Silicon Valley CEOs keep hailing its imminent arrival as they hawk digital goods, but the metaverse was a dystopian idea from its inception. A big shift is apparently underway in Silicon Valley.

We’re Solarpunk because the only other options are denial or despair. —Adam Flynn1 By now, dystopia may have become a luxury genre. Indulging in miserable future scenarios is not something everyone has time for.

Prof Stuart Russell wrote the book on artificial intelligence back in 1995, when the next few decades of AI were uncertain. Sitting down with Ian Sample, he talks about his latest book, which warns of a dystopian future in which humans are outsmarted by machines. But how did we get here?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2019/oct/18/stuart-russell-on-why-now-is-the-time-to-start-thinking-about-superintelligent-ai-science-weekly-podcast

submitted by /u/idontexpectrespect to r/ABoringDystopia [link] [comments]

I've read fantastic, dark - often very political analyses - of TV shows like Thomas the Tank Engine, Teletubbies, Mr.Blobby, and Sesame Street's Oscar the Grouch.... but I'd like to find some more. What other dystopian, playful, surreal, philosophical, deconstructive readings of kid's television shows/characters are out there? I am more interested in kid's TV shows, rather than movies, because there is more material to go with, but certain classic films, like Willy Wonka perhaps, would be appreciated too

The end of the world is over. Now the real work begins. Dystopias are the flip side of utopias. Both of them express feelings about our shared future; utopias express our social hopes, dystopias our social fears.

Looking for recommendations of science fiction and fantasy books (or short stories) in which the city settings are central or at least important to the story. Utopias, dystopias, segregated or in space, am looking for all kinds of stories.

Utopian Topographies

Posted

on May 18, 2018 in Talks | 0 comments

I was recently invited to deliver a guest lecture at the City Literary Institute in London as part of their evening lecture programme, titled "Mapping Imaginary Topographies and Times: Literary Utopias from the Renaissance to the Present." Since I'm currently writing a chapter on “Utopia and Science Fiction" for the Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literature (ed. Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor, Fátima Vieira and Peter Marks, forthcoming 2018) I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce students to the literary utopia and sketch out key moments in its development, including: the genre's origins in Renaissance island-utopias, the subterranean worlds of late nineteenth-century hollow-earth utopias, euchronias (utopias set in the future) of evolutionary progress and scientific management, Martian utopias, critical utopias of the 1970s, and contemporary post-apocalyptic and disaster fictions (particularly flood fictions) that privilege the utopian impulse despite their narratives of catastrophe.

As part of my broader current research into science fiction and utopian narratives of what I'm calling "extreme environments" (such as Mars, Antarctica, the deep sea, the hollow earth), I focussed the lecture around the question of how particular locations and settings have inspired literary utopias; as well as the common political features of these ideal societies and how they critique the socio-political conditions of their own times.

Click here to listen to a recording of the talk:

http://www.drcarolineedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CityLit-Talk.m4a 

Below are the PowerPoint slides which accompanied the plenary, or click here to download:

Download (PPTX, 15.4MB)

http://www.drcarolineedwards.com/2018/05/18/utopian-topographies/

We’re Solarpunk because the only other options are denial or despair. —Adam Flynn1 By now, dystopia may have become a luxury genre. Indulging in miserable future scenarios is not something everyone has time for.

Some of the first people to be called “engineers” operated siege engines. A siege engine is a very old device used to tear down the walls of an enemy city.

By Ursula K. Le Guin These are some thoughts about utopia and dystopia. The old, crude Good Places were compensatory visions of controlling what you couldn’t control and having what you didn’t have here and now — an orderly, peaceful heaven; a paradise of hours; pie in the sky.

Star Trek was one way of dealing with the social anxieties of the 1960s. Since sci-fi mirrors the present, ecological collapse requires a new dystopian fiction Build an imaginary world in your mind, hanging in space. Spin it around a bit; kick the tires. Now change one thing about that world.

The future as shown to us by science fictions is almost always shiny. Whether in aspirational daydreams or depictions of dystopia, the vision continues to be one of gleaming metal, stark white interiors, and of course many more robots.

Science fiction, cyberpunk included, has always been a bit of a boys club. Think of the names that we most readily associate with the genre. William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, and the list goes on. Women have been part of the cyberpunk movement since the beginning, though.

Through the past few decades of summer blockbuster movies and Silicon Valley products, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly familiar and sexy, and imbued with a perversely dystopian allure.

Each week, In Theory takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives. This week, we’re talking about transhumanism. Need a primer? Catch up here. Charles T. Rubin is author of “Eclipse of Man: Human Extinction and the Meaning of Progress.

3D Printing & Art Activism Workshop + Talk and Q&A, District, Berlin (22nd+23rd June, 2016)Two-day workshop and public talk with Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke on 22 and 23 June 2016 at District, Berlin.WED, 22 June, 10:30-17:00 Workshop Day 1THU, 23 June, 10:30-17:00 Workshop Day 2THU, 23 June, 19:00-20:30 Public TalkDESIGN BEYOND THE HUMAN: An Introduction to The 3D Additivist CookbookA talk and Q&A session by Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke on the possibilities locked up in additivist technologies, with particular focus on the work of the critically renowned and emerging artists, makers, and theorists included in the forthcoming 3D Additivist Cookbook.In this talk the artist-activist Morehshin Allahyari and writer-artist Daniel Rourke will tackle the question of what it means to design beyond the human. Is it better to try to change the world or change ourselves, and what are the implications of taking a position in this debate?3D PRINTING & ART ACTIVISM WORKSHOP“Only self-contradictory practices are true in a deeper sense of the word. In our contemporary world, only art indicates the possibility of revolution as a radical change beyond the horizon of our present desires and expectations.” - On Art Activism - Boris GroysWe believe technology can open up new perspectives, providing people with the means to challenge the structures, ideas, and institutions that maintain the status quo. But technological change is - almost by definition - tied to the functions of capitalism: a system that profits the few, often at the expense of civil liberties or the environment.For this workshop, we call creators and thinkers to challenge and action around a technology filled with hope and promise: the 3D printer. After considering the metaphorical and practical implications of additive processes, and exploring the revolutionary spaces opened up by ‘Art Activism’, workshop participants will devise practical and conceptual 3D printable designs that have radical implications. We will then discuss and explore the potential of ‘Disobedient Objects’ and their influence on social and political movements. We will reconsider activism as a form of ‘change’ and question the notion of ‘problem solving’ using dystopia, horror, and weirding as methodologies.Some Questions to Consider:What does it mean to be ‘radical’ in our contemporary society?How can we use technologies as tools of resistance and collective action?What does Activism mean today?Participants will work on devising their own ‘radical’ ideas, and blueprints for a 3D printed design that has the potential as a tool for activism with particular emphasis on sparking creative and critical debate.Preparing for the Workshop:Watch The 3D Additivist ManifestoBrowse the extensive additivism.org archiveDownload The Additivism Reader: Browse the reader + Read what interests you + Make notesMaterials participants will need to bring:Laptop computer Pens, paper Participants are encouraged to look through the reader that we have provided prior to the workshop.The work produced in the workshop will be shared online as part of our additivism.org blog and diverse social network. We encourage participants to continue working on their ideas after the workshop for possible submission and inclusion in the forthcoming 3D Additivist Cookbook - to be published online and in print in late 2016.Workshop application:In order to participate in the workshop, please send Daniel and Morehshin a short email on why you want to take part: 3d@additivism.org

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) presents a dystopian vision of a near-future world in which most organic vegetation has died and human life is becoming increasingly rare.