I always read it as "apocalypse proof" rather than "apocalypse-proof". That is, it's proof that the apocalypse has happened, rather than something that's immune to the apocalypse.
When I saw the film I had some female friends tell me they felt uncomfortable with objectification and portrayal of women in the film. And I can’t disagree. But I always felt that there was an underlying truth to the dystopia of the film that explained that objectification, though perhaps does not justify it.
I think the film does justify the objectification, although it does still make me uncomfortable.
Joi is sold as an object / product in the film. We see her advertised all over the place, and I think we are supposed to see her as an AI girlfriend and feel a little sorry for Joe, at least initially - he's replacing a real relationship with an object pretending/programmed to love him.
And then we start to realise that that's not really the case. "Our" Joi has memories with him, and her personality with him is clearly different to the default personality we see in the advertisements. And so what if she's programmed anyway? - that doesn't make the feelings Joe has any less real.
The main theme in the first Blade Runner, and still a major theme in 2049, is having the audience ask themselves "is a replicant really any different to a human, really?". The clearly have feelings and are defined by both those and their memories (implanted or real) in the same way "real" humans are, even if replicants were constructed. I can't help but feel that Joi, and AI in general, is the logical progression of that line of thinking - if an AI is bringing up memories, emulating feelings, etc, then should you treat them any differently to a human? And does the influence the AI has on humans' (or replicants', which I think we already established to essentially be the same as humans) feelings not mean that AI can have just as much value to humans?
I think Joi being not just treated as an object in the story but objectified is kind of key to having people consider that. The first Blade Runner very much did the same thing but with replicants, and we've seen other media do similar with gender/race/sexuality/etc. It can be much more powerful to belittle/objectify/discriminate against a character and then tear that down and ask the audience to consider why it was wrong, than to just never bring it up in the first place.
I also just think the dystopia is kind of the point and objectifying women is a part of that dystopia. The film doesn't revel in objectifying women but rather women being objectified is yet another thing about the film that highlights how dystopian it is. The film doesn't try to normalise it in real life or make you feel comfortable with it; it just presents it to you as something that's normal in the setting, similar to the huge amount of garbage, similar to the capitalist hellscape, similar to Las Vegas being an irradiated wasteland, similar to replicants being hunted down, similar to Joe being a replicant... Very little about the film is meant to be aspirational or comfortable - the opposite, in fact - and singling out the objectification and portrayal of women just feels a little odd to me.
I think it's a film where most people are being objectified and in some cases pretty senselessly murdered! Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista's character) is senselessly murdered. Joe/K attempts to senselessly murder Deckard. Joe/K is left to die on the steps at the end of the film. Ultimately, I think it's less about any kind of gender divide and more that almost everyone is just a victim of extreme capitalism. Everyone is dehumanised in the name of profits. Everyone is made to compete with everyone else for what scarce resources remain. And that's especially true for the "secondary citizens" the film largely spends its time with - replicants, women, orphans, poor people. Slaves.
If patriarchy and violence against women weren’t a problem or if the film were about those issues, then all good.
I'd go so far as to say that patriarchy, violence against women and fertility are major themes of the film. With replicants existing, we see a world where women aren't needed to create life. With overpopulation and resource scarcity, we see a world where having children is less desirable anyway. The film's larger narrative focuses on Wallace, who is very much patriarchal himself and also representative of the patriarchal ruling class in the setting, wanting to discover how to make replicants reproduce because breeding replicants would be cheaper, quicker and easier for him than building them from scratch.
Wallace is cruel, power-hungry, sadistic, and dreams of electric wombs - of a world where women aren't necessary (because he only sees them in terms of their "function") and he can play god. He's very much painted as the villain - one gory scene shows him quite literally see him cutting into where the wombs of female replicants would be because he sees their infertility as a failure and something that makes them worthless to him.
Blade Runner 2049 goes far beyond using the sad prostitute and the destitute brothel to signify dystopia; it fully integrates them into its plot and takes a deeply anti-patriarchal stance.
It feels like other options were available and, TBH, using female objectification/ownership/subordination/violence as a vehicle and marker for dystopia is perhaps lazy and trope-ish.
I don't feel like it leans into them so much that they become tropes, personally, and I don't think men fare much better either. But while women's sex appeal is commodified - quite literally with pleasure models, the most clinical, corporate name possible for sex robots - we also see combat models and blade runners commodifying violence. Some of these roles are filled by humans doing what they can to survive in a capitalist system trying to crush them; others are replicants or AI literally designed and manufactured for those roles. I don't think any of them were used as markers for a dystopia so much as being part of the fabric of the world, the story and the themes.
For me, as much as I like the film, I don’t think it’s story and point quite get to the point of making what happens to women in it feel justified in our current era.
I really don't think what happens to men in the film is much better. The film is miserable for everyone in it - it's an equal-opportunity dystopia. The only person not being crushed by the world and the system is Wallace, and not only is he the oppressor (so, y'know, not much sympathy there...) but he also doesn't come across as too happy either.
Perhaps a bit more like the story of the protagonist in BR 2049 (who’s of course male).
Joe/K might be the main character of the film but he's not special, and that's the point. His entire character arc is that he starts off feeling like any other replicant - ie, not feeling much at all because of all the emotional suppression - before daring to hope that he might be special and becoming more and more in touch with his humanity as a result. As the story progresses, he becomes convinced that he is indeed special. And then it turns out he's not, and he decides to give up his life to help someone - a woman - and that is when he really becomes special.
Almost everything that happens to Joe/K in the film is at the direction of women. His boss - the police chief - is a woman. The person who implanted his memories - and who is responsible for implanting all replicant memories - is a woman. The person who leads the replicant resistance is a woman. His direct antagonist in the film - Luv - is a woman. A lot of his emotional development comes from being prompted by Joi, a female AI. Almost everything that happens to Joe/K ultimately happens because of a woman, because they are the ones who are really playing the game around him.
I think Blade Runner 2049 is a deeply, deeply feminist film. It doesn't shy away from depictions of female objectification/ownership/subordination/violence - they are important for telling its story and getting across its themes - but it sure as hell doesn't endorse them either.
I'm definitely a little confused about Tango - I'm hoping we'll at least get more details come out about why Microsoft shuttered them. I mean, Ghostwire Tokyo was... whatever, and I could understand Microsoft not wanting to have them working on that kind of scale again any time soon. It wasn't bad by any means, but it was fairly expensive and perhaps didn't do as well as they hoped. But I'm surprised they didn't want to just downsize the studio and aim for another HI-FI Rush-esque game (or sequel).
But Arkane Austin being closed definitely makes sense. Not only was Redfall a disaster, but by the time Redfall released, 70% of the people who'd worked on Prey had left the studio. (Largely because the studio's president had left the studio just after Prey, I believe, rather than because of the Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda.) All that was really left was the name.
"Splinternet" and "cyber-Balkanisation / internet Balkanisation" are some other terms for it, for anyone else wanting to read into it!
It's definitely more common for me, too. There's a greater sense of community, and it just feels more personal and less hostile than most of the wider internet does. Smaller groups are much more able to hold each other accountable and self-moderate, too.
I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying “woke”, “critical race theory”, ““grooming””, and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open....
Those underlying issues are what left-wing people are trying to resolve already, though - wealth inequality, poor mental health, too much power in the hands of corporations and the mega-rich, removing outrage politics, etc.
You can just say “well they’re stupid that’s what you get” or you can ask yourself why aren’t we getting these people on board while some greasy billionaire can?
I don't necessarily like to just dismiss people as stupid, but a lack of education and the ability to understand complex issues is both a big issue for these people and a reason why the greasy billionaires can get them on board. Convincing someone that them paying some of their money into a union will actually result in better working conditions and more money for them - rather than just being poorer - is a lot harder and takes more understanding on their part than someone convincing them there's less money to go around because there are more immigrants, for instance.
On top of that, people like to be able to absolve themselves of personal responsibility if they are given the option to. That's not exclusive to right-wing people, but when that's coupled with people wanting simple "explanations" because they don't understand more complex systems with all their consequences, knock-on effects, etc, it makes it easy for right-wing politicians and media to offer simple scapegoats and get people on board.
To use the immigrants example again: not only is it not your average right-wing voter's fault in any way - it's the immigrants' fault - but also, they don't personally need to do anything to fix the issue, they just need to let the right-wing politicians get into power and it'll all be solved for them. It's all very comforting for them - much more so than being told it's going to take ten years and some work on their part to improve things.
I installed uBlock for someone recently. They complained about all the empty space where the ads used to be. So I removed the empty space by blocking that element with uBlock, which increased the width of the main body of the website, and they then complained that the website was too wide...
I think the episodes kind of naturally fall into groups based on the story arcs, so if you're watching multiple episodes at once, I'd recommend watching them in those groups if you can!
Those and reducing the requirements for the early blinds definitely stand out to me, yeah. Reducing the early blinds is a very good change - I think most of my early losses aren't necessarily because I've played badly, but rather because it's too early in the run to have found something to build around or to put any combos together. This change makes you less beholden to RNG in the early game, and also allows you to think a little more about your endgame strategy rather than focusing on surviving right now.
It just really bugs me when I hear people say it’s a US problem. A lot of Europe is holding a lot of racist views
I'm European. I certainly think it's safe to say there are problems with racism in Europe (and everywhere in the world really), but I do think the US tends to have a different way of looking at some aspects of racism due to having a more black and white (pun not intended) history of racism.
A prime example is European views towards travellers. Most people I know take issue with travellers, but I don't think anyone really considers them to be a different race or ethnicity (even if they are technically). The issues aren't because of any perceived difference in race/ethnicity, but rather because of the culture clash. They are seen as people who opt into a lifestyle that directly causes issues for non-travellers - whenever travellers come to town, there's a surge of thefts, utility damage, violent crimes, littering, etc.
Europeans consistently see travellers coming to town, causing issues and decide they don't like travellers and their culture because of it. Americans tend to look at the situation through the classic black vs. white racism lens and see Europeans as just being openly racist for it. I agree that there are very real racism issues in Europe, but I think that's an example of how American views on racism can't always directly translate to how things are in Europe.
US research suggests that 92 minutes is the optimum length for a film. But I have sat through long films that felt short and short films that felt buttock-annihilatingly long....
Around 100 protesters were arrested on Saturday at a pro-Palestine encampment at Northeastern University, but not the one whose hate speech got everything shut down.
It's worth pointing out, I think, that TalkTV is Rupert Murdoch's latest outing, and is owned by his News Corp, which also owns The S*n and The Times. It's no surprise it's awful.
I recall him saying a year or two back that he ultimately thinks it's a good thing it failed, too, because, if it'd done well, he probably wouldn't have gone onto do more serious things like Escape At Dannemora and Severance.
“I found it increasingly difficult to look my NHS colleagues in the eye and my patients in the eye and my constituents in the eye with good conscience.
“And I feel that the NHS deserves better than it has at the moment in terms of how it’s run and governed.
“The party I was elected into valued public services, it had a compassionate view about supporting the more disadvantaged in society. I think the Conservative Party today is in a very different place. Its focus is not on delivering or supporting high-quality public services.”
As much as I disliked Cameron's government at the time, I don't think it was close to the levels of nationalism and right-wing ideals we see from today's Conservative party. I rarely agreed with their approach, but I could at least understand that there were genuinely good-faith Tory MPs back then who simply had a different approach to things than what I would have wanted to see. Maybe they were just better at hiding it, but they did feel less sleazy and corrupt, and more like they actually wanted to work towards changing things for the better rather than just tearing everything down and lining their own pockets.
I don't think it's that, considering he's standing down at the next election anyway:
He said he would not seek re-election to the House of Commons at the next general election. But, writing in the Observer, he says he envisages a role advising the Labour party on its policies on mental health while focusing more on his NHS work.
Whether that advisory role would be paid or not, I don't know, but it certainly wouldn't be to the tune of £90K!
This one feels a little different. He stated previously that he was going to stand down at the next election, which is reiterated in the article:
He said he would not seek re-election to the House of Commons at the next general election. But, writing in the Observer, he says he envisages a role advising the Labour party on its policies on mental health while focusing more on his NHS work.
Defecting - and especially co-ordinating with Labour for months to time his defection and pre-arrange him joining Labour - isn't just fleeing the sinking ship so much as hanging around a little longer and deliberately trying to make it sink faster. It represents something rather than just being about saving his own skin.
It's worth noting he's standing down at the general election:
He said he would not seek re-election to the House of Commons at the next general election. But, writing in the Observer, he says he envisages a role advising the Labour party on its policies on mental health while focusing more on his NHS work.
I'd assume we'd have to wait until he was an actual government advisor before we got any figures (if at all). And yeah, advisors can do pretty well for themselves, although how much they get paid depends on how involved they are. Advisory roles can range from full-time consulting roles and helping with policy creation to "hey, can you just spend a couple of hours reading through these documents and give us your thoughts?" once every few months.
It certainly is a lot, although it's the sort of thing where, when you really think about it, you'd kinda hope it's something the government is willing to spend money on. You don't want all the best and brightest just going to private companies because they can earn 3x as much as the government is willing to pay. (Whether the current SPADs are the best and brightest, I don't know... If they are, it's certainly not reflected in the government's decision-making! But I think the point still stands that there needs to be a financial motivation for talented people to work in government rather than private businesses.)
I agree. As much as I agree with the idea of universal basic income - because I think supporting society while reducing the work necessary is something we should aim for, because it's the best way to ensure everyone gets a fair lot in life and because I think it's a necessity with the direction the labour market is heading - this isn't really the kind of thing I want to see in this community, personally. Hell, UBI doesn't really have much to do with the thought of "if X is Y% of Z then 1000X is Y% of 1000Z" - it's just basic maths really (and OP seems to have got the maths wrong, too).
“Apocalypse Proof” (nantucketcurrent.com)
The Cybertruck was defeated by sand.
[IJustWatched] Blade Runner 2049. What do you think about it?
Second time I watched it, first time was during its theatrical release....
BREAKING: Microsoft has closed Redfall's Arkane Austin, HiFi Rush's Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda. | IGN (twitter.com)
Humans share the web equally with bots, report warns amid fears of ‘dead internet’ (www.independent.co.uk)
Humans now share the web equally with bots, according to a major new report – as some fear that the internet is dying....
How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals
I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying “woke”, “critical race theory”, ““grooming””, and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open....
Gen Z mostly doesn't care if influencers are actual humans, new study shows (mashable.com)
Wow, I know I'm late to the party, but Andor is literally what I've always wanted from Star Wars.
What an absolutely perfect depiction of this universe. I’m starting the second episode of season 1 now.
Balatro - 1.0.1f - Patch notes (store.steampowered.com)
Why is coloring your face considered racist? (lemmy.world)
People in comments of this post pointed out coloring your face black is racist....
What’s the perfect movie length? Only a lightweight needs toilet or food breaks (www.theguardian.com)
US research suggests that 92 minutes is the optimum length for a film. But I have sat through long films that felt short and short films that felt buttock-annihilatingly long....
Did you know that before the release of the film Alien (1979) starring Sigourney Weaver...
...people had to weave their own sigourneys by hand?
Pro-Israel Agitator Shouts ‘Kill the Jews,’ Gets Everyone Else Arrested [Edith Olmsted | Apr. 27, 2024 | thedailybeast] (www.thedailybeast.com)
Around 100 protesters were arrested on Saturday at a pro-Palestine encampment at Northeastern University, but not the one whose hate speech got everything shut down.
Ben Stiller on Zoolander 2's 'Blindsiding' Flop: 'Wow, I must have really f**ked this up' (www.ign.com)
Top Tory MP defects to Labour in fury at NHS crisis (www.theguardian.com)
Ex-health minister Dan Poulter who also works as a hospital doctor, says Conservatives have become ‘nationalist party of the right’
A universal basic income to the ultra wealthy would be perceived by them as being given a couple pennies every month
The way someone with $100,000,000 would perceive $1000 is how someone with $100,000 would perceive $1.