The Sci Fi Eye

המטאוורס!!!! צליל של חצוצרות, צליל של שטיח אדום נפתח....חלומו הגדול של צוקי והעולם בו כולנו אמורים לבלות את רוב זמננו בסופו של דבר, או האמנם?למה זה בכלל טוב המטאוורס הזה? ולמה אנחנו צריכים אותו? בחנו כל מיני מטאוורסים אוטופים ודיסטופיים (כאילו ספויילר אבל זה בעצם מסקרן - בסוף הם כולם מנסים להרוג אותנו) ואיך כל סיפור המטאוורס קשור לרצון האנושי בשליטה.כבונוס מיוחד, שלושתנו זכרנו להציג את עצמנו כמו המקצועיים שאנחנו.הערות וקרדיטים:יצירות שהזכרנו:Snow Crash / ניל סטיבנסון, 1992מסע בין כוכבים: הדור הבא / ג'ין רודנברי, 1987המופע של טרומן / פיטר וויר, 1998המטריקס / האחיות וואצ'ואסקי, 1999שחקן מספר אחד / ארנסט קליין, 2011העלאה (Upload) / גרג דניאלס, 2020תמונת נושא: Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/portrait-photo-of-skeleton-in-front-of-gray-background-with-white-and-black-vr-goggles-on-3764550/ שיר פתיחה  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prefab Messiahs, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

כל כך הרבה כותרות, כל כך מעט אנשים כותבים אותם! נדמה שבחודשים האחרונים אנחנו חווים תחילתה של מהפכה שתשנה את העולם, מהפכת התבונה המלאכותית שתגרום לפיטורין של כולנו וחיים במנהרות הביוב של קהיר, או חיי תענוגות וגלידה ללא קלוריות - לא ברור עדיין. אבל מה אנחנו יכולים ללמוד על עולמות שחיים עם בינה מלאכותית מהמדע הבדיוני? ולמה אסור לנו לצחוק מבדיחות של AI? כל זאת ועוד בפרק השני והמרגש של העונה השניה והמרגשת של ה sci-fi eye. כבונוס הפעם זכרנו להציג את עצמנו!*תקציר זה נכתב על ידי בנאדם

לפני הפוקימונים והחייזרים, גזע אחר לגמרי גילה שלב חדש לגמרי בהתפתחות שלו... אנחנו, בני האדם. המדע הבדיוני של עשרים השנים האחרונות מלמד שההתפתחות האנושית מילד לבוגר היא דבר מדכא מאוד, ממש דיסטופי. לפני כמה עשורים בכלל לא היה לנו גיל התבגרות, ונאלצנו להמציא אותו. המד"ב עזר. מה עוד אנחנו יכולים ללמוד מהמד"ב על התופעות החברתיות בעולם שלנו? האם ההתבגרות נהייתה מדכאת כי כל ההבטחות היפות שהבטיחו לנו על חתונה ומשפחה ועבודה התרסקו בשנים האחרונות?הקלטה חיה מפסטיבל אייקון למד"ב, פנטזיה ומשחקי תפקידים.קרדיטים:הנסיך הקטן - אנטואן דה סנט־אכזופרי, 1943קץ הילדות - ארתור סי קלארק, 1953המשחק של אנדר - אורסון סקוט קארד, 1985משחקי הרעב - סוזאן קולינס, 2008הרץ במבוך - ג'יימס דאשנר, 2009תולדות הלבנה - מאריסה מאייר, 2012-2015Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

If Death is the ultimate question, and science fiction the literature of answers, what can one tell us about the other?  If death is part of what makes us human, would immortality make us something else? Science fiction often comforts us with the former, warns us with the latter, but oddly enough, rarely steps outside this dichotomy.Death part 1: The Beginning! Next episode: Death - The After Life.Show Notes:Credits:Clifford D. Simak - City (1954, Gnome Press) J.R.R Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings (1968, Allen & Anwin)The Good Place (Created by Michael Schur for NBC, 2016-2020)Doctor Who (BBC, 1963–89 + 2005–pres.)Black Mirror (Channel 4, 2011-2019)Upload (Amazon Prime Video, 2020-pres.)Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

Where is our economy going?Corporations-based currencies, with all its cyberpunk implication? Print-it-all economy that has no scarcity any more, because 3D printers can replicate (ha ha) everything?Even with those two lines you can see how much a Sci Fi point of view can contribute to understanding the trends starting right now in our economy. So lets dive in!Show Notes:Credits: Becky Chambers -Record of a Spaceborn FewCory Doctorow- Down and Out in the Magic KingdomNeal Stephenson - The Diamond AgeWilliam Gibson - NeuromancerTheme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

It seems like conspiracy theories are even more wide spread and fiercely believed in then ever. How are they born, why do they thrive right now, do they ever die... and what surprising role does Sci Fi play throughout this life cycle?  Show Notes:* The QAnon mega-conspiracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon* Conspiracy theories as examples of fictional archetypes: https://theconversation.com/what-conspiracy-theories-have-in-common-with-fiction-and-why-it-makes-them-compelling-stories-128046* As of 2019, 6% of Americans believe the moon landing was staged, but the amount doubles with each generation, up to 11% for Millenials: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-07/c-span-space-exploration-07-10-2019_for_release.pdf#page=20Credits:* "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, popularized many common conspiracy tropes such as the Illuminati: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy* The Necronomicon, originally mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft's "The Hound" (1924), jumped from pure fiction to conspiracy fodder.* The X-Files (1993-2002) brought Area 51 and government cover-ups of alien abduction conspiracies into the prime-time and mainstream: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files* The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown brought Templar, Holy Grail and various Christian conspiracy theories to a mainstream audience.Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

In this episode we will examine the idea of being human as a spectrum and the "filter" of post humanism. With Special guest Dr. Carmel Vaisman, A lecturer at Tel Aviv University School for digital culture and a fellow podcaster. Show notes:Carmel Vaisman’s Podcast (Hebrew): The Post-Human Condition. https://absolutecarmel.com/posthuman/The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (1979) - Douglas Adams A Cyborg Manifesto (1985) - Donna Haraway. https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Haraway-Cyborg-Manifesto-2.pdfThe Uplift War (1985) - David BrinReligion Without Revelation (1958) -Julian HuxleyAre You a Transhuman? (1989) - FM-2030 (Fereidoun M. Esfandiary)How We Became Posthuman (1999) - N. Katherine HaylesThe Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2014) - Becky Chambers (of course)Farscape (1999-2003), Sci-Fi ChannelChildhood’s End (1953) - Arthur C. ClarkeTheme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

In this special (virtually) live episode, recorded in the annual Icon Festival, we discuss the upcoming 2020 US election through a sci-fi eye. We take a look at some of the hot topics characterizing these elections - polarization, mail-in ballots, lizard people, etc. -  and look through sci-fi to see if they could have - or did - predict that's going in.  We will also discuss current science fiction works, and see what they mean for the future of democracy!Hosts:  Naomi Karmi, Avner Shahar-Kashtan and Talya Vaish. Links:- Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica scandal- Octavia Butler’s Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to “Make America Great Again"Credits:- The Space Merchants (Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. 1953), and The Merchants' War (Frederik Pohl, 1984)- Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler, 1993)- Franchise (Isaac Asimov, 1955)- Infomocracy (Malka Older, 2016)- The Shockwave Rider (John Brunner, 1975)Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive

How come everybody always talk about the economic divide, and the many social divides - but most of us doesn't even realize how crucial is the digital divide?It became more evident during the Corona crisis around the world, when most e-learning programs simply assumed everybody had enough computers - and enough broadband! - to support both parents and kid's e-meeting and e-learning. But it won't end when an effective vaccine will save us all - the digital divide is one of the main problems that perpetuate the more visible divides.And we have a huge blind spot if even Sci Fi fans - the very people dealing with technology and science as part of their identity, their soul even - rarely know about it.Yes, it's yet another field that can benefit from a Sci Fi point of view!And this time, we're excited to have the Sci Fi Eye first guest speaker: All cheer for Elinor Carmi, a post-doc researching and writing about the digital divide for quite some time. Can we here a "Hoorah"?Hosts:  Naomi Karmi, Avner Shahar-Kashtan and Talya Vaish.Guest: Elinor Carmi, Post Doc at the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences.Links: Elinor Carmi: Media Distortions. 2020: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers."99 Percent Invisible" Podcat - Palaces for the People episode:  https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/palaces-for-the-people/"How K-Pop fans became a political force to be reconed with" / The Guardian. Credits:Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive"Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" - From Star Trek: The Next Generation / Gene Roddenberry, 1987-1994: Paramount Television. Neuromancer (William Gibson, 1984) The Shockwave Rider (John Brunner, 1975)

In Part 1 we looked at how people look for love today with that Sci-Fi Eye.Part 2 of The Search for Love is all about what sci-fi has to say about finding love and relationships - and what we can learn from it about ourselves. Why does falling in love with a robot isn’t sustainable?When does sex become sacred?And how can love be used as a ruling mechanism? Listen and find out.Show Notes:ReferencesHer (2013), by Spike Jonze, with Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johannson.Ex Machina (2014) by Alex Garland, with Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Domnhall Gleeson. Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World, (1931)Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)Aeluons, from Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series (first published 2014)Gor, from John Norman’s Gor series (first published 1966)Sound Bites"Swipe", Miracles of Modern Science -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PpBsRO7iWY"Blessed be The Fruit" - from The Handmaid's Tale TV series (2016), created by Bruce Miller - Hulu."May the odds be ever in your favour" - from The Hunger Games film (2012), by Gary Ross, based upon the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Sound of actress Elizabeth Banks.

Social distancing is making us all look at our relationships with fresh eyes. Love is one of the most trivial, and yet most important aspects of our life.And that is exactly why we love sci-fi.It's a way to deliberately think about things that are too commonplace to pay attention to.So we took our Sci-Fi Eye - the tendency to look differently at those facets of our lives, dissect it and examine it from a distance - and went to look for love. What did we find? Listen and find out.This is a Part One of a Two-Part Episode:In Part 1, we look at how people look for love today with that Sci-Fi Eye.In Part 2 - to be published soon - we will look at how science fiction examines the search for love, and what can we learn from it about ourselves.Show Notes: LinksTechcrunch 2019 dating survey: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/06/pew-30-of-u-s-adults-have-used-online-dating-12-found-a-committed-relationships-from-it/Technological and social co-production: Sheila Jasanoff -https://sheilajasanoff.org/research/co-production/ReferencesRobert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World, (1931)Ernst Klein, Ready Player One (2011), film by Steven Spielberg (2018) Neil Postman  - Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985)Idris Seabright - Short in the Chest (1954)  Sound Bites"Swipe", Miracles of Modern Science - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PpBsRO7iWYComputer Magic, SoundEffects Heaven - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SmDcLhKBLg"Money, Money, Money", ABBA - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxmCCsMoD0"Delicious", Candy CrushWile E. Coyote Falling, Cartoon Network - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRSHzenjiNA

What can we learn from Scifi about how NOT to handle pandemics, who's REALLY behind the Corona outbreak, and what's the connection to the the Flying Spaghetti Monster and OK Boomer?Listen and find out!Hosts: Avner Shahar Kashtan, Talya Vaish, Naomi KarmiLinks:piccadilly circus twit: https://twitter.com/hotdogsz/status/1241774524703612929Chinese Virus: https://time.com/5806657/donald-trump-coronavirus-war-china/Credits:Theme Song - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive“Brains” sound bite from The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Directed by Dan O'BannonRed Alerts sound bite and episode synopsis from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), Created by Gene RoddenberryThose Damn Hippies sound bite from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Directed by Quentine TarantinoArmageddon sound bite from Good Omen miniseries (2019), based on the book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.Twelve Monkeys (1995), directed by Terry Gilliam.Wade Watts, from Ready Player One (2011), by Ernst ClineHiro Protagonist from Snow Crash (1993), by Neal StephensonOK Boomer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3FYUw3w-I

In our pilot special, we start with an app that tells you it's improving your photo but actually creates a new photo that is almost - but not entirely - like the one you took. And we end up proving how Science Fiction acts as an immune system for our society, and why we can trust absolutely nothing. Well, nothing but Sci Fi. How did we get there? Time to listen and find out!Hosts: Naomi Karmi, Talya Vaish, Avner Shahar KashtanLinks: Enhance app: https://letsenhance.io/Deep Image Prior: https://dmitryulyanov.github.io/deep_image_priorCredit:Theme Song  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive"Almost, but not entirely, unlike tea" - from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams, Radio Series - 1978, BBC Radio World Service."I don't Know What's Real Anymore" - by Dreaming Of Ghosts, 2017."All The News That's Fit To Sing" - by David Rovics, 2014."Another Brick in the Wall - Part 2" - by Pink Floyd, 1979.Jessica Jones - Sound bite from season 1 intro - Netflix, 2015.

חזרנו מהפסקה! הידד!החלפנו שפה! את הפרק הראשון שלאחר ההפסקה הקדשנו לנושא שדי מטריד את שלושתינו בהיותנו חובבי טוויטר, אבל צריך לעניין את כולנו - כי מה קורה כשביליונר תמהוני משתלט על פלטפורמה שהפכה להיות ערוץ חדשות מרכזי וחשוב בעולם? ובכלל נשאל האם מאסק הוא הנבל או האנטי נבל בסיפור הזה, מה אנחנו יכולים ללמוד מהמד"ב על מה שקורה היום ומה זה לעזאזאל גייזר חייזרי?הערות וקרדיטים:יצירות שהזכרנו:עריצה היא הלבנה / רוברט היינליין,  1966.מדריך הטרמפיסט לגלקסיה / דאגלס אדמס, 1979.שיר פתיחה  - Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive By The Prehab Messia, under the CCbyNCSA licence, Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Prefab_Messiahs/Keep_Your_Stupid_Dreams_Alive