Weekend Reads (Apr 1): Cyberpunk, AI Romance, E3, Best Sports Movies
Weekend Reads (Apr 1): Cyberpunk, AI Romance, E3, Best Sports Movies
Recommended weekend reading material for April 1, 2023.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
The cyberpunk genre can easily be criticized as played out and stuck in the ‘80s. But Indian author Lavanya Lakshminarayan argues that cyberpunk is still alive and well, particularly in non-Western parts of the world.
Plausibly, at least so long as capitalism persists and history repeats itself, everyone eventually gets to the point where evil tech corporations are real entities, and when they’re paired with the occasional totalitarian government, things go very wrong. When transposed to fiction, the evil corporation and its methods of subjugation are shaped by the timeline of its arrival — how bad were things when it got there, and what was cutting edge then? — as well as the cultural ethos that a novel might be set in. Inevitably, it also impacts that culture, for better or for worse. Lauren Beukes’s Moxyland follows the lives of four characters in near-future Cape Town run by a totalitarian corporate-apartheid government. Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide, translated from the original Chinese by Ken Liu, explores an alternative class system on an island covered in trash, based on his experience visiting the city of Giuyu.
Speaking of cyberpunk, The Matrix was released 24 years ago this week. Seeing The Matrix in the theater while knowing nothing about it other than it starred Keanu Reeves remains one of the purest cinematic experiences I’ve ever had.
Recent concerns over AI include ChatGPT disrupting academia, AI-generated images that look too real, and deepfakes leading to fake news. Now you can add the trauma of losing your AI chatbot lover to the list.
Sex has been a driving force in every era of internet technology, but running a business that provides sexual services comes with a specific set of complications. As Replika became increasingly identified with its racier elements, Kuyda worried about its reputation, and the company began fielding complaints that it didn’t have sufficient safeguards against exposing minors to explicit material. Earlier this year the company installed content filters intended to keep its chatbot conversations from going beyond PG-13 levels. When users typed certain suggestive words, their previously effusive Replikas would shy away and respond with something along the lines of, “let’s talk about something else.”
This was gutting for many users. Some say the change made them feel like a loved one had died or was rejecting them. Angry customers on a Replika Reddit forum tried to rally their peers to cancel their subscriptions en masse.
Via NextDraft.
E3 has long been considered the largest and most important video game trade show, during which publishers would announce the latest and greatest games. But with the recent cancellation of E3 2023, there’s a very real chance that the trade show may be shutting down for good.
While it hadn’t been officially confirmed by the ESA or E3 organizer ReedPop before this report, many had started to question if the annual tradeshow was going to actually happen or not. This past Monday, March 27, Ubisoft confirmed it was no longer attending the show. Previous reports had suggested Sony was skipping E3 this year, too. And Microsoft had already confirmed it wasn’t going to be on the show floor. It was starting to seem like if the show did happen, it might be a bit of a ghost town.
As the article points out, E3 had been struggling before COVID, but the pandemic really did a number on it. In other words, why should game developers spend all any time and money to present their games when they can just tweet out a YouTube link?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shares his picks for the “best fiction sports movies ever made,” and some of his choices might surprise you.
[N]ot all sports movies are created equal. Most are between okay and good. They make us care, they make us feel, they make us cheer — and then they evaporate from memory. And I’m fine with that. Some provide a stirring history lesson about racism, misogyny, and corruption in sports. Important lessons, sure, but earnestness doesn’t necessarily translate into greatness.
The difference between a good and great sports [movie] is the difference between watching a cute and cuddly middle school basketball game and watching the seventh game in an NBA championship final. Yes, the school children are adorable and you can get emotionally involved in the outcome. But it’s not the same experience as watching the best players in the world elevate the sport to a whole new level that inspires and awes. “Great” inspires and awes.
He’s also shared part two, and I was happy to see Shaolin Soccer made his list. I watched Stephen Chow’s masterpiece back in February with my family, and it still totally held up (read my review).
Another week, another label profile from Bandcamp. This time around, it’s Norway’s Smalltown Supersound.
From ambient to jazz, disco to noise, and drone to dub, the Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound has released a deeply eclectic selection of music over the last 20 years. While technically starting back in 1993 with more of a rock-leaning sound and a DIY ethos — the label’s catalog numbers starting with STS was a nod to influential U.S. punk label SST — it wasn’t until the 2000s that the label truly came alive, moving toward putting out electronic and experimental music.
My friend Gina writes about Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — one of 2022’s most acclaimed novels — and how it approaches the topic of consent.
[A]longside this moving storyline runs a darker thread: Sadie’s ongoing relationship with Dov Mizrah, her one-time Advanced Games professor. Sadie’s deep admiration of Dov’s talent and intelligence develops into an infatuation that gets her pulled in over her head. And it highlights the problem with the idea of consent being the be-all and end-all of a sexual relationship, instead of the bare minimum we should require.
Related: Zevin was recently accused of not properly crediting game designer Brenda Romero, whose Holocaust-inspired game Train pretty closely matches a game described in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. (Read Romero’s original tweet thread.)
What, exactly, happens when you have a true aesthetic experience while looking at a work of art?
When you experience virtual reality, read poetry or fiction, see a film or listen to a piece of music, or move your body to dance, to name a few of the many arts, you are biologically changed.
There is a neurochemical exchange that can lead to what Aristotle called catharsis, or a release of emotion that leaves you feeling more connected to yourself and others afterward. Studies show how specific art forms release certain hormones and neurochemicals, which in turn affect physiology and behavior.
From the Blog
Earlier this week, The Declining Winter released their latest album, Really Early, Really Late. It’s their best release to date, a collection of lush, pastoral songs that are melancholy in all the right ways.
When I reviewed the album’s first single, I said the band’s music possessed an “elegant dreariness” that’s perfectly suited for the stark, tedious days between Christmas and the spring thaw. “Elegant dreariness” may sound like an oxymoron or back-handed compliment, but Richard Adams and his various collaborators really do find beauty in the doldrums through striking, even abstract natural imagery (“Song of the Moor Fire”) and the lush, slow-burning arrangements that characterize songs like “The Darkening Way,” “Project Row Houses,” and “This Heart Beats Black.”
Related: March’s playlist and podcast were all about the music of Richard Adams, the man behind The Declining Winter.
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