tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post3894356588255507038..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: The central contradiction in the modern outlook: 'Planet of the Apes' vs '2001: A Space Odyssey'Kurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-50815438130184928482015-01-12T13:06:26.148-05:002015-01-12T13:06:26.148-05:00Don't forget Kubrick at the same time did cloc...Don't forget Kubrick at the same time did clockwork Orange. Which of his visions seem to be coming true?DaShuihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13731696293751625845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-55223395586442412882015-01-12T12:32:49.683-05:002015-01-12T12:32:49.683-05:00Thanks for the thoughtful comments
Another misrea...Thanks for the thoughtful comments<br /><br />Another misreading of Smith comes from the fact that few people who read "Wealth of Nations" know that Smith also authored "A Theory of Moral Sentiments" and expressly said that a capitalist system could not operate properly unless the participants hewed to moral principles.<br /><br />As for RPC's interpretation of "2001", I don't dispute it. Others have pointed to "Childhood's End" as a key to understanding Clarke's views and the meaning he intended for "2001."<br /><br />But, I am more interested in how "2001" has evolved in the zeitgeist. And, that is as a piece of triumphalist modernism. When the film debuted, for example, IBM didn't, for obvious reasons, want to be associated with the the HAL 9000 computer which ended up slaughtering so many people. By the time of a special commemoration of the movie in the year 2001, IBM was embracing the movie. That reflects how the public actually thinks about the movie now.<br /><br />It is a feature of art that people don't always interpret it the way the artist intends them to--sometimes to the artist's delight, sometimes to his/her horror.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-15365478042344439212015-01-12T11:07:19.530-05:002015-01-12T11:07:19.530-05:00I'm not arguing with your thesis, but I do tak...I'm not arguing with your thesis, but I do take exception to your depiction of "2001: A Space Odyssey" as techno-triumphalist. If you look at it in the light of Clarke's magnum opus of the era, "Childhood's End," I think "2001's" message is different. The key segue from bone club to satellite is not saying "See how far we've come," it's saying "We haven't changed at all" i.e. we're still apes using tools. Similarly, the monolith on the moon is telling its creators "humans have followed the technological path to its end; now they must change and follow another path." It's telling that the star-child requires no technology at all; it is as naturally at home in space as we are on Earth.RPChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06504756989773891806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-10810607663039123582015-01-11T14:21:46.693-05:002015-01-11T14:21:46.693-05:00Good post.
I am curious about one thing though. ...Good post. <br /><br />I am curious about one thing though. I remember the monoliths as totally passive monitors. I thought the monolith on the earth had nothing to do with the evolution of humans, it was just watching for it. The one on the moon signaled the one near Jupiter that humans had achieved space flight. What happened near Jupiter was a kind of muddle, open to lots of interpretations. But then, it has been decades since I've seen the movie.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251330546889158364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-26402109580432898922015-01-11T13:56:19.760-05:002015-01-11T13:56:19.760-05:00Very good post. One writer calls this religious be...Very good post. One writer calls this religious belief in our inevitable glorious future the "civil religion of progress".<br /><br />I have one objection. Adam Smith used a metaphor of an invisible hand, but never in the sense imputed to him. That's an invention of the 20th century economist Paul Samuelson. Markets work by a very visible mechanism called prices, not a magical invisible hand.<br /><br />There's a British professor who has blogged ten years debunking this misreading (or non-reading) of Adam Smith, but it's well entrenched.<br /><br />http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com