|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 11, 2019 9:02:15 GMT -5
The scene in Planet of the Apes with the Statue of Liberty is a classic, in fact the whole movie is great. The sequels are of questionable quality but I grew up on them. The reboots are wildly varying in quality. The iconic moment though..."you cut out his brain you damn dirty apes!" |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 11, 2019 9:24:12 GMT -5
I just can't imagine people from a fallen civilisation in centuries to come sitting around a camp fire and talking about this.....
Unfortunately cell phones have had a much larger visible impact on day-to-day life than spaceflight. Never mind that cellular service depends on satellites for functions like gps, or that the techological underpinnings for much of the technology of a cell phone was developed during or as a result of manned missions into space; the current generation is hooked at the thumbs to their cell phones.
Also, apropos of Egypt - the Egyptians lived in an extremely favorable combination of climactic and geological factors: a desert wetland. The vast, cloudless blue sky poured bright sunlight into the Earth, allowing the great papyrus swamp of the Nile to bestow food, fuel, and raw materials on her people with a generous hand. Yet unlike savanahs and jungles where humidity stifles human activity and brings disease and decay, the arid subtropical atmosphere offered good cooling power and a tendency to dry and preserve rather than degrade. Countless Egyptian mummies, scrolls, and artifacts available to archeologists today would have been lost to the ages in a wetter climate.
So many people seem overly attached to their phones in this current information age, you see it everywhere, people turning into pods, kinda reminds me of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’. There is a term for an excessive addiction to smartphones, ‘nomophobia’, to do with the fear of being without or not being able to use your phone, but it’s not the phone or tablet that creates the compulsion, but rather an addiction to all the games, apps, selfies and social networking and online worlds, basically being ‘connected’ 24/7 I don’t think I will miss this part of our civilisation.  |
|
|
|
Post by sorcerer on Aug 11, 2019 10:26:54 GMT -5
So many people seem overly attached to their phones in this current information age, you see it everywhere, people turning into pods, kinda reminds me of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’. There is a term for an excessive addiction to smartphones, ‘nomophobia’, to do with the fear of being without or not being able to use your phone, but it’s not the phone or tablet that creates the compulsion, but rather an addiction to all the games, apps, selfies and social networking and online worlds, basically being ‘connected’ 24/7 I don’t think I will miss this part of our civilisation.
You have a deft way of invoking films I'd long ago forgotten - and by Ibis, I have met few men who share my repugnance for these plastic baubles! They may have their uses, but still I refuse to own one.
|
|
|
|
Post by charleshelm on Aug 11, 2019 10:49:07 GMT -5
Smart phones are amazing, a computer and library you can hold in your hand. But like any tool it is how you choose to use it. I spend too much time on Instagram but it keeps boredom away.
|
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 12, 2019 7:59:15 GMT -5
So many people seem overly attached to their phones in this current information age, you see it everywhere, people turning into pods, kinda reminds me of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’. There is a term for an excessive addiction to smartphones, ‘nomophobia’, to do with the fear of being without or not being able to use your phone, but it’s not the phone or tablet that creates the compulsion, but rather an addiction to all the games, apps, selfies and social networking and online worlds, basically being ‘connected’ 24/7 I don’t think I will miss this part of our civilisation.
You have a deft way of invoking films I'd long ago forgotten - and by Ibis, I have met few men who share my repugnance for these plastic baubles! They may have their uses, but still I refuse to own one.
Exactly, I would rather be aware of my surroundings. Phones have their uses, but I can't think of anything more repugnantly anti barbarian than someone walking in a busy city street, ears plugged up to block out the sounds of their environment, staring at a smartphone, almost oblivious to what is going on around them as they nearly collide into other pedestrians and even traffic in some cases. |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 12, 2019 8:16:26 GMT -5
One other film with a post apocalypse setting that I enjoyed watching was ‘The Book of Eli’. Denzel Washington plays a nomadic warrior type trying to deliver a book to a safe location as part of protecting and preserving elements of the old world. Along the way he battles bandits and a local self styled tyrant called Carnegie played by Gary Oldman.  The cinematography is well suited with the desert landscapes and roads littered with ruined remnants of the prior civilisation frequently done in drained colours.  |
|
|
|
Post by sorcerer on Aug 12, 2019 21:33:15 GMT -5
Interesting... Roger Ebert rated it somewhat generously compared to most of the critics, and I've found he was almost always spot on in the kinds of movies I like. I'll see if I can find Eli. |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 13, 2019 8:28:38 GMT -5
Now Doomsday was one ride of a post apocalypse movie, a kind of free for all where everything went, zombies,  medieval style knights  and even a Mad Max style car chase scene at the end. Had no idea that Britain would be so much fun with the collapse of civilisation.  |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 15, 2019 17:13:19 GMT -5
This is a big subject, I mean I could go about retail suffering, the recent massive drop in shares and stocks. Some people would probably find all of this too depressive so I like to throw in a few lighter moments, talk about movies and other media dealing with the subject and so on. If this thread gets its plug pulled out I would understand that too. I am posting from the angle that civilisation is collapsing. I don’t think it would be any fun for the readership if I tried to be positive about modern civilisation surviving in its current form.
|
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 15, 2019 17:18:26 GMT -5
I talked a little about the decline of the American space program, and now I think I will post a little on why I think that the days of the Russian space program are numbered. Currently, the Russians are the only game in town sending manned missions to ISS via their Soyuz rockets.  After NASA mothballed their space shuttle back in 2011 the Russians have been charging tens of millions to ferry Astronauts from other countries into space. The facts are that the Russians are actually struggling to keep their Soyuz reliable. Last October, a Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut were forced to scrap their mission after a rocket bound for the International Space Station failed, sending them plunging back to Earth in an emergency landing, Russian investigators pointed to sensor damage and that it may have had an origin during the rocket’s assembly at the Kazakhstan cosmodrome. Some of the other rockets might also have the same problem. ‘Russian Soyuz rocket failure caused by damaged sensor: investigation’ www.reuters.com/article/us-space-launch-russia-investigation/russian-soyuz-rocket-failure-caused-by-damaged-sensor-investigation-idUSKCN1N64CS |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 15, 2019 17:24:55 GMT -5
The Soyuz spacecraft has been delivering crews to space for decades, but Russia is now struggling to keep its spaceflights safe. "The Russian space industry has a lot of troubles, like growing cost, economic and technological inefficiency, troubles with human capital, and so on. All that means that the factories sometimes lose the quality of manufacturing," Pavel Luzin, a Russian researcher and consultant whose fields of expertise include the Russian space program, told Space.com in an email. "[Recent] emergency cases with Soyuz manned spacecrafts affect the reputation of Russian space industry that already has been damaged in previous years, as [has] the international reputation of Russia as a trusted partner in outer space," Luzin added.’
www.space.com/42566-russians-struggle-to-keep-soyuz-reliable.htmlThe Russian industry is saying that they are stepping up their safety checks, but the question remains whether that will be enough to keep on running the program and if they will still be able to use the Soyuz to bring crews to the spacestation. Soyuz MS-10 abort  |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 15, 2019 17:27:08 GMT -5
Commercial crewed vehicles are another avenue. SpaceX holds a multibillion-dollar deal to fly NASA astronauts to and from the ISS using Crew Dragon and the company's, but On April 20, a Crew Dragon capsule exploded during a routine "static fire" test of the craft's emergency-escape thrusters at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-explosion-investigation-update.html |
|
|
|
Post by sorcerer on Aug 15, 2019 19:55:32 GMT -5
I don’t think it would be any fun for the readership if I tried to be positive about modern civilisation surviving in its current form.
It might be, if you could make a convincing case for its survival.
|
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 16, 2019 8:42:33 GMT -5
I don’t think it would be any fun for the readership if I tried to be positive about modern civilisation surviving in its current form.
It might be, if you could make a convincing case for its survival.
That's just the thing, I find it easier to argue the opposite. |
|
|
|
Post by kemp on Aug 21, 2019 7:55:07 GMT -5
Here is another monolith of the 20th century which is being savaged with the passage of time and will eventually become a casualty in the collapse of civilisation. I am talking about shopping malls. It’s part of what some are calling the retail apocalypse. Many are deciding to curb their spending habits due to financial woes, and other people preferring to shop online to get the best bargains. The end result will be: dead malls. www.businessinsider.com.au/the-american-retail-apocalypse-in-photos-2017-3?r=US&IR=TLook at these ready made zombie movie locations.    |
|
