Throwback Thursday: An unidentified graduate student in the Princeton University Computer Center, ca. 1985.
Office of Communications Records (AC168), Box 219
For all the silliness of the movie, it seems to take a lot of its plot pretty darn seriously. Time to put on our analytical hats and overthink things!
The gang wants to see their scientist friend’s video game experiment, but for fear of the monster that escaped from their tests, the older scientist says:
“You can show them the demo, but don’t start the game!”
…huh. So, as previously-established, you’re dealing with an all-powerful creature that can control basically any technology…
…and stole all your data just by walking next to it… but running a smaller version of the game – one that still has the same technology it used to escape – is going to help?
Besides, the creature’s already out and loose, so what are you worried about, exactly? It coming back and diving in again, allowing you to shut down the system and trap it?
And on that note, the older scientist confidently mentions that yes, the creature escaped, and yes, it could be anywhere and the entire world is in massive danger… but he “suspects it’s still somewhere within the building.”
He then follows this up with no evidence or logic backing up the random guess.
Um… sir? We’re dealing with a previously-unknown phenomena of a computer virus “coming to life” and escaping into the real world, right? If I remember the events of the last 5 minutes correctly, it:
So… which of those factors indicated to you that this thing is gonna stick around, exactly?
What if it just decides to go elsewhere? How would you know? Do you have a PhD in Things That Have Never Happened Before?
Moving on, the younger scientist boots up the demo, and the main menu image slooowly loads in.
Connected to it, the scientist people have a device they call a ‘hyper-energy laser.’ According to them,
“We’ve been using it to break down actual objects, and project them into cyberspace!”
to which Velma says,
“Jinkies, you mean you mean you can transport objects from the real world into the computer world?!”
which they confirm. They zap some Scooby Snacks on the table…
…said Scooby Snacks disappear from table…
…Scooby Snacks appear on screen!
Ok, so they must be scanning and creating a virtual model of the Scooby Snacks, and destroying the original… but earlier, didn’t they give some technobabble about re-creating it at a molecular level? The best technology of 2017 can’t render that, let alone 2001′s–
…hold up, they can also bring the objects back?
So… the Scooby Snacks are somehow being converted and stored in data banks as ones and zeroes, and are then transformed back into physical objects?
Ignoring the issue of requiring an incalculable amount of power to even theoretically create matter from pure energy (plus the unfathomable sizes of batteries/hard drives required to store that energy/information), doesn’t this mean you’ve just created a 3D printer capable of scanning and replicating literally anything, including living things, down to a molecular level?
I loved this piece from Amanda Hess on privacy, data, and power:
Privacy has not always been seen as an asset. The ancient Greeks, for instance, distinguished between the public realm (“koinon”) and the private realm (“idion”). In contrast to those public citizens engaged in political life, humble private citizens were known as “idiotai,” a word that later evolved into “idiots.” Something similar is true of the English word “privacy.” As Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Human Condition,” privacy was once closely associated with “a state of being deprived of something, and even of the highest and most human of man’s capacities.” In the 17th century, the word “private” arose as a more politically correct replacement for “common,” which had taken on condescending overtones.
And yet somewhere along the way, privacy was recast as a necessity for cultivating the life of the mind. In George Orwell’s “1984,” the proles are spared a life of constant surveillance, while higher-ranking members of society are exposed to Big Brother’s watchful eye. The novel’s protagonist, Winston, begins to suspect that real freedom lies in those unwatched slums: “If there is hope,” he writes in his secret diary, “it lies in the proles.” In the influential 1967 book “Privacy and Freedom,” Alan Westin described privacy as having four functions: personal autonomy, emotional release, self-evaluation and intimate communication. This modern understanding of privacy as an intimate good grew up right alongside the technology that threatened to violate it. At the end of the 18th century, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protected Americans from physical searches of their bodies and homes. One hundred years later, technological advancements had legal minds thinking about a kind of mental privacy too: In an 1890 paper called “The Right to Privacy,” Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis cited “recent inventions and business methods” — including instant photography and tabloid gossip — that they claimed had “invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life.” They argued for what they called the right “to be let alone,” but also what they called “the right to one’s personality.”
Now that our privacy is worth something, every side of it is being monetized. We can either trade it for cheap services or shell out cash to protect it. It is increasingly seen not as a right but as a luxury good. When Congress recently voted to allow internet service providers to sell user data without users’ explicit consent, talk emerged of premium products that people could pay for to protect their browsing habits from sale. And if they couldn’t afford it? As one congressman told a concerned constituent, “Nobody’s got to use the internet.” Practically, though, everybody’s got to. Tech companies have laid claim to the public square: All of a sudden, we use Facebook to support candidates, organize protests and pose questions in debates. We’re essentially paying a data tax for participating in democracy.
Ring of Pietroassa (from between 250 and 400 AD) - Henric Trenk in 1875
science70