Forum - View topicThe Prescience of Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1532 Location: Nova Scotia, Canada |
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Glazing the Muskrat's neuralink scams doesn't bode well for the actual weekly reviews.
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Eilavel
Posts: 544 |
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Hmm, a fair enough survey of technological predictions but is that really the key feature?
The modern relevance of GitS stems far more from it's philosophical and political ideas: the nature of identity, surveillance, the military-industrial complex, the value and control of information. What it's really talking about has only grown more relevant as time has gone by. There's also a vibe element. GitS imagined future still feels modern, whereas Cyber City Oedo is fantastic but feels like the apex rendition of a certain kind of 90s retro future. It's often intriguing which works in speculative fiction age well- Hathways Flash doesn't feel 37 years old, for example. |
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meiam
Posts: 3697 |
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I wonder if there's any serious (or even somewhat serious) sci fi/near future story near that you couldn't make the same broad comparison. Most of them build on previous technology and extrapolate from the general trend of human progress. This naturally lead them to make good prediction, so long as you kinda squint.
But in the details, they often struggle, how many of them properly predicted that AI can make music/art easily, but really can't do relatively simple things like unclogging a toilet? That the internet would allow people to get access to almost all the information in the world, but that a significant (possibly majority?) of people will rather consume propaganda instead? That instead of working less hours per week over time due to greater productivity, most people end up taking longer retirement instead? |
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Doctorkev
 Posts: 95 Location: Scotland |
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That does sound like something fascinating worth discussing, though the pitch for this particular article was "How Prescient Was Ghost in the Shell (discuss tech featured in the series that has since become real)", so I focused on real-world tech rather than philosophy and politics. My background in more STEM and medicine-related fields helped inform the writing, it wouldn't be so useful for such social science-related topics! Someone else would probably be a better choice to write that sort of article. If you'd like to expand on your points mentioned above, I'd be really interested to hear what you think, though. |
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Eilavel
Posts: 544 |
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Hey, and thats fair enough! Sorry, I didn't mean to do down your article; it really is a solid survey of tech to tech progression, and it is interesting that GitS can be insightful in that vein at such a time distance; and the nature of its technological guesses and its philosophical leanings are obviously highly related too. Its also interesting to think about where its fed into the concept in real life. GitS is the real originator in public consciousness for Thermoptic Camo, for example. I'm fairly sure some big cheques have been signed in defence aiming to- if not consciously, then factually- create the GitS thermoptic camo; and outside of tech efforts its been repeated again and again in following sci-fi media. But I always feel like the most interesting sci-fi is using an imagined future to examine todays society. If we never invent a way for psychopathic brains to control our social system, this doesn't undermine Psycho-Pass for example. For Shirow the most central issue is probably the titular Ghost; a rejection of cartesian dualism, but at the same time having the "ghost" or central nature of individuality not generally be replicable and be an emergent property of complex systems, and then thinking about what that means in an era of information flow and cybernetic replacements. This then directly relates to the nature of humanity and the uniqueness of a ghost to humans with characters like the Pupper Master. Theres also issues such as the nature of bodily autonomy in an era of cyberisation; the nature of identity when your past/self is now digitally accessible and editable. The nature of and problems of mass surveillance, and how that could accelerate as we digitise further. Well, thats from memory and Shirows manga I've only read once so the "original" material is not really an area on which I should pose at such length as an expert! Perhaps another key to GitS longevity has been its willingness to reinvent itself. Oshii (films) somewhat and especially Kamiyama (SAC) were much more political than Shirow and brought in more philosophical ideas than Shirow (who is quite dense but perhaps has a less clear line than either I think) and kept the franchise really modern and relevant for a good 15 years or so; efforts since Solid State Society have sometimes been fun but generally less interesting thought wise, and now we appropriately return full circle. |
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Elowen
Posts: 1 |
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In what ways can contemporary sci-fi continue to influence technological development and public perception, similar to GitS?
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Hellsoldier
 Posts: 1176 Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol |
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I love the retroness of GitS, but it is one of the most forward thinking works of science fiction out there. One of my all time faves, side-by-side with more clearly outdated stuff like Bubblegum Crisis and Akira.
Also, whilst the Sprawl trilogy is the go-to reference in terms of Gibson's work, I'd also recommend the Bridge trilogy, itself quite visionary. Particularly Idoru. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 2034 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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One way the original manga wasn't prescient is seen in episode 2 of TGITS: hacking from public payphones.
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Multi-Facets
Posts: 397 |
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My best thought on that is "by giving engineers Ideas." It'll go from there. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5740 |
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Or it was just an oversight. |
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