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Great Foresight Videos - On Reserve for Foresight Development (TCH110)
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Economics, Capitalism, Finance, Globalization, and Innovation Infrastructure
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Great Foresight Videos (GFV’s) - On Reserve for Foresight Development (TCH110)

Top recommended videos for this course. We will watch up to 15 of these during Futures Movie Nights 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.

Week 1 - Futures Studies
The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED, 2007
Future Living 2025, Discovery Channel, 2007
Pandora's Box (Six Episodes), Adam Curtis, 1992
Week 2 - Science
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, Episode 4: Where Are the Aliens?, NOVA, 2004
Evolution (8 Episode Series): Episode 2 - Great Transformations, PBS, 2001

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, NOVA, 2007
Week 3 - Tech, Part I
Beyond Human, Episode 2: Living Machines, Thomas Lucas, PBS, 2001
2057: The Body, The City, The World (3 Episodes), Discovery Channel
Future Cars: Episode 1 - Extreme Cars (4 Episodes), Discovery Channel, 2007
Future Weapons: Smart Weapons, (Season 1, Episode 4), Discovery Channel, 2006
Tokyo's Sky City and Transatlantic Tunnel, Extreme Engrg (S1, Ep 1), Discovery Channel, 2006
Week 4 - Tech, Part II
Computers - Modern Marvels, History Channel, 2005
Pirates of Silicon Valley, Martyn Burke, 1999
Amazing story of the birth of the personal computer, the first great chapter in the democratization of computing. The Internet/Web 1.0 was the second. Is Web 2.0 the third?
Startup.com, Chris Hegedus, 2001
Tech startups can be abysmal in new industries, where foresight is lacking. These Web 1.0 guys burn through 60 million in 18 months, leaving nada to show for it. Incredibly instructive.
Revolution OS
, J.T.S. Moore, 2002
Video Game Invasion: The History of a Global Obsession, David Comtois, 2004
Week 5 - Global, Part I
World in the Balance: The Population Paradox and China Revs Up, NOVA, 2004 (2 Episodes)
Planet in Peril: A CNN Worldwide Investigation (2 Episodes), CNN,
2007
Energy Crossroads, Chris Fauchere, 2007
Solar Energy: Saved by the Sun, NOVA, 2007
The 11th Hour, Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, 2008
Sensational but well-argued call for a pervasive mindset change for our species to live sustainably in coming generations. See also their 11th Hour Action Network for a solutions community.
Week 6 - Global, Part II
Commanding Heights, Episode 1: The Battle of Ideas, Daniel Yergin, 2003
Commanding Heights, Episode 3: The New Rules of the Game, Daniel Yergin, 2003
Utopia, Paragon, 2005
The worst mass crimes of the 20th century were created by "top-down" utopian futurists with grand visions and power, and no sufficiently organized opposition, or pluralistic checks and balances. Lenin, Hitler, Mao are all chillingly portrayed as utopians in this compelling film.
People's Century (Award-winning 26 episode series on the 20th Century) Great Leap: 1943-1976, PBS, 1999
Incredible story of the heartbreaking, dysfunctional impact of Mao Tse Tung, one of the most powerful utopian futurists of the 20th century, up to and during the Cultural Revolution in China.
Confronting the Truth,
The growth of truth commissions. They address the pain of the past, restore human rights and due process, create institutional memory, and ensure social horrors will not be repeated.
Uganda Rising, Pete McCormack, 2006
Great story about Ugandan politics and the youth-soldiers in the Lords Resistance Army. Social engineering (amnesty & reconciliation) can address complex issues of civil violence.
City of God (dramatization) and News from a Personal War (doc), 2002
Incredible dramatization of the violence, drugs, and lack of opportunity in Rio's favelas. Makes all the Tarantino movies look tame and stupid by comparison. Only education, social services, political leadership, and population reduction can deal with these issues, and it will take generations. Meanwhile there beauty, love, and
community spirit thrive amid the deprivation. News From a Personal War is particularly hard hitting and raw.
Week 7 - Economics
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Robert Greenwald, 2005
Learn about the largest, wealthiest company in the world. Clearly unfair US government subsidies, substandard wages and health care, exploitation of Chinese workers, aggressively antiunion policies allowing substandard working conditions to persist. Strong social democracies like Germany hold Wal-Mart to a significantly higher set of social standards. When will we?
The Corporation (2 Disc Special Edition)
, Mark Achbar, 2004
Overly histrionic and sloppy, yet still a reasonably useful exploration of the excesses of the corporate entity in the 20th century, which have become less extreme in individual instance, yet more pervasive as corporate wealth has grown to exceed national wealth the world over. Briefly considers the unrealized possibilities for corporate charter revocation and reform.
Sicko (Special Edition), Michael Moore, 2007
One of Moore's more balanced works, while still biased infotainment. Special features on the DVD include this 8 minute piece on Norway's health care and penal system. Moore highlights Norwegian outliers in the prison bit, without telling you, as is typical of his propagandism. Nevertheless, the lesson sinks in: these countries, with oil and without, are well ahead of us in development of their social democracies, for a host of reasons Moore ignores. When will citizens here have the power to restructure the laws so we have a health care system that is required to put universal care ahead of profits? We shall see.
Week 8 - Politics + Security
Why We Fight, Eugene Jarecki, 2006
No End In Sight, Charles Ferguson, 2007
Our Brand is Crisis, Rachel Boynton, 2005
The Fog of War, Errol Morris, 2003
Well-Founded Fear: Gaining Political Asylum in America, Shari Robertson, 2001

Week 9 - Media, Education, Culture
Orwell Rolls in His Grave, Robert Kane Pappas, 2004
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Robert Greenwald, 2004
News War (4 Episode Series: Episode 3 - What's Happening to the News, Lowell Bergman, Frontline, 2007
News War (4 Episode Series: Episode 4 - Stories from a Small Planet, Lowell Bergman, Frontline, 2007
Declining By Degrees: Higher Education at Risk, John Merrow, PBS, 2005
2 Million Minutes: A Documentary Calculating the Educational Divide, Chad Heeter, 2007
Revealing, hard-hitting documentary financed by multimillionaire venture capitalist Bob Compton. It demonstrates just how far behind the United States education in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has fallen, and just how comfortable we are with this situation. The modern global marketplace is highly competitive, and the leading innovations and companies of the future are going to come from countries that have strong STEM education and an innnovative culture. Will we recognize how vulnerable we are, and reform our educational system and start immigrating the best and the brightest again, or will we continue to slide into social narcissism and global irrelevancy? Fortunately each of us has the choice, for ourselves at least, even as US culture and educational systems have increasingly failed us in this regard in the last 50 years. Can we turn them around? What pressures can be brought to bear on the current hugely inertial system in order to do so? What individual freedoms do students really need?
Waiting for Superman, Davis Guggenheim, 2009 (Participant Media)
"For a nation that proudly declared it would leave no child behind, America continues to do so at alarming rates. Despite increased spending and politicians’ promises, our buckling public-education system, once the best in the world, routinely forsakes the education of millions of children. Guggenheim follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth. He undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying “drop-out factories” and “academic sinkholes,” methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems. The film embraces the belief that good teachers make good schools, and questions the role of unions in maintaining the status quo. It also offers hope by exploring innovative approaches taken by education reformers and charter schools that have reshaped local cultures by refusing to leave their students behind."
Week 10 - Biz-Org, Part I
Who Killed the Electric Car?, Chris Paine, 2006
We Built this City - Paris, Discovery Channel, 2005
Week 11 - Biz-Org, Part II
Merchants of Cool, Barak Goodman, Frontline, PBS, 2005
The Persuaders, Rachel Dretzin, Frontline, PBS, 2005

Architecture to Zucchini: People, Co’s, and Orgs Pioneering Sustainability, 2006
Week 12 - Personal-Career, Part I
A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink, 2006
The Up Series, Michael Apted (Three 20 min pieces, 7 up, 21 up, and 42 up)
Mr. Personality (Intvw w/ Forensic Psychologist Michael Stone) on The Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris, 2005
Week 13 - Personal-Career, Part II
Maxed Out, James Scurlock, 2005
Secret History of the Credit Card, Frontline, David Rummel, 2004

Week 14
- Personal-Career, Part III
Bringing Down a Dictator, Steve York, 2002
A Force More Powerful: Episode 2, Steve York, 2000 (2 episodes)
Street Fight, Marshall Curry, 2005
Modern politics and racial stereotyping in the 2002 Newark, NJ Mayoral campaign. The corruption and dishonesty are incredible, the electorate is hoodwinked, yet there is still hope.
Week 15 - Personal-Career, Part IV
Legacy, Tod Lending, 2006
The Bridge, Eric Steel, 2006
The Business of Being Born, Abby Epstein, 2007
Shows the way Americans, as the world's most convenience-oriented culture, have allowed the business of medicine to turn childbirth into a profit center, and an experts-only affair. The low number of parents who use midwives (8% in US vs. 70% in Europe) illustrates our patriarchal, numbed-out approach. Is it any wonder that our parenting is also increasingly hands off as well? Fortunately we can rise above the limitations of our disempowering culture and make childbirth, parenting, funeral arrangements, insurance, and other big life choices something that we control, ourselves.



Top Foresight Videos and Video Sites

General

Did You Know / Shift Happens 2.0, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, 2007
Excellent set of thought-provoking futures statistics on our accelerating world.
Did You Know / Shift Happens 3.0, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman, 2008
More great shift statistics. Updated for a Sony BMG executive meeting June 2008.
The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Verson), Michael Wesch (4:33)
Nice into to Web 2.0 architecture, and its long term promise to improve our collective intelligence.
A Vision of Students Today,Michael Wesch (4:44)
Another great Michael Wesch video about students in the 21st century.
Hyperland [1990], Douglas Noel Adams (49:21)
Get to know your virtual guide, a futurist's view of interactive media's future. Highly predictive.
Douglas Adams is a greatest futurist who rarely gets recognized as such, since he is so funny. [Roivas]

Comedy

Here Comes Another Bubble, Matt Hempey and the Richter Scales (2:45)
Satirizing Web 2.0 stock inflation. Hilarious. 1999 here we go again!
ApplePresents... the iRack!
, MAD TV, Season 12 Episode 15, 2007 (4:17)
Hilarious analogy between G. Bush and Iraq and S. Jobs and Apple's suite of iProducts. Great hook ending too.



Science, Evolution, and Development Videos and Video Sites

A Thousand Years of Darkness
, Carl Sagan (9:45)
Thoughtful excerpt from Sagan's Cosmos series, describing the great scientific advances of the Western world, and specifically the Egyptian city of Alexandria from the 3rd Century BC to 3rd Century AD, and how the knowledge of that era was stalled for 1,000 years, as human society turned away from critical thinking and toward blind faith and nationalism. Could this happen again? How do we make sure that a scientific attitude' is cultivated in our societies, and that science's benefits are made available to all, not just the privileged?

Intro to Genetic Engineering
This is a good video containing a monologue from a futurist reviewing the idea behind genetic engineering and the possible good and bad that could come from it. These good and bad things range from giving human genes to pigs so their organs can be better used for transplants to humans to possibly creating a super disease with our tinkering.

Powers of Ten: The Films of Charles and Ray Eames (Volume 1), 1968.
The first and still one of the best film versions of an incredible "dimensional tour" of the structures of our universe, starting with a human and going down to the quarks and up to the level of the whole universe.

Future By Design - Trailer - Movie
"Future By Design presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture." It is presented by a man who is called a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci. It shows great insight to what the future may be like.
[Kristopher Velez]


Technology (Engineering, Infotech, Sociotech, Cognotech, Biomedtech) Videos and Video Sites

"The Mother of All Demos" - Doug Englebart Previews the Personal Computer at the Fall Joint Computer Conference, Dec. 1968

In 1962 the Xerox Alto, the world's first personal computer, was built by Butler Lampson, with with a design inspired by Doug Englebart at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). In 1963, Doug and Bill English built the first prototype for the computer mouse. The Alto was extremely expensive, and was unfortunately never commercialized (built for sale to companies and the public). But the Alto had many of the key features of modern computers, including WYSIWYG editing and the mouse. Unfortunately, Xerox management did not realize how this revolutionary GUI (graphical user interface) could be combined with the new field of personal computing to fundamentally change how document production (its main business) occurs. This failure of critical foresight is surprisingly common in large organizations, where complacency emerges and bureacracy can be significant.

The Alto was being used in Xerox PARC, Xerox's research division. People were very excited about its potential, but the general public had no idea what was going on. So in 1968, Doug Englebart gave a demo of the first computer mouse the public had ever seen, as well as introducing interactive text, video conferencing, teleconferencing, email, hypertext and a collaborative real-time editor. You can see the demo in this Google video. About 1,000 people were in the audience. This demo showed the world nothing less than the future of personal computing, more than ten years before the first commercial personal computer was manufactured, the Commodore PET in 1977, In 1969, ARPANET, the world's first electronic computer network, was established between nodes at Leonard Kleinrock's lab at UCLA and Douglas Engelbart's lab at SRI.

It took fifteen years, 1962 to 1977, to go to from the Alto to the Commodore PET. It took twenty years, from 1969 to 1989, for the ARPANET to turn into the Internet, and for it to become open to commercial interests. Email was the first application allowed, a service called MCI Mail. With these two advances, of course, the world was forever changed. Why do you think that futurists say it often takes twenty years for an idea to go from first use to broad application? Is this interval getting shorter today? If Englebart had done his demo in 1965 instead of 1968, do you think the world would have had personal computers even earlier? How important is it to do a good demo, as soon as you can? What is something you'd like to demo?


Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City, PBS, Aired 8 Feb 2010 (90 mins)
Excellent documentary on the need for the next generation of infrastructure in the U.S. Shows the burnt-out shell that is Detroit, MI, formal manufacturing capital for the auto. Nowhere is the consequences of the loss of the American manufacturing base more painfully obvious. Can we revitalize US manufacturing? What would we need to do, besides immigrating many more hard working citizens every year? Would we need higher taxes? How has Germany kept its manufacturing while having far higher taxes as well? Describes Spain's high-speed rail system between cities, which has more riders than planes and buses combined. Europe is now far ahead of the US in transportation infrastructure quality. The US stopped spending on transportation infrastructure in the 1980's. But the solutions didn't stop. High speed rail and hybrid buses and shuttles are clearly the next generation of efficient mass transit. Can the US get more high speed rail? We'll probably do it slowly. Can we get more hybrid and electric shuttles and buses? That would be excellent, but it may take some time. Would building super efficient shuttle buses, which can go door to door, be a better first step toward better infrastructure in many communities than light rail, or high speed rail?


QRIO spends time with Children
Javier 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

Jeff Han (Interface Free Computer Screen)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLhMVNdplJc
First 10 Minutes of Minority Report http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqPWUnaBNSA

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, 2005

Great 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 - Humor
Study 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 Brothers
Should 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 Man
iRobot


Other Realistic Future Fiction

(Student-Submitted, Alpha Order by Title).



Appleseed. Trailer:http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6158546CNez6Jx?searchId=7171439527040274323&rank=1
This 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 - trowgundam
Gundam 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.

HarryPotter
Harry 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 - trowgundam
Outlaw 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 Drift
Best 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, 1951
One 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 Sites
Put below any videos and video sites you recommend but can't easily classify above. We'll classify them later.




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JohnMSmart
JohnMSmart
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Xiphias Future Weapons 0 Sep 24 2007, 1:37 AM EDT by Xiphias
Thread started: Sep 24 2007, 1:37 AM EDT  Watch
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/future-weapons/future-weapons.html

"Just how smart and lethal are the weapons of tomorrow? In FutureWeapons former Navy SEAL Richard "Mack" Machowicz goes in search of the latest, cleverest and most terrifying technology already reaching out to dominate the battlefields of the 21st century.

He introduces viewers to weapons that seek out targets almost on their own; others that tap new forms of destructive power; and a few that push the limits of overwhelming force. "

It shows us weapons that are still under development for future use and weapons that are just now being used because of the advances in technology.
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MustanshioMcHatman A Political Possiblity of Cloning 0 Sep 22 2007, 12:18 AM EDT by MustanshioMcHatman
Thread started: Sep 22 2007, 12:18 AM EDT  Watch
The 6th Day
http://www.amazon.com/6th-Day-Arnold-Schwarzenegger/dp/B000056PMU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9920541-4521416?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1190431793&sr=8-1

The 6th Day is about a a near future timeline where plants, animals, and human organs is internationally accepted. Only this is a nice big corporation is using this techniques to clone human, humans that replace active citizens so when election time comes, they have the votes that count. Up for votes is a law that will ban human cloning, and the Billionaire behind it doesn't. As interesting as the story line is, it is only more compelling because of Arnold Schwarzenegger is the lead role.
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Steve_Olender Futuristic Anime 0 Sep 22 2007, 12:01 AM EDT by Steve_Olender
Thread started: Sep 22 2007, 12:01 AM EDT  Watch
http://www.ghostintheshell.com/

Here's another link to yet another of my favorite anime films. This one is actually set in the future, this time. ;-)

In this movie, a cyborg (Motoko Kusanagi) working for a secret government task force confronts a hacker that has been hacking peoples’ minds; the hacker turns out not to be human, but a form of supersoftware. Throughout the movie the questions of what it means to be human, what part consciousness plays in identity, and the dangers of future integrations and applications of technology (be they ethical, legal, or physical) into the human aspect are brought to bear.

A great watch - both entertaining and food for some serious contemplation.
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