The button may not have a future-- RIP--
but that doesn't mean that we don't.
Let's see what you guys had to say
about living in the future and/or
the button, in that order.
Heychrisfox on the Subreddit talks about the expansion
of the now, due in part to things like SnapChat
and their focusing on certain events in certain cities
around the world for one day.
And talks about how-- actually I want to quote this,
I want to make sure I get this right.
Essentially teleporting our brains
to a completely different continent
and experiencing a brief moment of someone else's life
that would otherwise have been private and undocumented.
And I can't help make the connection
to Sense8, which the Wachowski's new show that just got
released on Netflix and, you know,
it's about this group of people who
have this kind of mental connection with one another.
And I recently learned on Twitter
that it is supposed to kind of evoke
this tension of technology, that is simultaneously
bringing us together but then also arguably pushing us apart.
And yeah, this was a great comment.
Thanks for writing this.
Evie writes a really great comment
about how for lots of people around the world,
the future is not necessarily a time so much as it is a place,
and that place is the Western world.
And that's something that in the episode I--
I spent a sentence on, but really, we could probably
spend much longer on it.
And, yeah, it's this idea that for a lot of people,
the popular construction of the future
is an economics, technology, and energy based extrapolation
based in, you know, like Western ideals, Western culture,
Western values.
And that if you look at a lot of, um, literature
from around the world you can see constructions
of the future that don't rely on those things
and provide really interesting alternatives to what
a future could look like if it's not based in those things.
So yeah, this is a great perspective, a really important
thing to consider.
This comment also really great-- thank you for writing it.
NarwalHats talks about how now might
be changing because of an obsession with authenticity.
I think of this is-- this is interesting
that if someone is taking a picture,
they're not having an authentic experience
and it's rooted in authenticity less than reality.
And yeah, I think that that's-- there's something to think
about there.
Mark, I have been to those clubs and let me tell you,
things don't go well.
Friend the show, Mr. Dr. Shane Tilton,
has provided a link to an open access article
that he wrote about the impact mobile technologies have
had on people who document their everyday lives.
So definitely check this one out.
Carrie Callahan writes a really great comment
that sort of asks whether or not we should be recasting
what we think of the future as being
and that if it's generally defined technologically.
You know, this makes me think about what happens
if we define a future socially.
You know, what if we take the technology
stuff as granted or as even stable,
but think about what an ideal future is culturally,
societally, politically?
And I think that there is a lot of room
for that kind of thought.
Dale, I think that this is interesting and fair.
I think a lot, actually, about the ethics of being a tourist
and taking photos, whether or not
it's, like, OK to take photos in certain situations,
whether or not it's all right advertise
that you are in a certain place and having such a great time.
And we were recently at the Grand Canyon
with the PBSDS crew and I was saying that it's in some way
a little unethical to not take photos of the Grand Canyon
with people in them because there are people everywhere.
There is no experience of the Grand Canyon
that is as wide open and personless as all of the photos
that you see.
So I actually spent a good portion
of the time we were walking around taking
photos of other people taking photos
because it felt more honest.
To Halceon and everyone else that
pointed out that it is classicism and not classicism,
thank you.
There are several words that I will always get wrong.
I think that's one of them.
I will pretty much probably always say
rhetoric instead of rhetoric and I always
get the plural-- is it of simulacrum-- simulacra?
See, I still don't-- I-- this is like a part of my area of study
that I enjoy and I still don't know which one is the plural
one.
It's a part of my brain that just doesn't work.
Madeline Koller writes a really great comment, um,
talking about the, uh, Kardashev scale and the, uh, Moore's law.
And this makes me wonder about this idea
that as we continue to future, as a verb, how
and why and in what manners will it
get increasingly more difficult to continue to future?
That's quite the question, isn't it?
And now, onto the button.
[TAPS PLAYING]
On the Subreddit, the_ak asks a really great question,
which is whether or not the activity surrounding the button
is in some way like satire or parody
of just what we do on the internet.
And I wonder, to what degree the people
who are-- who were, um, involved in the many communities
and religions surrounding the button
did it explicitly because this is just what we
do on the internet now.
That when there is a thing for people to gather around
that is new, we develop factions because that's
how the internet works and how much of it
was them just sort of following, you
know, the kinds of impulses that people generally have.
And I think that this question also relates really
well to the questions of sincerity that
were raised in the video.
But yeah-- this-- I mean I have no answer to this.
Uh, but I would love to know what other people think.
This is-- this is a great question.
Also on the Subreddit, AllThingsBeingEqual
writes a really great comment pointing out
a part of the episode that could have used a little bit
more explanation.
And yeah, for the record I just want
to say that I'm not saying performance is wholly
indicative of a play and that sincerity is wholly
indicative of worship and that those two things, performance
and sincerity, exist in both of those areas
in different measure for different people's
experience of those things and that the degree of one
or the other in either does not indicate someone's capability
or quality of their relationship with, uh, with that practice.
So yeah, this is a great comment and-- and yeah.
Nice.
Etienne Domingue and Jay Lee Blue
both bring up a really important part
of this conversation that we completely missed,
which is the idea of stakes-- that for a game,
the stakes are generally much lower than they are for what
we would generally call, um, an organized
and official religion.
That is a very, very important part
of the sets of things that comprise
both of those practices.
So yeah, great point.
In response to a conversation started by Pablo Angulo, which
is a great conversation, we'll put a link to the top post
so that you can check that because was-- it ended up,
uh, spawning a bunch of things.
Keenan Wolf talks about sort of how
one can develop an inclusive definition of what a game is.
And talks about how my definition, the sort of way
that I ended up looking at the button, could you
turn to, um, sort of exile things
that are influential in the video game
sphere from the designation of video games-- things
like Depression Quest or Dwarf Fortress
or, uh, um, uh, Johann Sebastian Joust.
And I think this is-- I have spent
all week thinking about this.
So first, Keenan Wolf, thank you for writing this comment
because I have been thinking about it a lot and the thing
that I'm struggling with is the political importance
of calling something a video game because it extends
how we think of video games and the necessity of saying
that that thing is a video game because of how impactful
it is on video games.
And if not calling it a video game,
than, diminishes that impact somehow,
which I realize is very vague and a very large idea,
but still-- I'm still very much struggling with it
and I'm going to be struggling with it for awhile.
This is maybe one of the best-- this comment blew
my mind, blow my mind.
Thank you.
Mark Casey put a lot of work into developing
a religion for my facial hair.
Um, I mean I can't comment because, uh,
it seems like it's-- I'm not part of this.
So you're-- I mean I will just let my beard respond.
Jonathan Walden, I find the implication
of your assertion preeminently duplicitous, if not
categorically impertinent.
Good day, sir.
Talia Enright has offended the set
of the lepers, the group of IdeaChannel viewers
who appreciate the divine insight provided
by IdeaChannel's LP covers, to which I respond--
[MAKING TRUMPET SOUNDS]
And finally, joujou264, I believe
you may have struck upon to the new IdeaChannel motto.
We'll get t-shirts printed up tomorrow.
These week's episodes were brought to you
by the hard work of these filthy pressers.
We have a Facebook, an IRC, and Subreddit links
in the doobly doo.
And the Tweets of the Weeks come from Nicholas Yanes,
who points us towards a piece about the Secret History
of Ultimate Marvel; from Nesogra,
who points us towards game design articles from Raph
Coster, which are great and awesome reads-- so, so good;
and from CevianSpriter who, as it turns out,
is the prophet that brought us Inglip.