Top recommended videos for this course. We will watch up to 15 of these during
in TCH110, roughly one per week.
You need to watch any seven of these during the course, and engage in in-class discussion of them afterward.
Excellent set of thought-provoking futures statistics on our accelerating world.
More great shift statistics. Updated for a Sony BMG executive meeting June 2008.
Nice into to Web 2.0 architecture, and its long term promise to improve our collective intelligence.
Another great Michael Wesch video about students in the 21st century.
QRIO spends time with ChildrenJavier Movellan at the University of California San Diego, US, took one of Sony's Qrio's and let it interact with toddlers. The children treated it like they would any other kid. Not only that, but when it laid down (function called upon when its batteries are low) the toddlers would put a blanket over it and wish it a good night. We as adults may not accept robots, but this shows that children truly are blind to anything we learn as we get older. -MustanshioMcHatman
Connections (10 Episodes), James Burke, 1978/2001.
This award-winning series is subtitled "An alternative view of change." It represents the views of James Burke, a leading technology historian, who helps us understand the serendipitous and highly interconnected and interdisciplinary nature of scientific and technological discovery. Episode 3 Distant Voices is particularly future-relevant. It begins with a suitcase nuclear bomb and ends with the Arecibo radio wave antenna/transmitter: the first represents the disruptive threat of technology and the second its ability to bring us all together. We live in the middle space between these two gargantuan opposing forces. How we use them shapes our future, perhaps more than anything else we do. - John Smart
Ancient Discoveries: Computers, The History Channel, 2004
(Not Available For Sale Yet at the History Channel. Does Anyone Have? We Need A DVD Copy of This For Our Library!)
"The classical world of the 3rd Century BC produced three of the most important computing machines in history -
Ctesibius’ clock,
Vitruvius’ odometer and the spectacular
Antikythera mechanism, an model of the cosmos in a wooden box." Could the computer age have started 2,000 years before its time? Quite possibly so, with a better culture of foresight, and just a little bit more luck. - J Smart
Ancient Discoveries: Heron of Alexandria, The History Channel, 2004
(Not Available For Sale Yet at the History Channel. Does Anyone Have? We Need A DVD Copy of This For Our Library!)
About Heron (aka Hero) of Alexandria, Egypt, 20-70AD, and his many amazing inventions, including a primitive rotary steam engine. Could the Roman Empire have had the steam engine 1,500 years before its time? Quite possibly so,with a better culture of foresight, and just a little bit more luck. - J Smart
Webb Alert. This is a video blog made by one of the hosts of X-Play on G4. It is a daily roundup of all the big news in the tech world that provides links to all the storys covered in each episode so the viewer can do a follow up. Each episode is only about five minutes long so it doesn't take up too much time and provides some insight into each story. - Bernard Clary
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/128967/water_as_fuel/ This guy first off started making what i believe to be a welder that runs off water. Now he is working on a Hummer for the military that runs off water and gas. If this technology works some problems with our fossil fuels might end, but then perhaps new ones may come up with our supply of water? http://www.metacafe.com/watch/170583/car_of_the_future/ This has to be the coolest video i have seen. No pedals to stop or accelerate, no mirrors, its just amazing.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/523332/ultra_mobile_pc_takes_on_navigation_and_communication_in_the_fut/ This is another video about future technologies, it shows how intergrated they will become in our lives. I like this video too because it shows how we dream about the future and all it takes its a dream to make it happen.
Armsted Snow-Car Concept Car, 1926 (11:05)
A really amazing video of a combination of a Ford tractor and a Chevrolet auto body. Armsted Snow Motors Co. thought these were going to take off in Winter in the US, on all the farms and back roads where there was no good snow plowing. Why do you think the Snow Car never emerged as predicted? What stopped it? Could this car still be a good solution today in some kinds of applications? Explain.
Jatech Rotary Drop Car Doors, 2009 (3:03)
What do you think of this car door? It has many advantages, but are there also hidden problems? Do you think we'll see more doors like this in coming years? Explain.
Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Videos and Video Sites
We Built this City - Paris, Discovery Channel, 2005Great overview of the many urban planning challenges and solutions needed to keep Paris functioning, from 50 BC to the present. Excellent history lesson too, all in one hour. Paris has one of the most interesting histories of any city in the world.
The Future of Food - This is a YouTube video that is a bit dated but shows the progression of our genetic modification on the food we eat. There's also insight here on the issues that could arise if we don't work out the political issues behind modifying genes. As the video makes a point in saying, modified food has advantages but we don't want to have the seeds to the majority of our food owned by a few private corporations.
William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle - Interesting Youtube Video about intelligent "cradle-to-cradle" city design and environmental awareness. China is beginning to use his models.
Salt water as fuel! - Youtube Video on the discovery of salt water as a fuel. When exposed to a radio wave salt water explodes, this could be the end of oil and global warming.
Compressed air as fuel! - Youtube Video on running cars on compressed air.
Windbelt- An alternative to wind microturbinesin developing nations (or anywhere there's a breeze) -Pajamas
Economics, Finance, Globalization, and Capitalism Videos and Video Sites
The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis, BBC Two, 2002.
Explores an insightful but overly dramatized connection between Edward Bernays, founder of modern public relations, and the economics of our mass consumption society. Brilliant in parts and good background to understanding modern consumerism, but we need something a bit more even handed to complement it. - John Smart
Money as Debt - An insightful documentary (with a conspiracy theory twist) that explains where money comes from. It relates to future studies because the monetary system it describes (which we're in) is one that requires perpetual debt and exponentially increasing growth. A great exampleis at 24:24. However it states that the perpetual growth needed is impossible because it would require exponentially exploiting resources, definatly not a stable practice. However if resource use per dollar of GDP goes down over time, the system may be stable for a long time.
I want to learn perfect english!A youtube clip of a crowd in China practicing english. When the crowd begins chanting "I want to learn perfect english!" I don't know whether to be proud or terrified of them. A few other subtle phrases clue the watcher in to what values the Chinese are trying to instill in their people ("I don't want to let my countri down!") - Tom Andrys
Politics, Security, Democracy, Rights, Health Care, & Sustain. Infras. Videos and Video Sites
Reds, Warren Beatty, 1981.
A fictional but very well-done introduction to the Cultural Revolution in China
Society (Big): Culture: Society, Ethics, Media, Art, Design, Education and Religion Videos and Video Sites
Justice w/ Michael Sandel, Harvard University & WGBH 2009 (Twelve 60 min episodes)Harvard's first online course. Put online Jan 2010. See for example,
Week 12. Debating Sex Marriage. Great background for understanding our evolving marriage standard. Can you marry an infertile woman? Can people marry on their deathbed? Can two same sex couples marry? Polygamy? Can you marry yourself? Can you marry a sufficiently sentient machine? This last question wasn't asked, but you can be sure it will be asked in the future. For more on the long history and possible future of human-robot relationships, read the fascinating
Love+Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, David Levy, 2008.
Gamer, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, 2009. 95 minutes.
A fascinating future-culture piece, by the frenetic and imaginative directors of the
Crank series, set in a near-singularity world, where super-high-fidelity simulation games have become a major cultural obsession. The main suspension of disbelief involves nanotech entering a hard-takeoff scenario via human effort (super unlikely), and doing this while AI stays really weak (also super unlikely). Nevertheless, this create lots of possibilities and instabilities, as such a takeoff doesn't have to be friendly, hence this script. Here's the setup: One company, led by the tech genius Ken Castle (MIchael C. Hall), develops the nanotech (presumably they have a patent on it, giving them a 17 year monopoly. In reality, the military would have it as well however, so that should also have been shown briefly). Castle uses his nanotech skillz to develop a direct brain-to-brain interface between humans via "nanites" which enter their central nervous system. In secret experiments, he
also uses nanites to entirely replace the brains of three people: two test subjects Kable (Gerard Butler) and another person, and himself. This makes all three of their brains effectively immortal, though their AI powers are still primitive (why so, we don't know). Castle, being still mostly a scheming human with a new immortal and smarter brain, makes Kable kill the other test subject, by shooting him in the head. Once he realizes he can have this kind of control, he launches two virtual reality games,
Society and
Slayer, to market the technology, and to secretly spread his world control ambitions globally.
Presumably there have been some court cases in this future which settle people's rights to play both of these games, as each involves altering your own neural tissue with a few nanites (a medical procedure) so you can have this direct brain-to-brain communication. It is presumably totally reversible, which would make it particularly likely to be approved. Unfortunately, they don't tell us any of these details. If they had included them the cultural issue raised (should you have the right to alter your body with such an invasive medical procedure?) would have been very interesting. So let me ask you, should you have that right? If you are denied that right when others are doing it, either secretly or openly in other cultures, are you less free?
A few million people play
Society, which is just a beautiful people being naughty game (seen also in
Surrogates), and only a few thousand play the brutal
Slayer, which involves the death of a significant number of the players in each match. Again, even
Slayer would have been just this side of believable if we'd seen a minute or two on the court cases establishing your right to subject yourself to near-certain death in the future if you aren't insane or a minor and want to, and if most of the players had been free citizens, not prisoners. Then, once free citizens had been playing
Slayer for a few years, a few bad-ass prisoners, funded by Castle, could have sue for their right to be gladiators as well, which then could have--just concievably--led to the scenario in the game, where Castle is paying billions to the U.S. prison system for the right to have a few voluntary prisoners playing the game alongside citizen gladiators. Again, all this assumes a society where the freedom to kill yourself has emerged, and where boredom with today's mock wrestling and ultimate fighting tripe has pushed a subculture to these extremes, and in the process created a highly marketable franchise. This movie thus draws from
Rollerball, which has a similar premise, as well as
Running Man,
Blade Runner, Enter the Dragon, and a whole lot of other films.
Gamer has some additional plot problems, the biggest one being that the humanz hackers could never have done the things they were doing, if they were up against a weakly artificially intelligent Castle and all his henchmen. But if the hackers had, say, recovered from the morgue the corpse of the test subject that Kable killed, and plugged his partly damaged nanobrain into their hacker computers, the story would have been one weak AI against another, and much more believable. Kable himself is the third weak AI of course, but he has been kept cut off from the rest of the world's computer networks, unlike Castle, and so is the mouse in a cat-and-mouse game. Other than this, and the loose ends at the end (what happens to Castle's brain? What happens next?), the plot is tight, right up to the final minute, which is a clear homage to
Blade Runner. It apparently went over the heads of most critics (Rotten Tomatoes gave it a cluelessly-low 27%)) but this is a seriously futuristic film (we will see much more of this kind of virtual fantasy in the future) with a superior script, once you assume the super unlikely human-initiated hard takeoff of nanotech, and the indefensibly weak AI. What is most amazing is that Neveldine and Taylor pulled all this off with only $12.5 milllion. It feels like a $50 million dollar film. I give it a 7 out of 10. [John Smart]
Stanford Prison Experiment, Philip Zimbardo.
Famous experiment describing how cultural roles, hierarchy, and peer pressure can produce great behavior change, and sometimes evil.
How could good Germans have conducted the atrocities they did under Nazi Governance? What is the moral responsibility of culture itself for evil? How do we minimize culture's influence and maximize individual responsibility? How do we keep people from being
sheeple?
Futurama, Volumes 1-4, Matt Groening, 1999
Probably the best futures comedy series in the world, and one of the best animated cartoon series of all time. Many folks consider the five episodes of Futurama (more coming now that it is being revived) even smarter and funnier than The Simpsons.
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, Danny Schecter, 2004
Media deconstructionist Schecter gives his analysis on the "selling" of the Iraq war to the American and global populace by a highly centralized, highly managed corporate media, whose interests have become so fully in line with government policy that we have lost our independent and investigative journalistic ethic in these venues. Television news has been fully captured by show business, and no obvious countervailing trend is in sight, at present. - John Smart
http://www.break.com/index/halo-takes-over-the-world.html
This Video is true, I have seen it.
Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk, PBS, 2005
Great coverage of the way higher educational standards have been weakening in the US. Predictable consequence of affluence?
We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel, Mr. Allsop's History Class, 2007, 4:44
Awesome video version of Billy Joel's famous song about the transience and craziness of life. Full of pop culture references from the 50's and 60's and a bit of the 70's. Live every day like it is your last, because individual death is inevitable but individual life is a daily gift!
Life on Life, Sterling Wright, 2007, 13:00
Great short video on the chaotic, fanciful, inspiring and exasperating world that is Second Life. An award-winning machinima short about one woman's one year travel through this fascinating, evolving community.
Society - HumorStudy Finds Growing Gap Between America's Rich and Super-Rich, Onion News Network, 2:42
Panelists discuss a new study showing the gap between the wealthy and the absurdly wealthy is widening, and how we can help the merely rich catch up. Classic humor from The Onion! Lots of other good videos at this site.
The Professor BrothersShould get you all thinking deeply about our past, present and future. The human mind fully condensed into a one ounce pill. Start talking about the future, do it.
Society (Med): Organizational: Mgmt, Org. Innov. & Entrep., Org. Sustain. & Social Responsibility, Org. Development Videos and Video Sites
Society (Small): Personal: Family, Relationships, Careers, and Lifestyle Videos and Video Sites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRCFWdZicOM. This is what they think the future of kitchens will be like I don't know about you guys but this would be awsome. Just push a button and your food appears and then the stove is cleaned off without you ever touching it. That would be so cool. A touch screen for every thing in the kitchen. That is a cool future. - Michael Stringfellow
Multidisciplinary Videos and Video Sites
Realistic Future Fiction (RFF) Videos and Video Sites
[Realistic future fiction has major parts which feel like they actually could happen in the future, under the right circumstances. Almost all fantasy stories and most science fiction stories really don't count as realistic--there are exceptions however, and if you think that some particular aspect of a fantasy or SF book feels realistic, include it here and explain why. Realistic future fiction is a subgenre of general or science fiction that feels realistic (it could actually happen) most of the way through, even to critical readers. Realistic future fiction is rare, as you can imagine.]
Realistic Singularity Fiction (RSF).
By far the most obvious monumental sci-tech advance looming ahead of us is the arrival of greater than human intelligence, likely within this 21st century. Judith Berman, in "Science Fiction Without the Future," 2001, noted that writing about the coming AI is so difficult (emotionally and intellectually) that most sci-fi writers, and their readers in collusion, have simply abandoned reading or thinking about realistic science fiction, turning to comfortable fantasy instead (e.g., Star Trek and other such impossible but comforting 'space operas'). Nevertheless, there are a handful of efforts that attempt to realistically describe the likely coming emergence of AI, and the implications of an AI world on human beings, in at least a partially plausibile way. We call such fiction RSF.
Here are a few RSF favorites:Bicentennial ManiRobot
Other Realistic Future Fiction
(Student-Submitted, Alpha Order by Title).
Appleseed. Trailer:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6158546CNez6Jx?searchId=7171439527040274323&rank=1This anime presents a future world where a great war has tarnished most of the land. Common topic, I know. Its a good movie, in that world, the story takes place in a super futuristic city, that is supposed to be a "UTOPIA" The most realistic thing about this is that the government consists of "elders" who are under the main government figure GAIA, a computer program. Also the human existence with "bioroids" who are in essence advanced humans, not robots. It is worth watching, it, as do many animes, questions our abilities as humans to rule ourselves, and presents a cool environment, and many differing perspectives.(stephen271)
Battlestar Galactica"The world ended with no warning, and all that was left … was hope." This isn't a video, but a series on the sci-fi channel. It deals with the surviving humans living in space, fighting against the Cylons (robots that they had created that soon grew to have a mind of their own - When Cylons are killed they merely resurrect in their ship in some form of pod) and in constant search of "the mythical, lost "13th colony" — Earth."
-Katie Lindner-Children of Men - Children of Men is worth taking a look at for a more rough, realistic view of our future. It feels completely real if you give in to one idea. This idea being that mankind would suddenly lose all fertility. Once you get past this idea and the religious overtones, Children of Men portrays this possible future with startling realism down to the acts of terrorism and political upheaval mankind would break down into if it was known the species had less than a century left before extinction.
Forbidden Planet (Ultimate Collector's Edition), 1956
One of the most inflential science fiction movies ever made. A loose adaptation of Shakespeare's
The Tempest, about a culture wiped out by accelerating technological change. Will that happen to us? Inspired
Star Trek and a whole host of successor science fiction movies.
Firefly/Serenity – Its a show and movie based off of the human race leaving planet earth and colonizing other planets. It has a lot of interesting ideas about space frontiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)
Equilibrium – Is a movie pretty much based off of the book Fahrenheit 451. It's not huge into technology but more into future censorship and idea of how to control emotions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(2002_film)
Fifth Element- If you haven't seen this then you need to. It's about a cosmic evil coming to destroy earth and the only person that can stop it is the prefect human. It has some cool ideas about future cites and process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element Gattaca, 1998
Good dystopia about a world where genetic enhancement has led us back to a world of sharp class division (like the disappearing caste system in India), those who have the enhancements and those who don't. Access to the good jobs are only available to the enhanced. The five minute section on choosing one's genetic features for one's children feels very realistic. It already exists today and is called
Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), but is still very expensive and somewhat controversial.
Ghost In The Shell - This is a really sweet anime/manga/video game series to check out because of the amount of things in it that are realistic. From the idea of AI eventually developing human attributes on its own to the practice of taking and downloading one's mind into a completely fabricated body, there are many things in this anime that could prove to be truly futuristic. The series even includes a version of the internet that is accessed in a multitude of ways, including through the mind.
Gundam Wing -
trowgundamGundam Wing is perhaps my favorite TV Show of all time. The real reason for this is because I can really seeing something just like this or close to the basics of Gundam Wings plot. Basically, the human race starts to build colonies in space and these colonies feel like breaking free of the Earth so they rebel. At the same time an organization known as OZ takes over Earth's government and ruthlessly squashes the rebellion. With how history has folded out so far, this is a very plausible scenario in my eyes.
HarryPotterHarry Potter what more can i say its a bunch of kids with power and what make it more weird they are all british. So yeah kids that have a magic wond that can grant any wish they want as long as they learn the spell and everything they can use thier magic powers for good and evil. Why would give kids powers that are going to use it for evil makes no sense. Regardless i wish i had powers.-Darnell gILL
Handmaid's Tale, 1990
Dystopian story, very similar to
Children of Men, that assumes rapid loss of human fertility, nuclear war, and a global fundamentalist backlash and political decay.
Ideocracy, 2006
The first 20 minutes of this film have a realistic future feel, as they chronicle the lack of childraising that happens in the wealthier and more educated in any society, and the consequences of letting your society get dumbed down as you get affluent and lazy. Looks like the future of America to some degree, unfortunately.
Leonardo DaVinci and His Fightin' Genius Time-Commandos: The Tick [Episode 17]This particular episode of The Tick features a new villain The Mother of Invention, who in spite of the name, is most likely male. His nefarious plot is to use his time machine to erase the most innovative people in history so he could invent these things himself. His main gripe is that all the easy stuff has already been created and is particularly jealous of the man who invented the wheel. Not the best episode of The Tick, but still fairly awesome.
Matrix (The Series)
The matrix is so cool to watch but yeah way to well i dont know the weird for it yet. Just stuff like in the movies three people walking into a club and able to get to the top floor and kill like hundred people in a battle. Smith able to clone himself, a huge flying ship that can sent out a EMP but that will destroy alot of robots that can fly.-DARNELL GILL
Outlaw Star -
trowgundamOutlaw Star is my second favorite anime, see my first entry. I believe Outlaw Star is another likely route that the human race can take. Basically the history is that the human race expanded from Earth and colonized many planets and met many new races. They entered an age of exploration much like what happened in the era when Columbus' expeditions took place. Just like back then their were pirates. The entire show is about an outlaw, an explorer, who has to fight pirates at every turn and contend with the nosy nature of the Space Forces, the government.
Serial Experiment Lain-
A great anime series about.... well I've asked six other people and they've come up with a different answer each time. The series is heavily focused on technology integrated into our lives, of course like most anime it is looked at through a mirror of schizophrenia.
Stealth- It is a movie about a new program in the U.S. Navy involving artificial intelligence and aircraft. The movie gives a look into a possible future of having an aircraft operate without human control.
Star Trek The Next Generation- (Someone had to mention it)
If you're into techno-babble as well as some pretty interesting futuristic ideas (teleportation, holograms, replicators) then this is a good series to watch. Although it is set far far into the future some of the stuff does have a decent chance of actually existing in the future and I would imagine the writers of this series did have quite a few futurists working with them coming up with new ideas.
Toyko DriftBest movie to me one of them but way to much future in this movie. The cell they had though where you can watch a video from one spot and show someone else phone the same thing you are watching at that exact time and second. Thats bad ass but man what else can these thing do. Also the engines if you look closley their were made in japan which was like ultra made to do this high performance turning and super nos. THat movie had so much stuff build and Japan had it and kept it so again they stay above in technology-Darnell Gill
The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951One of the most intelligent sci-fi movies of the 1950s. Aliens come to Earth and give earthlings an ultimatum. Helps one realize how warlike and primitive the human species still is. Features Gort the robot and the phrase: "Klaatu barada nicto," later immortalized in the
Evil Dead series.
The Final Cut - This movie is about the recording of memories by brain implants. When a person dies, all his memories are taken to someone who edits thier history and presents a sort of highlight reel at thier funeral for thier family members to watch. The recording of memories was mentioned in class a few times, so I thought this movie pertinent to add.
The Thirteen Floor --
Explores the idea of artificial life and the complications that arise from it. Basic premise is that a program is made where there are artificial inhabitants that are fully self aware. The users are able to virtually inject themselves into the program and get a first hand view. [Brant Hestrup]
Unclassified Videos and Video SitesPut below any videos and video sites you recommend but can't easily classify above. We'll classify them later.

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