Ponytail Picks #12 - The Future
Few things stir up a more complex mix of emotions than the topic of the future. Is it bright? Is it scary? Find out where thoughts of it took us below.
LISTEN
A Nostalgic Trip of an Album About the Future
Our Lady Peace - Spiritual Machines
Remember Our Lady Peace? In late-’90s/early-‘00s Canada, this rock band was a musical figurehead in the same company as Matthew Good, Alanis Morrisette, Sloan, and the Tragically Hip. And then… they weren’t.
Spiritual Machines dropped in the middle of their heyday, but it didn’t make the same splash as the records that came before and after it: the diamond-status Clumsy and the hit-heavy Gravity. Despite the lower sales, as an Adbusters-reading teen, it was my favourite from the band.
Looking back at it now, Spiritual Machines turned out to be a pretty good example of a band taking itself a little too seriously. A sort of self-help version of OK Computer, O.L.P. paired their positive-thought-alt-rock with short monologues from futurist philosopher Ray Kurzweil (read by lead singer Raine Maida) describing a not-so-distant future where machines have reached a human level of self-awareness. The video for hit single “Life” inexplainably includes the kind of Japanese calligraphy you wouldn’t be surprised to see tattooed on Maida’s arm. I can see your eyes rolling through the screen.
The concept album’s message about the future is a little clunky and confusing, too. Are we to see recent tech advancements as manifestations of Orwell’s predictions in 1984 or are we supposed to empathize with Kurzweil and the AI character Molly he communicates with from 100 years down the line? It’s a lot for a rock band to answer. I guess that’s why they don’t.
Nevertheless, listening to Spiritual Machines in 2022—only seven years before R.K. suggests we’ll be legislating the rights of computers—presents an interesting window into past thoughts on the future. Despite the lack of environmental concerns, the focus on artificial intelligence actually turned out to be pretty accurate. The band’s ability to avoid devolving into the butt-rock of some of its peers (here’s looking at you, Nickelback) helps it all go down smoothly, no matter where you land on the subject matter.
-AK
PS:
The band’s brand-new sequel, Spiritual Machines II, is a weird listen if you haven’t paid attention to O.L.P. since the early aughts. Maida’s voice is barely recognizable, as is the band’s sound until Track 6. This time, they orginally released the record as a series of NFTs (groan), had TV On the Radio’s Dave Sitek produce (borrowing his group’s dancey rhythms), and had Kurzweil voice himself. Kurzweil takes a decidedly positive position on where our relationship with technology is headed rather than continuing with the ambiguous perspective shared on the record released in 2000. All in all, I responded to a first-listen of the new album with a bit of a shrug, but you can check it out below if you’re curious.
Enjoying this future-themed voyage so far?
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WATCH
4 Visions of the Future
Soylent Green (1973)
Food is key to any sustainable future for humanity—but at what cost? Will our greed and consumerism eat us alive from the inside? Don’t take your fresh produce for granted.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
In post-apocalyptic visions on screen we often see an earth turned upside-down: Shiny silver future tech is replaced with bleak deserts. We see both aesthetics in this gritty sci-fi action flick as our future enters into our present with a vengeance: “I’m back.”
Her (2013)
They say a human’s capacity for love is limitless—what about a computer’s? Our current internet age is stretched ever so slightly forward in this fascinating examination of the digital and analog constructs of relationships.
The Hunger Games Trilogy (2012-2015)
In a western world that feeds the rich, runs on reality TV, and even more on real violence, even the brutal titular games that pit starving kids against each other in fights to the death don’t feel that far off. Rebellion is inevitable, but will victory by violence change anything? Or will it simply set the stage for another version of dystopia?
-JB
READ
An Interesting Take on How We Might Go About Making the Future Bright
Robert Wright’s Substack newsletter Nonzero focuses on “averting the apocalypse.” Yes, that means he often discusses issues pertaining to the environment, but the newsletter doesn’t shy away from other existential threats—like bioweapons and nuclear war. (Do we really need to keep talking about nuclear war as a legitimate threat? Unfortunately, yes.)
“Averting the apocolpyse” makes the situation sound pretty dire, but Wright tends to focus on the “averting” part of the phrase—you know, the possible solutions.
This week, he shared the longform post below as a response to one of this week’s “Sunday Opinions” in the New York Times: “The Case for Longtermism.”
For those without an NYT subscription, Wright gives you all you need to know about the piece in his own, explaining what longtermism is and where it comes from before making the case for a different approach.
Basically, longtermism is what you think it is. It’s a frame of mind that looks at the existence of our species in terms of hundreds and thousands of years rather than the three generations we usually care about. The thought-pool has drawn some big, powerful names to its shores. It’s largely why Elon Musk wants to go to Mars.
Wright doesn’t exactly position himself to be in conflict with the idea of humanity’s long game. But he asks the proponents of longtermism a pointed question that ends up revealing a few cracks in the philosophy:
“Are you sure that our failure to think long term is the problem?”
He follows his question with an argument for improving our pursuit of short-term interests—those of the present generation and the two that follow it. It turns out to be a pretty profound point of view, one that offers practical steps forward for regular people rather than inspiration for the pipe-dreams of billionaires.
A good read for anyone feeling helpless in the face of our world’s biggest problems.
-AK
It’s time to hop off this space ship and move our minds back into the present. Join us at the table next time as we cook up a media tasting menu on the subject of
A nice mix of dystopia and hope in your selections about the future.
Having Dave Sitek on the boards piques my curiosity!