Post AtNc67ydABvYsYLrEG by nnschneider@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by nnschneider@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AtMZCdb01YdPeykcDo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:26:22Z
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Which do you agree with most?A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades. B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people. C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"D. Other
(DIR) Post #AtMZSQBfe14whvQiA4 by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-04-22T22:29:10Z
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@futurebird C, but it's looking less like Dan Dare, and more like Mad Max (or Call of Cthulhu).
(DIR) Post #AtMZTLVUWznmTu8qTA by SordidAmok@mastodon.social
2025-04-22T22:29:16Z
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@futurebird "Futuristic" as an aesthetic certainly still exists. What we've lost is the ability to believe that the future will be anything but dystopian.
(DIR) Post #AtMZdGPkJvd1aBBROi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:31:08Z
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@goaty OK but that meme feels cynical to some degree. That imagery is as hokey as Buck Rodgers was to us at their age to them. It's OLD. Some one else's dream. Some of the solarpunk art is kind of more... something. Maybe. But even that's eating itself as I watch.
(DIR) Post #AtMZeJDxMJosaRARXs by rgegriff@masto.hackers.town
2025-04-22T22:31:19Z
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@futurebird I think today's futurism is less of a visual aesthetic and more like; imagining a future where everyone's needs are met and humanity lives in balanced symbiosis with nature and everyone is free to follow their own passions while living lives of recreation and mutual service...Also giant robots
(DIR) Post #AtMZhRASHWI45l1O1Q by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:31:56Z
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@rgegriff To me the future is ants. Just lots of ants.
(DIR) Post #AtMZj9s3Ys9P1gEhhQ by VampiresAndRobots@writing.exchange
2025-04-22T22:32:11Z
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@futurebird D. The idea of "futuristic" never really got past the atomic age. In the 80s it became dystopian chic (think blade runner, mad max), and in the 90s it became grandma's mauve carpet and 90s aesthetics with lots of videos screens ala Star Trek TNG/Voyager/DS9.
(DIR) Post #AtMZkF1FuCJrHc3Uq8 by rgegriff@masto.hackers.town
2025-04-22T22:32:25Z
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@futurebird My apartment agrees with you
(DIR) Post #AtMZlS8GdXUYF4uegK by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-04-22T22:32:33Z
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@futurebird Definitely a complicated one to answer. Like certain aesthetics are definitely changing. Like 50s or so imagined shiny sharp-angled future aesthetics and then 80s in particular (though I guess it really started in the 70s?) brought on dark and gritty aesthetics. Dark and gritty has really stuck around a long time I guess because it feels more realistic, but at least until we finally hit the limits of what tech can do, there will probably always be some imagined future with varying aesthetics.I feel like I'm seeing stuff go a bit towards a somewhat cleaner but more neon aesthetic these days?
(DIR) Post #AtMZrLsenGTYaeQMAC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:33:42Z
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@livcomp I can really get in an argument with myself on this one as I agree with this. But, I also think it's subject to the "things were better then/end of history" fallacy. Though the twin of that fallacy is the "nothing ever happens" fallacy.
(DIR) Post #AtMZywHNrVWLVRbjxQ by brhfl@digipres.club
2025-04-22T22:35:03Z
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@futurebird not that i think i’m super in touch with the youths or anything, but i feel like if anything a lot of younger folks are excited about the sort of (now-)retro-future aesthetics i (& those older than me) grew up alongside. it’s like that desire is still there, the powers that be have just decided that the future is beige, hostile, and lacking in identity.
(DIR) Post #AtMaCv613gaFtFxP6m by hotarubiko@infosec.exchange
2025-04-22T22:37:33Z
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@futurebird 🤔 Hmmm... Retroistic æsthetics?
(DIR) Post #AtMaEWlwSrwd1xKmhc by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:37:43Z
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@mattg @darkling I think imaging a future with people doing things other than suffering and dying is always optimistic. But I AM an optimist. Just a very very modest one.
(DIR) Post #AtMaQVAkEsfTXke4NU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:40:03Z
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@mattg @darkling I see people in the future... telling terrible puns! Making dinner! Getting Cs on math quizzes because they didn't study!
(DIR) Post #AtMaXgm1VJtlYEVclU by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-04-22T22:40:49Z
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@brhfl @futurebird Yeah, retro is really in right now in a lot of things. Like it's almost freaky to me as a millennial seeing the things that were normal aesthetics that were often products of limitations of the time suddenly popular now despite the lack of said limitations.Case in point, Minecraft intentionally using extra blocky graphics complete with shockingly tiny textures. There was no physical limitation of the engine that made it require a 16x16 texture for each block. It's easy to replace them with high res textures even. The limitation is arbitrarily applied as if it was old.I keep trying to remind people that the classics that were great were great despite their limitations, not because of them.
(DIR) Post #AtMaYpfPvLnjQIxqpE by faassen@fosstodon.org
2025-04-22T22:41:24Z
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@futurebirdFuturistic is now partially a mix of cyberpunk aesthetic and solarpunk, I think.Gleaming white structures with very sleek vehicles still works too though as a shorthand, and that goes back a while.The cyberpunk aesthetic is actually also old enough to be retrofuturistic, and the whole point is it's grimy and street, but since we don't have visible implants everywhere and robotic critters roaming around it still holds as implying futuristic too.Solarpunk is newer.
(DIR) Post #AtMafVqO1YZDyDHSOu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:42:46Z
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@faassen "retrofuturistic cyberpunk" is making me dizzy but boy does all that green scrolling text feel quaint as doilies doesn't it?
(DIR) Post #AtMaogFWhqAkqfPYRc by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-04-22T22:43:58Z
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@faassen @futurebird The gleaming city with futuristic transport, visually, goes back at least as far as the film Metropolis (which was probably a simple extrapolation of what New York was doing at the time).
(DIR) Post #AtMaw5DGI65gIYsj8i by Scofisticated@socel.net
2025-04-22T22:45:43Z
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@futurebird I would say something between B and C. It's a term of comparason, in time. So something will always be in the future. There will always be guesses for what that will be. And those will change as the presant changes. And we have things in the past we want the future to be different from.
(DIR) Post #AtMawzwvLVtGGOfz5U by faassen@fosstodon.org
2025-04-22T22:45:55Z
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@futurebirdI have been thinking about our struggle imagining a positive future. So I wrote a deliberately determinedly optimistic solarpunk poem recently:https://hyperstate.org/poems/the-city-is-the-forest-now/
(DIR) Post #AtMb1TQxfJVQrlrNrc by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T22:46:45Z
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@unsponsoredgeek Vaporwave was just another more rapid wave of retro. That's what I mean by "eating itself" The ouroboros is running out of rope. It will soon pop out of existence.
(DIR) Post #AtMb89cHkCYVQmLGzY by floatybirb@mastodon.social
2025-04-22T22:47:56Z
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@futurebird I'm gonna go with "D", with my "D" answer being that "There are several distinct futuristic aesthetics but most of them now are being recycled endlessly, so also kind of A. I'd say every futuristic aesthetic now is now also kind of... retrofuturist? Even things like clean brutalist buildings and apple-store like gleaming white interiors."
(DIR) Post #AtMbndw3vKc3KvNNtw by faassen@fosstodon.org
2025-04-22T22:55:25Z
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@futurebirdcyberpunk has gone from an edgy and new to an almost conservative aesthetic that has to fit certain tropes even if they stopped making sense. Any future "jacking in" is gonna be wireless for instance. We are enough failures to become mainstream of second life/vr/metaverse along to know 3d cyberspace is unlikely. And we already live in a time of corporate networks and giant hacks and stuff but it's boring and disturbing not cool and exciting.
(DIR) Post #AtMcIPbTGBqFraPshc by stevenaleach@sigmoid.social
2025-04-22T23:00:58Z
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@futurebird It seems like the easy way "the future" is usually shown on the screen is "standard "impossible future tech?(look all the cars levitate and it doesn't use enormous energy to do it... look they have infinite energy so it doesn't matter)"Where we're going we don't need roads".Meanwhile, you can find any modern appliance and convenience free on the curb-lawn in working order on any street in any city on garbage day.The future is what you *can't* have - otherwise it's just today.
(DIR) Post #AtMcZ88bRxuwcLsyB6 by MegaMichelle@a2mi.social
2025-04-22T23:03:58Z
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@futurebird No one believes there will be a future anymore. Futuristic aesthetic is neolithic hunting and gathering.
(DIR) Post #AtMcrunzFCeIlmCSHo by jandi@mastodon.social
2025-04-22T23:06:19Z
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@faassen @futurebird If you haven't yet, you might enjoy this take, "What Was Cyberpunk? In Memoriam: 1980-2020”: https://forums.insertcredit.com/t/what-was-cyberpunk-in-memoriam-1980-2020/1721
(DIR) Post #AtMdqJ5876ytR910nw by jcastroarnaud@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-22T23:18:17Z
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@futurebird The future isn't what it used to be...
(DIR) Post #AtMdyZAUBlUFe1SWEi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T23:19:50Z
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If you think there is an active (optimistic projective) "futuristic aesthetic" that hits, I challenge you to show me the most "futuristic feeling" thing you can find.
(DIR) Post #AtMeDQrvKOTWFRriJE by michael_w_busch@mastodon.online
2025-04-22T23:22:28Z
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@futurebird D.Are we talking about "futuristic" generically or specifically?Since the original Futurism and its offshoots are a hundred years past by now.
(DIR) Post #AtMeFjp1pa7xbsbv9M by michael_w_busch@mastodon.online
2025-04-22T23:22:57Z
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@futurebird Solarpunk?
(DIR) Post #AtMeIN8UdLY67RyGcS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T23:23:24Z
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@Yza Inventing new futures is somehow hopelessly tied to commerce. Or it can seem that way. When I think of an exciting future tech (nano-machine gum that repairs your cavities) I think about how it would need to cost at least as much as all the industry players in dental fillings make ... or it never gets to exist. It's that cynicism that makes new tech just ominous, not exciting.
(DIR) Post #AtMeiElaNEIHgtacbY by TerryHancock@realsocial.life
2025-04-22T23:28:03Z
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@futurebird I think people are constantly reimagining the future, based on changes in the present/past.Which is why there is also "retro-futurism", where we're nostalgic for the way we used to imagine the future would be (e.g. "Tomorrowland", "Sky Captain", etc).But the "futuristic" of my youth included brutalist architecture, hard geometric lines, etc. (The "cybertruck" is a product of this aesthetic, IMHO).But now we have things like "solar punk", which is a very different futurism.
(DIR) Post #AtMekch6Nke8Tqd8AC by johnefrancis@cosocial.ca
2025-04-22T23:28:31Z
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@futurebird the "futurist" books I read as a child were mostly green energy, and home computers, including videoconferencing. There was a comparison between a peaceful green future, clear skies, wind and hydrogen... and a fossil fuels future, smokestacks, air pollution, suffering. This would've been published in the late 70s. I think it's still extremely relevant.
(DIR) Post #AtMes51zQNroOPxKrY by ptoothfish@mastodon.nz
2025-04-22T23:29:47Z
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@futurebird from Marge Piercy woman on the edge of time - the nice green sustainable alt-future where humans live in tree villages like ewoks but have enabling tech that keeps the food and water and pretty recyclable clothes running, definitely my jamits been 20-some years since i read it so i could be misrememberingnow i live in the decaying remnants of an abandoned convent on the edge of a forest... with wifiso... maybe i've been unconsciously striving for this life 🤣
(DIR) Post #AtMevAJeESTreUgdP6 by Moss@beige.party
2025-04-22T23:30:11Z
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@futurebird
(DIR) Post #AtMfjDNr6Gave7WJGa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T23:39:26Z
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@apLundell @TerryHancock Have you read "the terraformers" ? by @annaleen it was kind of a solarpunk hit and pretty good.
(DIR) Post #AtMg1xSIXsaXkOXGW8 by floatybirb@mastodon.social
2025-04-22T23:42:50Z
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@futurebird thinking about this more, it occurs to me that most past societies probably didn't have any concept of a "futuristic" aesthetic, either positive or negative?I would think the average historical person would guess the future would look a little different in style from their present, but not in ways they could pinpoint, which is kind of the place I am at now.
(DIR) Post #AtMga5jUHFd1GSqs5I by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-04-22T23:47:57Z
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@futurebird You've read "The Gernsback continuum", right ?
(DIR) Post #AtMga6mMO3WKVfCgCW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-22T23:48:58Z
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@lienrag I have not. But maybe I'll look at it next.
(DIR) Post #AtMgn3kgx6JYt1bBaK by CuriousMagpie@beige.party
2025-04-22T23:51:19Z
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@futurebird here's a few:Becky Chambers - monk and robot booksKim Stanley Robinson - mars trilogyUrsula Leguin - always coming homeAnnalee Newitz - the terraformersSusan Kaye Quinn - bright green futures podcast
(DIR) Post #AtMgpWuDWxqNssESAq by TommyTorty10@infosec.exchange
2025-04-22T23:51:46Z
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@futurebird I think futuristic images have died more in the last 10 yrs than the 10 prior. Speakling as an American Queer in their early 20's, I remember lots of optimism for the future still present in the 00s and 10s. Americans rode the high of gay marriage and the internet boom of the early and mid 10s for a long time, and to me the idea of futuristic shifted from shiny, 50s style space future with a touch of solarpunk to something more communicative and internet themed over the course of the 10s. Nowadays I dont think many progressive people share a common, concrete vision of the future. Im focusing on community and my personal vision for the future involves helping my friends when I can, and it's paying off well. It's the only futurism Ive seen come to a fruition I really like
(DIR) Post #AtMh4o4E0VXXS9CJkW by graveolensa@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-22T23:54:24Z
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@futurebird The concept of futuristic dissolves in the kinds of futures which overturn, subvert, and otherwise transcend the here of the here and now of the now.The phase transition which Douglas Engelbart suggests, and that which Heinz Otto-Peitgen's article in Der Spiegel and Lizb's articles about computers as dynamical systems never really ramified in user-interfaces (to operating systems in particular). Compare, in particular:Adam Ant's character in the episode /Such Interesting Neighbors/ of /Amazing Stories/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Tw67f931kand most of the folks in this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiMus1FJb9w&t=6sin terms of /disintermediation of interfaces/.we do not live in a world where knowing how energy and information sloshing around in computers is a stepping stone to understanding other systems, and where access to such is democratized.
(DIR) Post #AtMhWR8MrjgkR3JJWy by stevenaleach@sigmoid.social
2025-04-22T23:59:32Z
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@futurebird I can spot one current "future setting" theme: tech disappears - digital contact lenses or implants or *sometimes* glasses are the screens, possibly with digital tattoos for a UI.I've seen a lot "its the future" stuff with brownstone buildings, hardwood floors, classic timeless decor - but with infinite computing power tucked away everywhere.But all the tech is generic, invisible, inter-operable, and just "there" without having to *be* there as boxes with wires and visible form
(DIR) Post #AtMiJgSoet5IAZMFlY by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-04-23T00:08:27Z
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@futurebird Weirdly I think the only "positive futurist" piece of art I know of right now is Questionable Content, the webcomic. It's set in a world where strong AI was developed in the 90s and it turned out all the AI wanted to do was hang out.
(DIR) Post #AtMiQ8QVbeuadFM3hg by Moss@beige.party
2025-04-23T00:08:50Z
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@floatybirb @futurebird Mmm there is some evidence of cultures around the globe and across time describing fantastical visions of future or alternate worlds.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_fiction
(DIR) Post #AtMiruaedwD3pNLTai by shovemedia@triangletoot.party
2025-04-23T00:14:37Z
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@futurebird I feel like Transmetropolitan had a good handle on this, to wit, today we mostly think “computer” as defining the aesthetics of the future, but future biotech allows remixing organic irl forms and textures the way we started doing with recorded audio and imagery on screens
(DIR) Post #AtMj1S0dlF9q5734e8 by ClipHead@social.cologne
2025-04-23T00:16:18Z
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@futurebird You can have space-opera or a "15 minutes in the future" story. All the other great ideas in sci-fi have mostly been tackled. Since then we seem to be stuck at the level of "bad holograms". This reminds me of "The Gernsback Continuum" by William Gibson:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gernsback_Continuum
(DIR) Post #AtMjo12snh2Ee0Fsfo by cshlan@dawdling.net
2025-04-23T00:24:47Z
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@futurebird The stories that feel futuristic to me involve more digital connectivity and bio hacking. Like someone else mentioned it's usually wireless. For example Elizabeth Bear's Ancestral Night has a character with a second set of hands, basically, instead of feet due to living mostly on a ship without gravity. I've read several books where the characters have more control over body chemistry.
(DIR) Post #AtMlPReavzk3pxJ2ES by stevenaleach@sigmoid.social
2025-04-23T00:43:07Z
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@futurebird I just saw this in my feed and had to bring it here. https://spacey.space/@nyrath/114384214240902218I'd never heard of this movie, I might have to watch it.
(DIR) Post #AtMn0YQun93DX1ANY8 by superflippy@mastodon.xyz
2025-04-23T01:00:59Z
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@futurebird I’ve been trying hard lately to inject a futuristic aesthetic into the designs I do at work. We actually do a lot of really cool, cutting-edge stuff but our buildings have a sad 70s prison aesthetic, so I’m trying to counter that. I use a lot of video-game-inspired design elements: low poly textures, heads up displays (HUDs), everything glowy & transparent.
(DIR) Post #AtMn6khA7ADHIbimBc by jasmineshinga@beige.party
2025-04-23T01:02:06Z
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@futurebird always gonna push Becky Chambers for a hopeful future. Look at Wayfarers series, specifically Record of a Spaceborn Few. Living in a closed loop system on a generation ship. The simple concept of central food prep areas with reused fabric wrappings, and that everyone takes a turn contributing... I love it. Also, I desperately want to enjoy a Hopper burger, but people have an issue with cricket protein in the current era.Crickets are delicious. The weirdos consuming massive amounts of whey protein are way off base. Chirps. Cricket chips. Good stuff. Gimme more.
(DIR) Post #AtMnCMuJTDVZGAYC00 by degreesOfFreedom@denton.social
2025-04-23T01:02:30Z
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@johnefrancis @futurebird Sweet futuristic coal-powered train, "giving off little or no pollution"!
(DIR) Post #AtMnCQjpE9Un8nfsCu by secminded@infosec.exchange
2025-04-23T01:02:56Z
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@futurebird I guess I'm old enough that seeing "futuristic aesthetic" in your post instantly brought a slight trigger of the latest Fantastic Four trailer and I gagged a little, especially since what we actually have now is Musk's Starship and I don't think it's going to get better, since the Expanse is probably about as close as an accurate prediction for what's to come, so I can only hope that my idea of the concept will have to be C.
(DIR) Post #AtMncxkl6Ifl43lLXs by superflippy@mastodon.xyz
2025-04-23T01:07:29Z
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@futurebird Here you can see part of a mural I did (oddly cropped to remove my employer’s name).
(DIR) Post #AtMncyUqKxXHMzK9NQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-23T01:07:56Z
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@superflippy very cool!
(DIR) Post #AtMnpeexOweZby6KGW by JamesWidman@mastodon.social
2025-04-23T01:10:14Z
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@futurebird maybe it's too basic to say "star trek", but i'm gonna say star trek, bc they're still presenting a vision of the future where there's no racism, no sexism (in more recent iterations), no classism, no poverty; where everyone is cared for (probably in large part because there is no money); where the environment is preserved; where people no longer depend on superstition; where the appreciation of science is popular...and something like a celebration of competence & coöperation...?
(DIR) Post #AtMnvlDlv16RhPIT0i by jadp@mastodon.social
2025-04-23T01:11:21Z
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@futurebird several of the initiatives underway in Singapore, such as the Earth Observatory reaction to global warming, greening and community fell of their architecture (even the floating city neighborhoods ideas), and food (vertical farms and other controlled environment agriculture) and water independence incorporating renewable energy, and the various energy storage research; all with a lean toward attractive and, to me anyway, futuristic aesthetic.
(DIR) Post #AtMnxVS1WSftMsnNDc by A1MVP@masto.hackers.town
2025-04-23T01:11:40Z
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@futurebird I think there's a combination of the fact that all the low hanging fruit (ie. technologies we use every day like cell phones and microwaves) are already "done"And not only that but "past done", as in well into #enshittification which is an important trend because it makes the future look *worse* to the average consumer.And I think this feeds largely into the anti-science sentiment that's overtaken large segments of the population in the recent past...
(DIR) Post #AtMpXraimaxOPjlQOG by sollat@masto.ai
2025-04-23T01:29:27Z
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@futurebird I think it’s a cyclical fad, like “natural” or “more”.
(DIR) Post #AtMqQw99Y12QTA882a by thesquirrelfish@sfba.social
2025-04-23T01:39:21Z
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@futurebird I think futurism exists beyond American cultural hegemony - the anime girls & furries of Ximen & Harajuku, the solar punk & biotech stories of Afro futurism & so on. It's just the American aesthetic & culture got frozen somewhere around 1995 and now it's just a rehash of 20th C ideas. I have hope it will be able to start again when the boomers finally relinquish control(possibly over their literal dead bodies).
(DIR) Post #AtMzpXa0vFzT6VV7GC by degreesOfFreedom@denton.social
2025-04-23T01:30:40Z
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@johnefrancis @futurebird I vaguely recall seeing books from this series, or something very similar, as a kid. Just now I found this interview with the artist.https://2warpstoneptune.com/2015/01/16/when-the-future-was-full-of-stars-an-interview-with-david-jefferis/
(DIR) Post #AtNA7foA4HXlNSP4Ai by PlatyPete@mstdn.games
2025-04-23T05:19:59Z
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@futurebird I feel like once the idea of sci-fi predicting actual technological advances got popular, tech giants just started trying to make future tech early, or else faking it with shiny designs. The irony of that is that sci-fi actually has a spotty track record with tech predictions, so we get a lot of tech non-starters or oversold inventions like generative AI
(DIR) Post #AtNc67ydABvYsYLrEG by nnschneider@mastodon.social
2025-04-23T10:33:28Z
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@futurebird @futurebird I suppose I'm in the "just because one can't imagine it -- and who will live long enough to see it? -- doesn't stop the future from coming" camp
(DIR) Post #AtOOtR8dVR9GIQbrQe by bogosity@im-in.space
2025-04-23T19:40:12Z
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@futurebird Futuristic themes or styles are often just projections of current trends into an extreme variant. Futuristic in the 70s meant more polyester and rocketships, futuristic now means more goose-stepping and death camps.
(DIR) Post #AtOqhn4wu4FZaL7VVg by PTR_K@dice.camp
2025-04-24T00:51:51Z
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@futurebird G.K.Chesterton's "Napoleon of Notting Hill" starts with a chapter on how humans constantly play the game Keep Tomorrow Dark or Cheat the Prophet, wherein we strive to against fulfilling the predictions of the wise of our era.The upshot is that, as of this writing, there were so many clever prognosticators it seemed impossible to evade them all.So when the story starts 80 years later, the only way to cheat the prophet was to keep things exactly the same.https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20058/pg20058-images.html#Page_13
(DIR) Post #AtPDofbZO4KRNVcyA4 by jaystephens@mastodon.social
2025-04-24T05:10:48Z
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@futurebird Glad I read the replies before responding - great question & great responses. Yeah, #solarpunk, while close, ain't quite it, especially the darker green end of it. Ken McCleod's recent work comes close, envisioning a near future where at least 1/3 of world lives in a post-revolution social democracy, harnessing a mostly-benevolent AI.Both LeGuin and Banks, in the 60s/70s and 80s/90s respectively, worked consciously to write positive futures, 1/2
(DIR) Post #AtPutn9j2KcUH2IBBw by fraggle@social.coop
2025-04-24T13:13:30Z
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@futurebird this talk about futuristic esthetic "dying" fits with what I've said in the past about us having a backwards facing culture. Table here is last year's top grossing box office films; it's almost all sequels and rebootsSure we still have scifi with visions of the future, but "futuristic" is always changing, always means something new. If it's just a reimagining of the past futuristic aesthetic, that's retrofuturism
(DIR) Post #AtSq2iEGo4dDIsjRo0 by snork303@toot.community
2025-04-25T23:03:17Z
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@futurebirdInteresting this poll was so close.I voted A because I was alive when The Jetsons were first airing. We were promised flying cars. We have no flying cars. There is no future.
(DIR) Post #AtSxDn7feUopLSsKAK by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-26T00:23:41Z
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@futurebird Been thinking about this since you posted it. I answered B because I think part of what's going on is that the most ridiculous corporate or government propaganda gets read as sincere by kids. Adults were probably never buying it for the most part.We think of 1950s Space Age science fiction as optimistic, but at the time, there was a LOT of post-apocalyptic stuff (why wouldn't there be?) and there were even SF fans writing essays worrying about how science fiction had lost its optimistic future--it was all stories about the Bomb now.And of course I remember all of the dystopian disaster futures of the 1970s. I grew up on that--the population bomb, the energy crisis, anomie and mass violence, Future Shock, ice ages AND global warming. It was a golden age of that terrifying stuff before Star Wars hit.