Yes, it's time for a Transhumanist movie!

I'd like to emphasize that it isn't technology that most humans fear - but the human wielding the technology.

Technology must be used to change human nature.

Well, we have *Trans*formers coming out soon ;) And more seriously, we have The Fountain (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414993/), which is rumoured to be transhumanist in nature. But I'm not sure that really addresses the underlying issue. Technophobic movies tend to express underlying existential concerns. For example, The Matrix isn't really about AI taking over; it's about the nature of reality, how much we can actually think for ourselves, etc. Existential concerns are now being projected onto technology the way they were formerly projected onto the gods. Perhaps it would help if more critics recognized and wrote about this rather than just about how technophobic movies are reflecting society's tension with its creations.

I've noticed this trend for a few years now. In fact I think I posted about it on the old betterhumans site.

There's a couple of points to be made though.

Firstly, HW produces stories, and stories need conflict between an antagonist and a protagonist. What better antagonist than an evil machine that relentlessly tracks the protagonist down, or a mad scientist bent on ruling the world?

Secondly, HW script writers have less of an understanding of science than my left toe. It's all to obvious that this is the case when even someone with a minimum of science training can spot glaring flaws in a plot. Also applies to other things like computers, computer games, etc. "Oh! I know this, it's a unix system."

Coupled with this ignorance though, I believe, is the major driving force behind HW Technophobia. The Green Movement.

Just take a look at the list of A and B celebrities, actors and directors, that are heavily involved with environmental causes. Not that this is a bad thing on the surface, but the philosophy behind many green groups is to shun and ban technology. I'm certain that these groups have infiltrated HW with their message to the extent that this message is becoming an integral part of HW movie making attitude.

It's not much of a news. I just hope that they don't start making any good movies with that mesage.

Gattaca would be an example of such a film. It is good as a movie, but it realy has some extremly naive things. Like those "superinteligent people" who are just a slightly modernised version of tallo people in neat clothes who eat geometricaly correct food and say "this is ilogical" and "that feeling you call love, what is it?".

I'm not sure if any of the bias exhibited by Hollywood is just the product of looking for story conflict. The movie Jurassic Park would have been just as tense if radical environmentalist let the dinos free. So, I think it is right to bring up the whole Green angle. The Greens could, if Hollywood wanted to, be fantastic villains. In fact, before September 11th environmentalist counted for the vast majority of domestic terrorism.

If you look back through history you'll this anti-technology bias is as old as the human race. There is the story of Pandora's box, Icarus who flew too close to the sun with his newfangled wings and various stories condemning the quest for immortality. Many writers feel that there is a some sort of obligation to take the 'anti' stance in these stories, because there is centuries of precedent.

Another problem is that there is a huge culture difference between science fiction films and science fiction books. Sf books are often written by people with actual science backgrounds, while sci-fi movies are made my liberal arts majors who often have an aversion to critical thought and prefer the pursuit of beauty over truth. Also, there is a political bias. Sf books are more likely to be libertarian in their politics, look at the movie of Starship Troopers and compare it to the book. The filmmakers obviously chose to ridicule the politics of the book rather than make a faithful adaptation. Not that I agree with Heinlein's politics, it just irritates me that if this was a "normal" non-sf book Hollywood would never dream of twisting it so. This has happened with Transhumanist themes too. From an article I read years ago, the original print sequel to the book Cocoon, called Metamorphosis, had the old people staying with the aliens and remaining immortal; but in the movie they came back to Earth to die.

There is a deep seated desire by "artistic" types to make every problem with being human into something "romantic" to embrace.

Real science fiction writers, of the type you see in print, absolutely hate any prescriptive "rules" of story telling and take great pleasure in finding new stories to tell and new ways of telling stories.

Science fiction should help people to 'exorcise their ignorance', understand the possibilities and develope an understanding of the means to improve life.

It's more economically beneficial to play on the fears of the masses.

Unfortunately, all people are not always able to see though the memetic programming of most entertainment.

I actually think that the "technophobia" of the hollywood movies may actually be a good thing. For one, technological advancement has no serious threats of being reversed.  Sure we have loonies trying to ban stem cells, but those people would soon see their corporate backing pulled and vehement opposition if they decided to ban something like computers.

The second reason is that I would rather have some irrational technophobia around than technophilia... excersizing caution is vitally important.

The only logical position is of course technorealism, but that perspective doesn't make for interesting movies. Besides, society as a whole is pretty technophilic, so maybe Hollywood might push us closer to technorealism.

Furthermore, these types of movies may help us to be educated about threats and thus overcome irrational fears and work towards minimizing legitimate fears. This can be exemplified by another recent BetterHumans news story found here: http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2342