Intelligently Childish

Premier nerd, (and a personal hero of mine) Simon Pegg recently gave an interview where he talked about the effects of geek and nerd culture. "Before Star Wars, the films that were box-office hits were The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Bonnie and Clyde, and The French Connection – gritty, amoral art movies... Then suddenly the onus switched over to spectacle and everything changed … I don’t know if that is a good thing."

He went on to add, "Obviously I’m very much a self-confessed fan of science fiction and genre cinema but part of me looks at society as it is now and just thinks we’ve been infantilised by our own taste. Now we’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes. It is a kind of dumbing down, in a way, because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about … whatever. Now we’re walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot."

The backlash against his words was almost immediate, because you know... the Internet, and the uglier side of nerd culture in general. However, this time I must admit that I felt like grabbing a digital pitchfork and joining in on the cacophony of Twitter rage, but then I had to stop and step back. Why did I feel so personally hurt by his words? And surprisingly the pain was personal. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that geek culture has very few true-blue celebrities, and we tend to put them up on a pedestal, Seth Green, Nathon Fillion, Simon Pegg, etc. So hearing those words from one of our more vaunted namesakes hurts. It's like hearing a harsh truth from your father who is telling you to do as he says but not as he does.

However, the real fact is that it is a harsh truth. First off, Simon Pegg, as much as we want to put him on a pedestal of lightsabers and starships, is only human. He is fully in his right to have his doubts, his personal struggles, and even a crisis of consciousness or two about the work he has dedicated his life too. We all have moments of doubts, and he is entitled to his own. Secondly, he may not be wrong, which may also explain the backlash. People don't like accepting hard criticism, even when it is done with the best of intentions.

With the widespread appeal of nerd culture through comic conventions, blockbuster movies, and TV shows, there has been a neglect of adult-problems and real-world issues. You don't need to look any further than Star Trek: Into Darkness to see how far the once lauded and highly intelligent Star Trek franchise has fallen from its intellectual roots. We spend our time talking about the accuracy of Batman's voice or we nitpick how close Game of Thrones stays to the books, but we rarely talk about the issues that face our world today, political elections, Middle-East turmoil, global warming. It's easier to watch Captain America punch a Nazi than try to understand the soci-economic-politcal justifications and ramifications of facism. This dumbing down of, not just our society, but nerd culture in general (again I refer you to Star Trek: Into Darkness) is a natural outcropping of our culture's growing popularity, and that is also important to remember.

Bonnie and Clyde made more than $50 million, and at the
time was considered one of the most controversial films in
Hollywood due to its depiction of sex and violence, but
it has largely been credited as being a film that changed the
way Hollywood did movies. (Sex and violence sells tickets.)

Now, I do want to get one thing straight before I receive any angry Tweets of my own, (they're mostly from my mother,) Simon Pegg isn't entirely wrong but he isn't entirely right either. There are still plenty of adult movies making money, American Sniper and The Imitation Game, both did well, and movies like Interstellar and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, made more than subtle attempts to talk to something more intelligent than just explosions. And as for the movies he mentions, The Godfather was top at the box office in 1972, followed closely by the (two amoral and gritty real-life movies:) the Poseidon Adventure and What's Up Doc. The French Connection was beat out by Fiddler on the Roof, and just edged out, James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. Lastly, Taxi Driver never broke the top fifteen in highest grossing films in 1976. Number one that year was Rocky, and number two was To Fly!, which was one of the first movies ever shot in IMAX. (I wonder if the ticket was double the price.) The spectacle and infantile-ness has always been there. These days it may be superheroes as opposed to cowboys, or space operas compared to sports movies, but the general idea remains the same. I will admit that technology has allowed the "genre" film to snowball like never before, but the bottom line for Hollywood remains the same, money.

More to the point, it is tempting to blame nerd culture for making the world more childish, but the world was always kind of childish. If its not comics, its celebrity culture, reality TV, sports, and even religion. In the fifties it was radio programs and shopping sprees. In Roman times it was gladiators and chariot racing. The movies Simon Pegg holds up as "artsy:" The French Connection, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Bonnie and Clyde... do you notice a connection between them? They had a lot of violence in them, and if you don't think that was part of the appeal that put butts in the seats, than you have never met another human being before. His argument also discounts movies like Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur, and King Kong. Those movies were just as much about spectacle as Star Wars, but the argument also seems to imply that none of these movies have anything to teach us. As if they have no inherent or real-world value of their own, and that is just wrong.

Star Wars was mythology (then commercialism, but that came late.) There is a lesson in there about growing up, confronting challenges, finding spirituality. Its not all laser swords and impossible outerspace dog fights. The original Star Trek inspired people to dream and believe in the possibilities of science. Superman (when not directed by Zac Synder) gives us hope and an example to try and live our lives by. I would argue that these lessons are just as important as any lesson found in Taxi Driver or in the study of the Israel-Palestine conflict. A lot of these stories and these passions, at least for me, become the basis of how I see the world.

The real trick then becomes to use that basis as way to inform the world. Yes, nerd rage is real, but I would argue that if you go to Comic Con or the opening of any new geek-culture movie you will find a society of people who are intelligent, peaceful, and willing to help. We need to turn those impulses and the message of who we are into something greater. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that geekdom could save cinema and popular culture from its own infantile self. We have the tools, the stories, and the understanding to make our summer blockbusters and our smash TV hits more intelligent and more engaging with real-world issues.

Pictured: A female scientist respected for her mind.

Historically, fantasy and especially science fiction have always challenged our beliefs, given us a lens to understand society, and given us license to dream about a better future. The irony of this, (and personally I think some of where these feelings are stemming from for Simon Pegg,) is that Star Trek was always the one thing we could hold up as the pinnacle of this idea. The original series tackled everything from the Vietnam War to the counter-culture movement, and the more recent shows have continued that trend with varying degrees of success, (I have been slowly re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and even though I have seen them all before I always find myself amazed by some of the poignant stories they tell and the new lights they cast on problems we are still having today,) but that changed in 2009. The rebooted Star Trek movie became more about popcorn, lens flare, and explosions, a trend that the second movie continued, only with less success. Star Trek: Into Darkness had the perfect opportunity to talk about the ideas of security versus liberty and blew it, (but I will stop there, because I have ranted on that subject before.) Simon Pegg has been tapped to rewrite the newest Star Trek installment, and had this to say:

"They had a script for Star Trek that wasn’t really working for them. I think the studio was worried that it might have been a little bit too Star Trek-y... Avengers, which is a pretty nerdy, comic-book, supposedly niche thing, made $1.5 billion dollars. Star Trek: Into Darkness made half a billion, which is still brilliant, but it means that, according to the studio, there’s still $1 billion worth of box office that don’t go and see Star Trek. And they want to know why."

The Millennials are growing up, and we are taking our childish culture with us. There is no stopping that, but now we need to use that culture and the lessons it has taught us to change the world and tackle the problems that are out there. Superhero movies don't need to be mutually exclusive with real-world parallels, in fact the best ones aren't. Captain America: Winter Soldier worked so well because it became a parable about America's growing police state, and Captain America: Civil War will probably hit similar notes about privacy versus public safety. These blockbuster movies can be more than spectacle. They can be smarter, and also successful. They can inform national discussion and spark new ideas in the next generation, but it is up to us to make sure that nerd culture and our society in general are not dumbed down in the name of opening week profits.

I think a lot of Simon Pegg's frustration is coming from his process with Star Trek. "Sometimes [I] feel like I miss grown-up things, and I honestly thought the other day that I’m gonna retire from geekdom." 

Personally, I don't want to see him go, if only because he is saying things that I think we need to hear. We have to make sure nerd culture finds a balance between smart and entertaining. It's okay to be childish, as long as you do it intelligently, and maybe that means we need to take a look at our own nerdiness and accept that we might have to make some changes for the better. Either way, it is a worthwhile topic to talk about. So I ask everyone on the Twitter-verse to lay off. These statements should be the start of a discussion, not the end of an angry rant. The last thing we need is to drive another of our ranks from the conversation.

Reviews No One Will to Read: Age of Ultron

I finally got the privilege of seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the more I read on the Internet (which is always my first mistake,) the more I find myself in the minority. So I have decided to pile my opinion on the heap of already stinking pile of dead opinions, like some glorious corpse pyramid, and write a review. I also want to warn you, right now, that THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD. (So if ye be behind the times and have not seen tharr film than ye best be shoving off land-lover for shores that... I can't keep the pirate thing up.) Come back after you have seen the movie.

I am going to start out by saying that I really really enjoyed the movie. However, I think that had more to do with the fact that with such big blockbuster movies I am really anticipating, I do my best to avoid any sort of speculation or possible spoilers. (I learned my lesson after Phantom Menace.) I even go so far as to restrict the trailers I see on the Internet so as to not ruin too much. I want to go in with as clean of a slate as possible. (Granted this has hurt me in cases such as with your Green Lanterns, but has proved generally a positive experience.) With that said, avoiding all knowledge of the movie (and obviously I have very extensive comic knowledge and lore to draw from,) is almost impossible. However, I believe that Age of Ultron hit all the strokes I was looking for: it was darker, filled with heroes, did a little setup for future projects, but mostly it was a fun Avengers movie, and I think that last part is important to remember.

A lot of people seem disappointed that this movie did not do more to raise the stakes for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. First of all, I would argue that it did, but secondly I would also argue that was not its job. This may be the eleventh Marvel movie in the MCU, but it is also only the second Avengers movie, and I think that is the better way to look at it. We all know the wheels are going to be coming off in Captain America: Civil War. Tony and Steve are going to be at each others' throats, but that conflict is not going to have any impact if there is not emotion more behind it, which I think AOU help set up.

The first Avengers movie was an origin story, the forming of the Avengers. And it was fun and great and big and explodey, but we did not get any time to see the team as a "team." This movie gave us that opportunity to see them just be Avengers and interact as friends and teammates. At the beginning of this movie we are made aware of the fact that the Avengers have been operating together long enough that they have battle maneuvers and code signals worked out. Tony has even made Avengers Tower for them and provides them with financial and technical support. That is great but as a member of the audience, I want to be able to see that dynamic. I want to see the Avengers being the Avengers and I think that is what this movie aimed to deliver. We have to see the bonds between Stark and Rogers, the missed chance between Widow and Banner, the glistening pectorals of Thors... What I got distracted there... Anyway, we can't just take the movie's word for it that these things exist. We need to see Captain America and Iron Man respect each other and have a friendship. This movie gave us the quiet moments we needed to understand the dynamic between the team, but it also sowed enough distrust among them to plant the seed for the coming conflict.

I was a little disappointed to see Quicksilver die, not so much that I enjoyed the character or the actor, but that I think the team is missing that hothead dynamic, which was so often filled by Quicksilver and Hawkeye in the comics. Still it was no real big loss, (and I suspect it has as much to do with not wanting to compete with the X-Men's Quicksilver,) but I am also way more excited about the possibilities that the appearance of the Vision have opened up. With the Mind Gem in his forehead I think there is a good possibility he will be playing a role that is more akin to Adam Warlock when it comes to the Infinity War, which I think is going to be a good fit. I was also excited for the inclusion of the MCU's B-list heroes (which in this context looks like it, unfortunately, stands for Black,) War Machine and Falcon, and their promotion at the end of the movie to full fledged Avengers. Falcon in particular is one of my personal favorite heroes and I am very happy to to see him finally get a little due. The creation of the Avengers training facility also gives later movies a device for introducing new heroes as Avengers Trainees.

It's funny because it Biblical.

As a side note, the cast list for Captain America: Civil War was announced last week, and it very much looks like the movie is going to be Avengers 2.5. That will be the movie that is going to take all the team dynamics and setup of this movie and really blow everything apart. However, I am disappointed to see that Daredevil was not on the cast list. I would have liked to see a tie-in with the Man Without Fear and the Civil War storyline. (After all, in the comics Daredevil has one of the coolest four panels of the entire crossover event.) There still might be hope that he could be in the movie as a last minute addition, however I was also disappointed to see that Phil Coulson was no where to be seen in AOU. I thought at least a cameo appearance on the helicarrier could have been a possibility.

Maybe it was cut for time. Joss Whedon apparently wanted to make a three and a half hour movie, but had to cut out a lot of the Thor storyline and even some scenes at the Barton farmhouse. (Can I buy that uncut version anywhere? Seriously, I'll pay for it.) This also bring me to my last point. I am a feminist in case you never realized, and I have no problem with the way Black Widow was treated in this movie.

A lot of people are complaining that she was set up as nothing but a love interest for Hulk. I would argue that is not true at all. If anything Banner was setup as a love interest for her. I saw the two more as a juxtaposition of one another. Natasha was not wrong when she called herself a monster, but the only difference between the former soviet assassin and the raging anger monster is that Banner can't hide his green side as well as Black Widow can. Even when Widow was captured by Ultron, she was never a damsel in distress. In fact, she is the reason the rest of the team was able to find Ultron's base of operations and stop him from enacting his final plan. Widow once again seems to prove that she is among the most capable of the Avengers, not a secretary or a love interest, but a full-fledged member of the team.

In fact, as it was expressed to me by a very good female friend of mine, "The only thing I find offensive about Black Widow is that she can keep her hair looking so perfect." To which I would add, so can Thor. This controversy is a non-controversy, except for the fact that it drove Joss Whedon from social media. Good job, morons. Here is a man who is both a fan and a creator, one of the only people that actually listens to fans and tries to make quality entertainment for us, and you drove him out of the conversation... *slow clap*

Age of Ultron was good. It was a good Avengers movie, it was a good Marvel movie, and it even manages to erect some bridges for what is to come. It is also going to make all the money... like all the money in existence. I have already seen it, but I would not be surprised if I wind up back in a seat on some lazy Saturday morning to watch it again. I rate it 9,000 stars, which means nothings... much like this review. I'm just ranting... go home... go away... I'm done.

I'm going to give it Disney on this one. Without there help this trailer could not have been possible.

Humans Need Not Apply

"Yes, I'm her about the exterminator job."

I've been gone for a few weeks and in my time away I have been looking into some interesting ideas about what is coming down the old proverbial pipeline. A lot of what I have been investigating stems from a CGP Grey video, which I recently led an educational discussion on: Humans Need Not Apply. (I will put the video down at the end of this post if you want to check it out, and I recommend you do.) I have also been doing a lot of reading on the subject by Andrew McAfee (You know that guy who keeps claiming you computer is not as safe as it could be.) Well beside designing anti-virus software he is also a respected MIT engineer and his book The Second Machine Age is an interesting read.

Now what does all this amount to? If you listen to these sources and others than you may find yourself getting pretty terrified because basically the economy will collapse sometime in the next twenty to fifty years. Robots, automation, and software are getting to the point where they can do our jobs better, faster, more accurate, and (more importantly) cheaper. To take an example from CGP Grey, let's look at self-driving cars.

They are already real and they already work. There are estimates that self-driving cars will be commonplace by 2025 and will be almost ubiquitous by 2030. For me that means I can read a book as my car drives me down to the Jersey Shore. For truck drivers, bus drivers, cab drivers, construction equipment operators, garbage truck drivers, and more like them, it means they will be unemployable. Not only will they be unemployed, they will have a skill set that is no longer required in the economy. Conservatives estimates put current transportation jobs as employing a little over 3.5 million people in the USA alone, but this new technology could cost as many as 10 million people their jobs. Go even further and look at the auto-parts industry, which employs almost another 1 million people who will have to be downsized. Other estimates say that this new trend is going to drop the number of cars on the road from 245 million to just 2.4 million vehicles. (Because why would I even need to buy a car when I can use an app on my phone to send for an Uber-Auto-Vehicle to transport me to my destination at cost of 50 cents per mile, and not even have to tip.) The auto-insurance industry, the rental car industry, the used car dealers, even the parking lot industry, are all going to take hits and lose employees. That is a lot of people out of work, and its just the tip of the iceberg.

Baxter the Robot can be taught any manual repetitive job, all with less cost,
less down time, and less physical comedy than you average Lucile Ball.

If you watch the video below you will see that there is a lot of new (and working technology) that already exists that will make our jobs obsolete. I am not talking about I Love Lucy assembly-line type of jobs either, but those kinds too. (Note to self: write a story about about two mischievous robot wives who always get into hijinks at the expense of their robot husbands, and one is Cuban... for some reason.) Blue collar, white collar, professional, and even creative jobs are all at risk. There is software that can take care of payroll, budgeting, advertising, and even human resource problems. There are computers that can answer the phone, sound human, and be responsive enough to solve people's problems. And that fake story and the Lucile-tron 9000... well a computer can write a better story, literally. They have computer programs that write stories, news articles, and even compose music. As for doctors and lawyers, they have an app for that. (I'm not even being flippant.) With the advent of wearable biometric technology (FitBits are only the beginning,) you are no longer going to need to have regular physician check-ups. Your phone will be able to tell you everything from your cholesterol to your blood type. It will warn you of an impending heart attack or diagnose that sniffle you woke up with. You may still have to see an actual specialized doctor for serious issues, but general practitioners will eventually become a thing of the past. Similiarly there will still be lawyers, but all the grunt work of law will be done by computers, not interns or pre-law students, or even Charlie who has failed to make partner for thirty years. Less lawyers, less doctors, less teachers, less policeman, janitors, grocery store clerks... less everyone.

Worst of all, these newly unemployed people will have no where to go. Conservative estimates put unemployment rates in this new economy at 20%, but it could run as high as 75% in the long term. What the hell are we going to do? Most of the sources I have used for my research don't give any solutions, just problems. So, I am going to talk solutions, and you may not like them...

Solution: We do nothing. Anything we try to do to bolster a human driven economy over an automated one is only going to delay the inevitable and wind up perpetuating the idea that humans have no purpose but to work, which in my opinion is a dangerous and stupid idea. Think about it. Why the hell do we need employment? We work forty or fifty years at jobs we barely tolerate and what do we get out of it? Satisfaction? (Maybe if you are lucky.) Even worse we condition ourselves to believe that it is our employment that makes us useful. In a lot of cases we make work to make jobs to make more work to make even more jobs. How many people do you know who have retired from work and have no idea what to do with themselves? It is because they have been conditioned to think that they need to work and they have never experienced a world where that was never true. Jobs are like prison walls. Its like what Red said that one time, "First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized."

With C3PO doing all of Luke's tricky translation work he was free to live
the luxurious life of a moisture farmer/rebel/Jedi Knight.

But it was not always like that. In our hunter-gather days estimates put the work day at anywhere between four and six hours, (of course 25-30% of hunter-gathers also died by homicide, but that's a whole other issue.) The point is that we have to ask ourselves if the purpose of human life is to sit behind a desk, earn a wage, pay into a pension, and wait for death once you retire? Twenty years ago, futurist believed that we would only be working about a 25 hour work week, because we would have things like 24-hour access to our messages, devices that would let us work from anywhere, and computers that could take a lot of the necessary grunt work out of our lives... You know what? They were right about everything, except the length of our work week. It stayed at 40-hours, not because of necessity, but because of fear and tradition. It is arguable that our current 40-hour work week does more harm than good, yet we cling to it because we believe that is the way things have always been done. Its the same for when I say, "In the future we may not have to work a full day or at all," that you have an instinctual spike of dread or fear... "How can that be?" you wonder. "What will we all do?" The short answer is: innovate and create. The long answer is: the impossible.

I understand there will be economical difficulties, but products will be cheaper and faster, and probably more disposable, but that doesn't mean all the problems will be solved. Some people have thrown out the idea of a minimum guaranteed income, a subsidized wage given to every adult after they turn eighteen. To a lot of people that sounds like Marxism, but the truth is, if we find ourselves in a world  with 75% unemployment, welfare and unemployment is going to basically become a minimum income. Then it will run out and people will still not be able to find jobs, because there will be literally no jobs to be had. So our economical thinking will have to be adjusted. Communism never worked because people like stuff, and there is no reason that changes in this new economy or that people can't make additional money on top of a minimum income. With all the free time I would expect people to use it to innovate, discover, and create. Now we won't all become famous actors or writers or software designers or scientist, but people will be free to follow their passions. If you don't believe me check out games like DayZ or Eve Online.

Both games are basically MMORPG's where the point of the game is that there is no point in the game. Sure there is survival and looting and leveling, but there are no involved storylines or epic multi-part quests. They are games where people are pretty much left to their own devices, and when you let that happen, you discover two rules: A.) Humans can be complete dicks; B.) Humans can create some pretty amazing things. There are fake multinational corporations that have arisen in Eve that are completely player driven. In DayZ players started a Hunger Games-like event that has become so popular it is now broadcast live on Twitch and other sports-gaming sites.

Yes, Jimmy Fallon, one day there will be robots doing that
job too, because of course there will be.

When left with time and resources people create (and yes sometimes they destroy because refer back to rule A.) In Star Trek, the Federation, is a society built not upon commerce or greed but upon discovery and the maximum potential of humanity. They are not driven by the need for objects or money, because why would they be? They don't need or want anything. You want ice cream? Boom... replicator makes you ice cream. You want to go to the beach? Boom... teleporter. You want the latest fashion? Download them and replicate them... Boom... The only thing left to them to get excited about or hungry for is discovery and creation. Art, music, poetry, and science are the driving factors of the Federation. I am not saying that is going to happen in the next fifty years, (or even at all,) here on Earth, but I am also not saying that it is not a worthwhile goal. It may seem overly optimistic, but when I think of the future I would rather believe in optimism, because even if we fall short we may still get something truly unimaginable.

So maybe it is time we stop being terrified of a world with high unemployment, and wonder what possibilities it can bring. In a world where everything is cheaper and abundant (including free time) maybe we can find a new paradigm for the human experience. Maybe we can create something amazing.

CGP Grey: Humans Need Not Apply