Not sure what Marxism, etc., has to do with The Last Airbender.
The Last Airbender - M. Night's latest
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Jim Brennan
VHS Member Old Skool
This cultural/societal reliance on someone to PROVIDE employment is relatively new.
Why do we have to work for someone else that way? If you give them the power to grant you a job, you give them the authority to take it away.
Why do we have to work for someone else that way? If you give them the power to grant you a job, you give them the authority to take it away.
Nektonic
Veteran
The idea is this:
In the future we (well the wealthy) have robots that can make just about everything. What's the point in being competitive or smarter if in an hour you still can't build more of X than the robots can build of X? What if the human worker can build 10 of X, while the robot can build 1,000 of X, or some large ratio between human and robot productivity? Its more of a thought experiment. I'm not saying this WILL happen, but maybe that it COULD.
If we still operate on the model of: a person is not contributing to society if they don't have a job and aren't buying things and paying taxes, and we have automated manufacturing that can cut out a lot of the jobs that people are doing now, then what do those people do? How do they get money to buy food, shelter, transportation, health care, etc?
I'm all for more accessible education and for people sharpening their skills, but then again, look at things now... we've got more and more people educated and skilled in fields where there just aren't enough jobs. Also, world population continues to rise, and there is nothing indicating that it will not keep on rising into the future. Throw scarily efficient robotic workers into this equation and well... who knows?
We've definitely diverged from The Last Airbender here. Although, its an apt example for someone like M Night. The longer he continues to disappoint audiences, the faster he moves toward being considered obsolete by the film industry. Then again, Transformers made a killing at the box office, so maybe he'll be just fine with The Last Airbender?
In the future we (well the wealthy) have robots that can make just about everything. What's the point in being competitive or smarter if in an hour you still can't build more of X than the robots can build of X? What if the human worker can build 10 of X, while the robot can build 1,000 of X, or some large ratio between human and robot productivity? Its more of a thought experiment. I'm not saying this WILL happen, but maybe that it COULD.
If we still operate on the model of: a person is not contributing to society if they don't have a job and aren't buying things and paying taxes, and we have automated manufacturing that can cut out a lot of the jobs that people are doing now, then what do those people do? How do they get money to buy food, shelter, transportation, health care, etc?
I'm all for more accessible education and for people sharpening their skills, but then again, look at things now... we've got more and more people educated and skilled in fields where there just aren't enough jobs. Also, world population continues to rise, and there is nothing indicating that it will not keep on rising into the future. Throw scarily efficient robotic workers into this equation and well... who knows?
We've definitely diverged from The Last Airbender here. Although, its an apt example for someone like M Night. The longer he continues to disappoint audiences, the faster he moves toward being considered obsolete by the film industry. Then again, Transformers made a killing at the box office, so maybe he'll be just fine with The Last Airbender?
Nektonic
Veteran
True, but even a freelancer or an independent businessman can be fired by a client, at least on a particular job or project.
So in a sense we are all in the same boat in general terms.
Nektonic
Veteran
In Soviet Russia, air bends you!!!!
How about Andrei Tarkovsky's take on The Last Airbender? That'd be something to see. Talk about long drawn out takes. :shocked:
Richard J. Johnson
Joystick Member
Should this series even have been made into a feature film? There were just so many elements in the series in season 1 and Squeezing that into two hours would be a chore And right now I can't think of any director that could actually pull it off. Maybe Spielberg.
Batutta
Major Contributor
Not so sure. Robots will have a long way to go before they can fulfill even menial jobs as well as low wage humans can. If we ever develop artificial intelligence sophisticated enough for robots to act autonomously as well as humans, that artificial intelligence will also benefit the rest of society in profound ways. If we ever design an AI that is as smart as an average human, if Moore's law holds it won't be long before it's smarter, and then in a dramatically short period of time so much smarter that it could solve previously intractable problems for humanity. It's a common science fiction mistake to think technological progress happens in a vacuum, that one development will change everything without taking into account other developments that may balance out that change.
Richard J. Johnson
Joystick Member
If that ever happens no one on these boards will be around to see it.
unless I get bit by a vamipre bat that is.
Jim Brennan
VHS Member Old Skool
True, but there is a different mindset. You have to be more self-reliant and there is less of a sense of entitlement. You know that you have to keep re-earning the client's business. That makes you you (often, not always) more vigilant and pro-active.
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
I was thinking the same thing! Man!
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
Hahahaha!
Jawa Ex Machina
Veteran
Well the Airbender discussion got boring because everyone who's seen it agrees it sucks for the same reasons, and anyone who hasn't seen it probably isn't going to anyway.
Nektonic
Veteran
I agree, it will probably be late 21st Century, or into the 22nd Century.
True. And I don't equate slave/worker drone robots with sentient or semi-sentient (to a certain degree) AI.
I don't necessarily think that something as drastic as what I've posited will happen, not exactly as I stated. But at the same time, we only have so much to work with in terms of predicting possible future trends or events. That's probably why science fiction usually makes very broad stroke predictions that can come true (Jules Verne's voyage to the moon or William Gibson's cyberspace/cyberpunk), but miss a lot of the minute details that are only knowable to those living when these things happen in any way shape or form.
Nektonic
Veteran
That is definitely a factor. As for steady or salaried jobs, the higher paying the job, the more competitive the environment and the more vigilant and pro-active that employee needs to be to keep that job.
Jim Brennan
VHS Member Old Skool
Perhaps that is sometimes the case. However in both my work dealing with corporate america, as well as advocacy work in school systems, I have found that there is some truth to the idea that the more people screw up, the more likely they are to get promoted. They may not get to the top rung, but they get pretty high. :undecided
Nathyn
Low Budget Ninja
YES! You are 100% right and you know what, when I was a kid he was white also. I would be upset at the casting of Samuel L. But because the actual creators of the property chose to make him black in the comics they're basing the films off of (The Ultimates Line) I'm not upset. Michael Clark as Kingpin, didn't like that either.
Besides, while Avatar (the series) is obviously stems from and Asian sensibility and influence, the legend encompasses the entire planet. Could it not be that some of the characters are white....
Very simple. If a character is black in the comic, cartoon or book let them be black in the film, if they're white, Asian, Hispanic, let them be that. Now I won't get into casting Japanese for Chinese and all that, but some Asians are offended by that to. If I had the budget Hollywood has, I could NOT in good conscience simply cast white people for main characters of ethnic roles when I have access to so many. Is it so wrong to introduce America (as a whole) to new actors of various races in strong non-white roles. Is it wrong to create characters who are strong and non-white. Nothing against white people, but let's be real, aside from Storm and characters in the Matrix (two films) give me a list of black women doing action. It stops at Pam Grier. (Who I actually met a few weeks ago in person). And doing action in sci-fi is especially financially rewarding. It opens to the door to casting a white woman when a strong black female character appears. If we simply accept it, it will happen all the time and it's wrong.
No, but it's history Jim, it's history. Historically white people have taken any role that was a good one from a minority. Asians, historically were played by white people. This is why it's an offense to the Asian community who see these characters as Asian. Cartoons and comics a visual medium with more in common with film than novels. But we see the characters and create ideas about them based on their features and skin coloring. Also there a lack of ethnic roles in Sci-Fi, and a deep seeded racism in the sci-community so when people see great sci-fi based on ethnics and the next you know Joe Whiteman is in the role your mouth drops.
Yes, it's a spoof a white actor playing a minority. His role and Tom Cruise's suprise role made that film. The rest was sucktastic.
Actually "Judaism" is a religion, but Jews are indeed a race of people broken up over tribes. From my understanding the term "Jew" is actually derived from the Jewish kingdom of Judah. So you can indeed have non-religious Jews but you can also have people who are of any race but chose to worship as Jews. I've been researching this for my film. But you're part right. And there's even racism between dark and light skinned Jews if you can believe that.
The dark skinned Jews who were already in Israel when the European Jews came (because of the WWII situation) are sometimes targeted and many do not consider them to be Jews. But they occupied the Jewish land practiced the religion before the European Jews were placed there. It amazes me how people make up reasons to hate and mistreat others.
-Nate
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