cover up genocide, it helped carry it out.

The platform was used to spread fake news that radicalised people to the point of committing acts of ethnic cleansing.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 27th 2024 at 12:03:43 PM

> What do we think of this?

I think they're missing the point in their desire to make a sequel,maybe they've got eyes on making a franchise from these films,they've certainly got a lot of material in work with

In part I think blaming technology (in this case a social network) instead of an actual instigator (like Trump) is missing the point,they're not wrong that facebook played a part in radicalization of the people who took part but ultimately the blame should go to the true culprit not his partner in crime.

Edited by Ultimatum on Apr 27th 2024 at 12:55:06 PM

Well Social Network was also a very character driven story, and critical of Zuckerberg, so a sequel should have plenty to say.

Feels like a sequel should focus on Twitter,since you have small company that starts and ends with it being brought and rebranded as x

Plus Trump was infamous for using Twitter to spread misinformation and rile up his followers to violent action. That’s why he got banned from the site initially after January.

A movie focusing on the effects of Social Media in regards to January’s events should really mention that.

Problem with making a movie about the January 6 riots being an effect on social media platforms is that it could be victimized by Executive Meddling.

....do...do I need to stop using Facebook?

I barely used Twitter before it became X, but I'm kinda still on Facebook. Should I like, be banning Facebook.

Have the crazy people once again proved that they can turn anything we might enjoy into something awful?

I'll remind you that Facebook was created by Zuckerberg with the intent to rate the hotness of girls he knew in college.

It never was made with positive intent.

i think the question of individual people using Facebook or TWFKAT or not is probably missing the point— the lack of regulations on social media (esp data collection + intentionally addictive algorithms) makes this sort of behavior extremely profitable and easy to do. The biggest social media sites are going to be engaged in manipulating their userbase pretty much by definition

Edited by Tremmor19 on Apr 27th 2024 at 11:55:26 AM

Eh, I tend to think of social media usage as analogous to driving a car. Bad for society in the aggregate, but frequently necessary in the individual case and ceasing as an individual doesn't actually do anything much for society (though it may, or may not help the individual, depending on personality and engagement type).

You can extend this metaphor to the bad economic effects of a ban, but I'm somewhat unsure on the actual economic impacts of social media...though a lot is going to depend on the definition, does this forum count, for instance?

Except Facebook is more than technology, it’s a deliberate and willing actor in the radicalisation of people.

Nobody blames the printing press for British-fascism during the ‘30, but we rightly blame the Daily Mail for being a Newspaper that during that era openly called for the U.K. to ally with Nazi Germany and published a “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” headline.

Personally, I miss Bebo.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 27th 2024 at 8:22:30 PM

Who/what is Bebo?

i still like tumblr! i appreciate that it doesnt force me to use an algorithm based on my behavior. i hate using a site and having to consider before i click on an interesting post "will this mess up my front page"? "will this post convince The Algorithm that i am a terf and want to see more posts about biological sex? i can just have predictable posts from my followed users

and reddit, if you turn off the algorithm

Edited by Tremmor19 on Apr 27th 2024 at 3:41:18 PM

> Who/what is Bebo?

a little machnical owl

Oh right,Bebo was social networking before facebook,very kid focused compared to the young adult Myspace at the time as I recall