More Shadows of the Future
Jun. 15th, 2005 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinGabwaaahahaa.
Brothers Grimm Trailer
Pay close attention because it's small and IT ONLY WORKS ONCE.
Now if only Terry Gilliam could get the backing to do Good Omens like he wants to...
8:34 pm
So I was reading Only You Can Save Mankind at dinner, and got to thinking.
Wars are becoming more and more of a virtual thing.* You've got your unmanned aircraft and your missiles that you can send out from a source 1,000 miles away and pilot from your computer in Missouri. There are robots, and sattelites, and everything you need to blow your enemy to smithereens without actually being there. So: Why blow anything actually up? If you're just throwing unmanned missiles at unmanned aircraft, why waste the billions of dollars building this stuff that will only become scrap metal in some forsaken desert somewhere when you could just get the heads of state and military commanders together in a big room – or better yet, a big compound so they don't have to look at each other – and let them duke it out on computers? Have a panel of 'referees,' as it were, watching the proceedings and making sure no one's hacking the programming** and once one virtual army has blown the other virtual army's homeland back to the stone age (provided they weren't there already) they call it quits and spoils are awarded as per the pre-war agreement, drawn up and signed in the presence of a duly constituted authority.
Unfortunately this only works for that old-fashioned sort of war where a whole bunch of troops line up and then run at each other with disembowelling on their minds. A war of territory or ideology. If one country is up to some heinous deeds – killing all the left-handed people or something – inviting the heads of state to a Warcraft III weekend retreat would only solve so much, even if they did allow the objecting nation to come in and rearrange things if they lost. Because there is always, always, always someone out there to spoil the game. Someone who'll throw a grenade in a truck or steal everyone's left shoe even though they aren't supposed to because everyone agreed to a set of rules beforehand. If my own elementary school experiences are anything to go by, there are enough of these people per capita to mess up the rest of history and not even realise they're doing it.
Humanity is stupid. Woe, woe, and despair ...
*At least among developed nations, who seem to be getting along rather well at the moment, so this whole train of thought could be moot.
**Though that would probably be as fair as any other wartime shenanigans
Brothers Grimm Trailer
Pay close attention because it's small and IT ONLY WORKS ONCE.
Now if only Terry Gilliam could get the backing to do Good Omens like he wants to...
8:34 pm
So I was reading Only You Can Save Mankind at dinner, and got to thinking.
Wars are becoming more and more of a virtual thing.* You've got your unmanned aircraft and your missiles that you can send out from a source 1,000 miles away and pilot from your computer in Missouri. There are robots, and sattelites, and everything you need to blow your enemy to smithereens without actually being there. So: Why blow anything actually up? If you're just throwing unmanned missiles at unmanned aircraft, why waste the billions of dollars building this stuff that will only become scrap metal in some forsaken desert somewhere when you could just get the heads of state and military commanders together in a big room – or better yet, a big compound so they don't have to look at each other – and let them duke it out on computers? Have a panel of 'referees,' as it were, watching the proceedings and making sure no one's hacking the programming** and once one virtual army has blown the other virtual army's homeland back to the stone age (provided they weren't there already) they call it quits and spoils are awarded as per the pre-war agreement, drawn up and signed in the presence of a duly constituted authority.
Unfortunately this only works for that old-fashioned sort of war where a whole bunch of troops line up and then run at each other with disembowelling on their minds. A war of territory or ideology. If one country is up to some heinous deeds – killing all the left-handed people or something – inviting the heads of state to a Warcraft III weekend retreat would only solve so much, even if they did allow the objecting nation to come in and rearrange things if they lost. Because there is always, always, always someone out there to spoil the game. Someone who'll throw a grenade in a truck or steal everyone's left shoe even though they aren't supposed to because everyone agreed to a set of rules beforehand. If my own elementary school experiences are anything to go by, there are enough of these people per capita to mess up the rest of history and not even realise they're doing it.
Humanity is stupid. Woe, woe, and despair ...
*At least among developed nations, who seem to be getting along rather well at the moment, so this whole train of thought could be moot.
**Though that would probably be as fair as any other wartime shenanigans
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 02:00 am (UTC)But then again, like you said, he could do Good Omens.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 03:23 am (UTC)Good Omens is a book by Neil Gaiman and (SURPRISE!) Terry Pratchett which is a humourous madcap apocalypse story (angel and demon are friends, Antichrist switched at birth, etc) and Terry Gilliam wants to make a movie out of it but keeps running into financing problems, because no one in Hollywood wants to fund a movie that makes light of the end of the world – a religious apocalypse, no less, not one caused by asteroids or aliens. And it can't go off and be some little indie flick because it needs the big Hollywood budget. It's got the whole apocalyptic canon, with monster storms, demonic powers, a fiery 1926 Bentley, the Four Horsemen, a flying motor scooter, Tibetans, everything.
I am of the opinion, after watching this trailer, that Terry Gilliam and whoever the art director was should get first dibs on filmifying Discworld, if that ever is to happen.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 03:51 am (UTC)Troll Bridge (http://www.snowgumfilms.com/trollbridge/castCrew/index.htm)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 04:03 am (UTC)I hope they get good distribution...
Okay, totally unrelated, but I'm answering this from my email and my email provider has that targeted-link advertising where certain keywords in your letter will trigger text ad link thingies to appear. So for this one I've got "Paul Kidby Discworld Art," "Discworld Figurines Sale" and ... "Do you need an Exorcism?" Wow! How did they know? 30 years experience with 25,000 successfully performed exorcisms! Can't beat that!
Life can be weird.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 04:33 pm (UTC)This time I got "Paul Kidby Discworld Art," "Do you need an Exorcism?" (both understandable as they were mentioned in the email) and ... "Free Psychic Cow." Curiouser and curiouser.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 05:44 pm (UTC)I just got the image of a whole psychic farmyard playing havoc on the farmer.
Or a cow dressed as a mechaniacal gypsy.
Okay, I'm done spamming your post. ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 08:18 pm (UTC)(Quitter!)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 09:07 am (UTC)I'm now imagining all the diplomatic hobnobs of the world entering a Warhammer Quest contest. Priceless.
Woe, indeed.
Date: 2005-06-16 08:19 pm (UTC)Of coarse, the problem with that is... sometimes you have to prove it.
War Poetry
Date: 2005-06-16 08:50 pm (UTC)Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom, boom,
Boom, boom, boom.
~ Pvt. Baldrick
You were not the first
Date: 2005-06-19 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-26 01:25 pm (UTC)