From Vanderworld, I found this sad piece of news: Looks like James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, has determined that the earth as a living entity is doomed - that we have in effect exceeded its negative feedback (negating change from an initial goal state) processes that keep the world as a living system in balance.
Just as an aside - I truly doubt our computer models aren’t that accurate that we know this for certain. Then again, playing with the future of the earth is a bit dangerous for the truly insane steps we’ve been taking. There really is no insurance policy for that kind of thing if we end up exceeding the thresholds.
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News as Cyberpunk by SFAM.
The “Land of S” blog has an interesting entry, talking about the future that never came. S-man describes how Vancouver, has all these wonderful techno hangouts but very little grunge. Instead what we seem to get there is orderly cyberpunk, or maybe just simply cyber-living.
One wonders if this is indeed the real future - that we will continue to expand the post-human boundaries while maintaining a high degree of order that’s freely maintained.
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Cyberpunked living by SFAM.
This month’s episode of Reason Online has a debate titled, “Who’s Afraid of Human Enhancement? A Reason debate on the promise, perils, and ethics of human biotechnology.” The question really involves whether we as a society can deal with the ethics involved with human enhancement, including: “cloning; stem-cell research; processes to increase longevity, intelligence, and physical abilities; and many other procedures at various stages of development..”
The debate was framed this way: More…
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Cyberpunked living by SFAM.
Year: 2003
Directed by: Jun-hwan Jeong
Written by: Jun-hwan Jeong
IMDB Reference
Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: Very High
Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: Medium
Key Cast Members:
Lee Byeong-gu: Ha-kyun Shin
Kang Man-shik: Yun-shik Baek
Su-ni: Jeong-min Hwang
Inspector Choo: Jae-yong Lee
Overview: Here’s another movie that ranks really high on the weird shitometer scale - yet another cyberpunk movie from the tour-de-force of cyberpunk movies that Korea has become. Save the Green Planet is one of the only movies that has just about every movie genre represented. You’ll find everything from Gilliam-like comedy to graphic horror, to action, to scifi-thriller here. And of course, we get a large dose of Japanese-like Cyberpunk torture visuals in this terrific Korean production.
The Story: Save the Green Planet is about a completely strange guy and his even wierder ballerina girlfriend - our antihero is convinced that a certain CEO is really an alien in disguise. He has determined its his job to root the alien out and kill him if necessary, just like all the other “potential” aliens he has found in the past. After capturing him, He cuts the CEO’s hair off, as the aliens use hair follicles to communicate. He has other reasons for requiring foot torture and chest ironing. After all, good torture must always have a reason, right?
The Bottom Line: Its hard to go too much further into the plot for fear of giving key aspects of the movie away. Suffice to say the ending is terrific and fully open to interpretation, and actually has interesting similarities to the ending of Brazil. On top of this, Save the Green Planet is expertly shot, and wonderfully edited. The pacing is simply superb. It’s really hard to imagine that this is Jun-hwan Jeong’s first movie.
You gotta love the dolls everywhere. This guy makes them for his job.
Fair warning: Be warned though. This is a truly weird movie that his NOT for the squeemish at heart. While not a “true” Japanese cyberpunk movie in that, um, its Korean, and doesn’t totally take the “no boundaries” idea, it’s pretty darn close, and certainly merits mention in that sub-genre of cyberpunk. So much so that if you find real Japanese cyberpunk movies to be too much for you (And BTW, Tetsuo 2 doesn’t count, as this movie really doesn’t break ground and isn’t that good besides), Save the Green Planet is a decent entry to at least experience a similar pacing and mindset. Got to Page 2 for more screen caps.
Page 2: More Screen Caps–>>
~See movies similar to this one~
Tags: cyberpunk movie review Jigureul jikyeora
