[HN Gopher] The Real-World Locations of 14 Sci-Fi Dystopias (2014)
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The Real-World Locations of 14 Sci-Fi Dystopias (2014)
Author : BerislavLopac
Score : 138 points
Date : 2024-02-26 10:20 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| wanderingstan wrote:
| Interesting Bay Area trivia: _Do Androids Dream of Electric
| Sheep_ , the book _Blade Runner_ was adapted from, takes place in
| San Francisco. The Mission police station being a central place.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| The book is very different from the movie; the book is post
| World War 3 while the movie isn't.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Well, a very mild WW3, so it hardly matters. It's not like it
| was in a Fallout/Road Warrior style wasteland.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I wonder if Philip K. Dick had the old Mission police station
| in mind? The one near Gus's. Not sure when that one went out of
| commission.
| mellosouls wrote:
| One of my favourite books, the haunting and poetic dystopian
| _Riddley Walker_ has a particularly interesting relationship with
| its real-life Kent locations, as the (American) author Russell
| Hoban played in his beautiful language twisting with their names:
|
| Bollock Stoans - Bullockstone
|
| Cambry - Canterbury
|
| Do It Over - Dover
|
| Horny Boy - Herne Bay
|
| etc
|
| http://www.errorbar.net/rw/Places
|
| Sample passage imagining the post-apocalyptic development of
| rhymes and myths tied to the local area by the hero's folk:
|
| _It wer Ful of the Moon that nite. The rain littlt off the sky
| cleart and the moon come out. We put the boars head on the poal
| up on top of the gate house. His tusks glimmert and you cud see a
| dryd up trickl from the corners of his eyes like 1 las tear from
| each. Old Lorna Elswint our tel woman up there getting the tel of
| the head. Littl kids down be low playing Fools Circel 9wys.
| Singing:_
|
| _Horny Boy rung Widders Bel
|
| Stoal his Fathers Ham as wel
|
| Bernt his Arse and Forkt a Stoan
|
| Done It Over broak a boan
|
| Out of Good Shoar vackt his wayt
|
| Scratcht Sams Itch for No. 8
|
| Gone to senter nex to see
|
| Cambry coming 3 times 3
|
| Sharna pax and get the poal
|
| When the Ardship of Cambry comes out of the hoal_
| bookofjoe wrote:
| OH! This fantastic book which I've reread every 10 years or so
| since last century... time to do it again.... "The Bundle
| Downs" OMG
|
| Read it here: https://riddley-
| walker.narod.ru/Book/RussellHoban-RiddleyWal...
| IndrekR wrote:
| This reminds me The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John
| Lloyd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Liff
| yardie wrote:
| Probably because it's the opposite of dystopic but Ciutat de les
| Arts i les Ciences [0], Valencia, ESP is one of the most sci-fi
| locations I've ever set foot in. You'll recognize it from Marvel
| films it's the setting for Guardians of the Galaxy.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Arts_and_Sciences
| the_af wrote:
| Whenever I visit Valencia we go there. My family calls it "the
| city of the future" (the Ciutat I mean). My daughter thinks one
| of the buildings looks like Darth Vader's helmet.
| bennyg wrote:
| One of my favorite cities - went there on my honeymoon in 2019.
| The river-turned-park is beautiful and the whole old town area
| of the city is just full of "play". Check out this sweet
| playground that's actually a giant Gulliver laying down
| (https://www.lovevalencia.com/en/the-gulliver-park.html).
|
| If anybody can swing a visit to Valencia - do it. I can't wait
| to go back some day.
| secretsatan wrote:
| I watched Robocop again this weekend after playing the game
| released last year. The PS5 version is a bit glitchy, but I
| really enjoyed it otherwise, watching the film again and it was
| surprising how faithful the video game was to the film.
|
| I thought the film would show it's age more, but it actually
| still holds up quite well. Also brought back memories of music
| that sampled many of the lines and effects from the film.
| duxup wrote:
| Robocop is wonderful how it both faithfully embraces the
| hollywood action flick / stereotypical "fear of crime" (not
| sure how to say that) film ... and seems to satirize it all at
| the same time.
|
| Robocop walking on water is both hilarious and fun.
| pimlottc wrote:
| It should be mentioned that the Atlanta's Marriott Marquis Hotel
| lobby is also used in Loki as the headquarters Time Variance
| Authority.
| helpfulContrib wrote:
| It was a beautiful, sunny day when my tiBook, the first
| generation arrived. It was exciting, Apple were building decent
| hardware again, MacOS X was on its way.
|
| I unpacked it, plugged it in, and set up my Ricochet Modem.
|
| A few hours later, the battery was charged and I left my office
| on Kingswell Avenue and walked down to the Ellis House, which was
| the closest bit of open, public lawn I could find.. I wanted to
| do 'that thing', surf the Internet in a random location outside
| in the realworld.
|
| The Ellis House provided the perfect location. I sat there on the
| lawn, ssh'ed into my server back in the office, kind of
| astounded. "This is the future, and I'm experiencing it at the
| Bladerunner House, lol", I thought to myself.
|
| I sent my girlfriend an ICQ message to join me, and bring a DVD
| for us to watch, maybe a small picnic too. She arrived a few
| minutes later and we watched the Final Fantasy movie on DVD, on
| my laptop, sitting on the Ellis House lawn, as the sun went down.
|
| It was a classic moment I'll never forget.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Children of Men [0] briefly put Bexhill [1] on the map again.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bexhill-on-Sea
| duxup wrote:
| Gattaca is such a beautiful film. The future is decidedly
| Dystopian but the message is so hopeful and the settings / scenes
| are wonderful to look at:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn_gUcCO-gM
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNI13VpPOA
|
| I'm the type to sometimes feel overwhelmed by the bad things
| going on, but it's telling that Gattaca, in a terrible future,
| tells a hopeful story that despite the depths of a dark future
| you can still claim some victories.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| The technology in Gattaca is already among us. Parents screen
| their DNA to find out if they have any hereditary diseases.
|
| It's estimated that there won't be anyone with Down syndrome in
| a few decades.
| kjs3 wrote:
| _It 's estimated that there won't be anyone with Down
| syndrome in a few decades. _
|
| Estimated by who? Perhaps in the places where parents have
| enough access to enough prenatal health care and/or enough
| disposable income for the test and the procedure. Or the
| places where legislatures _aren 't_ trying to make
| terminating a pregnancy under any circumstance murder. This
| will clearly come as a great surprise to you, but those
| conditions cover a very large percentage of humans.
|
| So, no, from a practical standpoint genetic diseases probably
| aren't going to magically go away any time soon no matter
| what technology exists to identify them.
| aninteger wrote:
| While I'm terrible at predicting the future, I find this hard
| to believe. I think screening your DNA is something maybe
| upper/middle class parents might do. I do not believe it is
| being done by those that cannot afford it.
| eindiran wrote:
| As William Gibson famously said, "The future is already
| here - it's just not evenly distributed."
| n4r9 wrote:
| In the UK, the NHS runs scans and blood tests as standard
| procedure at around 12 weeks, which can indicate any risk
| of something like Downs syndrome. You can then be referred
| for amniocentesis if necessary, all free at point of
| service. I'm sure many other European countries are
| similar.
| wojciii wrote:
| Scanning for Downs syndrome is default in Denmark where I
| live. It makes a lot of sense. You will get a probably of
| Downs syndrome. No one is aborting your baby - you can take
| an informed decision yourself.
|
| After birth a blood test is used for scanning for 25 rare
| known issues.
|
| https://www.rigshospitalet.dk/undersoegelse-og-
| behandling/fi... -> in Danish.
|
| This is the same for everyone.
| twic wrote:
| In the UK it's free if there is some reason to think you
| may be carrier:
|
| https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/genetic-and-genomic-testing/
|
| As the cost of doing it comes down, i would expect it to be
| offered more widely. I don't know if it will ever be cheap
| enough to offer to all prospective parents.
|
| Oddly, the cost of doing genetic tests does not scale at
| all linearly:
|
| https://www.rbht.nhs.uk/sites/nhs/files/Laboratories/CGGL%2
| 0...
|
| (eg a single arrhythmia test is PS650 - PS900, but the
| whole panel is PS1000, and then it's only another PS150 to
| do multiple panels)
|
| Meanwhile, sequencing a whole genome is ~$1000:
|
| https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-
| Sequen...
|
| Perhaps a lot of the cost is sample preparation, and the
| actual molecular genetics bit is dirt cheap.
| throwup238 wrote:
| The genetic tests were already down to $1,000 retail per
| parent a decade ago at the company I worked at and it
| tested for hundreds of hereditary diseases. Those base
| tests are even cheaper now thanks to microarrays and the
| mid/high end has moved up to full genome sequencing.
|
| It won't be long before it's dirt cheap and standard in
| most countries, especially as the Affymetrix/Illumina
| patents expire and the genechips get commoditized.
| twic wrote:
| Down syndrome is caused by a chromosomal aberration that
| comes about during formation of an egg, not a mutation. It's
| not possible to detect it by screening the parents' DNA.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| But it is possible to detect by screening the embryo's DNA,
| which is currently happening. Still I don't think this
| technology will reach universal adoption within the next 50
| years.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Perhaps this is why screening of the amniotic fluid to
| detect things about the parasite within the host is common?
| Geisterde wrote:
| What parasite?
| dylan604 wrote:
| That parasite gestating inside the female host.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| They're making a cheeky reference to the fetus. Don't
| think too hard about it.
| margalabargala wrote:
| You're correct, but so is the person you replied to; they
| wrote their comment confusingly, though.
|
| PGT-A testing is very common in IVF and will catch Down
| Syndrome. Essentially no births from IVF (a growing
| percentage of all births) have Down Syndrome.
|
| As you mention, this testing is done after an embryo has
| been created.
| thatoneguy wrote:
| I went through IVF and I can't make babies that have my
| particular mutation in them (even though it's not apparently
| disease causing and unknown to science) unless I sign a shit
| ton of paperwork.
|
| So, we have to go with the Gattaca-y genomincally perfect
| embryos. Or conceive in the back of a car or something.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| There are genetic screens for a few congenital disorders. A
| friend's daughter was genetically screened for galactosemia
| and by catching it they almost certainly helped her have a
| normal life.
|
| But since Gattaca was released, we've just continued to learn
| that it's likely impossible to predict the full capability of
| a person from only DNA. There are too many variables in how
| genes are expressed, and the social context in which each
| person finds themselves.
|
| That said, the real story of Gattaca is unjustified
| discrimination, and there are already plenty of technologies
| for that. So in that sense I think you're right that it's
| already among us. Just as it was in 1997... Gattaca is a
| pretty transparent allegory.
| deadbabe wrote:
| In this tough world, bringing in a child with Down syndrome
| is committing to their lifelong care and carefully planning
| who will take over the job of caring for them when you die.
| Don't do it.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I think Gattaca is also fascinating for its freshman part in
| Andrew Niccol's opening "trilogy" as writer (and mostly
| director). More people remember the sophomore work The Truman
| Show (in part perhaps because it was the film that Niccol
| didn't direct), and Simone is mostly forgettable but still
| worth mentioning in the way it sort of caps the "trilogy".
|
| I think that bittersweet hopefulness and a sense of lightness
| (humor) in the dystopian darkness of that opening "trilogy" is
| partly what Niccol seems to have lost as his career has
| progressed from those first three efforts. It's possible to
| even blame Simone's critical failure for that, he leaned harder
| into the humor and got burnt at the box office and maybe over-
| corrected too hard back to even grimmer, more bland, and more
| action focused movies. Hard to blame someone doing what sells,
| but interesting to miss the weirdness and also the bittersweet
| hope of the opening salvo.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I would add Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC. Its grey
| concrete architecture combined with Vancouver's grey skies has
| appeared in a host of scifi, mostly dystopian stuff such as the
| Underworld vampire movies. And of course X-files, which was
| pretty dystopian imho.
|
| https://604now.com/simon-fraser-university-movies-filmed-at-...
| aj7 wrote:
| I expected, from the title, to see locales in the world where
| predicted dystopias came to pass... not movie sets.
| glitchcrab wrote:
| I'm not sure what gave you that idea, the title makes sense and
| the article was exactly what I expected. Judging by the
| comments this was the case for most people.
| cratermoon wrote:
| What real locales are you thinking of?
| themadturk wrote:
| Many locations in the former USSR and Eastern Bloc? North
| Korea?
| DrBazza wrote:
| Disappointed to not see A Clockwork Orange and Thamesmead
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)
| cratermoon wrote:
| This article focuses on man-made locations, but I'd like to point
| out that the Horizon Zero Dawn franchise is set among the
| stunning natural beauty of the American West, including
| (spoilers?)
|
| The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Cheyenne
| Mountain, Arches National Park, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone
| National Parks. There's more lesser-known locations, and some
| man-made structures appear, in a state of advanced decay, but the
| setting is mostly about the natural world.
| JamieDawsonCode wrote:
| Atlanta's Marriott Marquis Hotel is easily one of my favorite
| designs in a hotel.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I was there for a conference well over a decade ago and I will
| never forget that trip. It is stunning beautiful and an HVAC
| nightmare. :)
|
| There were several decorative pools bottom of the elevators.
| The atrium is a funnel for moisture and hot air. It got pretty
| swamp around halfway up. The conference levels at the bottom
| got pretty cold.
|
| Whoever made that decision should be required to move into a
| room on the 26th floor for a few years. XD
|
| Photo here:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlexplorer/4165468538
| yeeeloit wrote:
| Mad Max locations would be a good addition to this article.
|
| The "Halls of Justice" and the underground parking at Melbourne
| Uni come to mind.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Los Angeleno here: There are any number of guys with money who
| look at Blade Runner, Robocop, and such films and say, "That's
| what I want!" Then they make it happen.
|
| When gigwatt billboards all-in-a-row light up a foggy night, the
| city looks like the nightmares presented thirty or more years
| ago.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Ironically a lot of these locations are beautiful and idyllic in
| the world that we actually live in
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