Which do you agree with most?
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@futurebird not that i think i’m super in touch with the youths or anything, but i feel like if anything a lot of younger folks are excited about the sort of (now-)retro-future aesthetics i (& those older than me) grew up alongside. it’s like that desire is still there, the powers that be have just decided that the future is beige, hostile, and lacking in identity.
@brhfl @futurebird Yeah, retro is really in right now in a lot of things. Like it's almost freaky to me as a millennial seeing the things that were normal aesthetics that were often products of limitations of the time suddenly popular now despite the lack of said limitations.
Case in point, Minecraft intentionally using extra blocky graphics complete with shockingly tiny textures. There was no physical limitation of the engine that made it require a 16x16 texture for each block. It's easy to replace them with high res textures even. The limitation is arbitrarily applied as if it was old.
I keep trying to remind people that the classics that were great were great despite their limitations, not because of them.
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Which do you agree with most?
A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.
From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades.B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people.
C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"
D. Other
@futurebird
Futuristic is now partially a mix of cyberpunk aesthetic and solarpunk, I think.Gleaming white structures with very sleek vehicles still works too though as a shorthand, and that goes back a while.
The cyberpunk aesthetic is actually also old enough to be retrofuturistic, and the whole point is it's grimy and street, but since we don't have visible implants everywhere and robotic critters roaming around it still holds as implying futuristic too.
Solarpunk is newer.
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@futurebird
Futuristic is now partially a mix of cyberpunk aesthetic and solarpunk, I think.Gleaming white structures with very sleek vehicles still works too though as a shorthand, and that goes back a while.
The cyberpunk aesthetic is actually also old enough to be retrofuturistic, and the whole point is it's grimy and street, but since we don't have visible implants everywhere and robotic critters roaming around it still holds as implying futuristic too.
Solarpunk is newer.
"retrofuturistic cyberpunk" is making me dizzy but boy does all that green scrolling text feel quaint as doilies doesn't it?
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@futurebird
Futuristic is now partially a mix of cyberpunk aesthetic and solarpunk, I think.Gleaming white structures with very sleek vehicles still works too though as a shorthand, and that goes back a while.
The cyberpunk aesthetic is actually also old enough to be retrofuturistic, and the whole point is it's grimy and street, but since we don't have visible implants everywhere and robotic critters roaming around it still holds as implying futuristic too.
Solarpunk is newer.
@faassen @futurebird The gleaming city with futuristic transport, visually, goes back at least as far as the film Metropolis (which was probably a simple extrapolation of what New York was doing at the time).
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Which do you agree with most?
A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.
From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades.B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people.
C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"
D. Other
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Which do you agree with most?
A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.
From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades.B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people.
C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"
D. Other
I have been thinking about our struggle imagining a positive future.
So I wrote a deliberately determinedly optimistic solarpunk poem recently:
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Other:
I think it is splintering.
Raygun Gothic
Retrofuture
Vaporwave
Used Future
all are different forms of 'Futuristic'.
Vaporwave was just another more rapid wave of retro. That's what I mean by "eating itself" The ouroboros is running out of rope. It will soon pop out of existence.
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"retrofuturistic cyberpunk" is making me dizzy but boy does all that green scrolling text feel quaint as doilies doesn't it?
@futurebird
cyberpunk has gone from an edgy and new to an almost conservative aesthetic that has to fit certain tropes even if they stopped making sense.Any future "jacking in" is gonna be wireless for instance. We are enough failures to become mainstream of second life/vr/metaverse along to know 3d cyberspace is unlikely. And we already live in a time of corporate networks and giant hacks and stuff but it's boring and disturbing not cool and exciting.
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@futurebird
cyberpunk has gone from an edgy and new to an almost conservative aesthetic that has to fit certain tropes even if they stopped making sense.Any future "jacking in" is gonna be wireless for instance. We are enough failures to become mainstream of second life/vr/metaverse along to know 3d cyberspace is unlikely. And we already live in a time of corporate networks and giant hacks and stuff but it's boring and disturbing not cool and exciting.
@faassen @futurebird If you haven't yet, you might enjoy this take, "What Was Cyberpunk? In Memoriam: 1980-2020”: https://forums.insertcredit.com/t/what-was-cyberpunk-in-memoriam-1980-2020/1721
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Which do you agree with most?
A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.
From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades.B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people.
C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"
D. Other
@futurebird you're alluding to what's called the slow cancellation of the future, i assume. skimming your replies i feel like people are taking a different idea of the death of the future than is presented there. of course there's ideas of the future: musk's whole brand is built on it, but what's changed is what the future means to people. when people imagine the future now they see a desperate fight to avoid extinction. the near future is us trying to hold on through the world collapsing
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Which do you agree with most?
A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.
From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades.B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people.
C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"
D. Other
If you think there is an active (optimistic projective) "futuristic aesthetic" that hits, I challenge you to show me the most "futuristic feeling" thing you can find.
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@futurebird you're alluding to what's called the slow cancellation of the future, i assume. skimming your replies i feel like people are taking a different idea of the death of the future than is presented there. of course there's ideas of the future: musk's whole brand is built on it, but what's changed is what the future means to people. when people imagine the future now they see a desperate fight to avoid extinction. the near future is us trying to hold on through the world collapsing
@futurebird the old dominant image of the future of an almost inevitable world of magical tech: flying cars, robots, luxury space communism, etc is replaced with a runaway train of capitalist industrial excess and ever more predetory repackaging of old innovations
the scifi future no longer feels inevitable and the fantasy of it has beel colonized by the likes of musk. we see it now used a a lure to ensnare hopeful people into worshiping fascists
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@futurebird the old dominant image of the future of an almost inevitable world of magical tech: flying cars, robots, luxury space communism, etc is replaced with a runaway train of capitalist industrial excess and ever more predetory repackaging of old innovations
the scifi future no longer feels inevitable and the fantasy of it has beel colonized by the likes of musk. we see it now used a a lure to ensnare hopeful people into worshiping fascists
@futurebird this isn't to say other more hopeful visions of the future don't exist, but those are now largely counter-cultural. we recognize our world in dystopian scifi of the past, not the hopeful futurism of star treck
this is the future that was stolen from us and wesee it ever day as the powerful impede and reverse any sensible path to progress, anything that could immediately improve the human condition
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@futurebird the old dominant image of the future of an almost inevitable world of magical tech: flying cars, robots, luxury space communism, etc is replaced with a runaway train of capitalist industrial excess and ever more predetory repackaging of old innovations
the scifi future no longer feels inevitable and the fantasy of it has beel colonized by the likes of musk. we see it now used a a lure to ensnare hopeful people into worshiping fascists
Inventing new futures is somehow hopelessly tied to commerce. Or it can seem that way.
When I think of an exciting future tech (nano-machine gum that repairs your cavities) I think about how it would need to cost at least as much as all the industry players in dental fillings make ... or it never gets to exist.
It's that cynicism that makes new tech just ominous, not exciting.
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@futurebird this isn't to say other more hopeful visions of the future don't exist, but those are now largely counter-cultural. we recognize our world in dystopian scifi of the past, not the hopeful futurism of star treck
this is the future that was stolen from us and wesee it ever day as the powerful impede and reverse any sensible path to progress, anything that could immediately improve the human condition
@futurebird i live in the UK and i remember having real hope for the future with the amazing popularity of jeremy corbyn and his solid progressive policies. they were generally a bit modest for my politics, but they were radical compared to what the mainsteam dared let us imagine up until then
we came so close to making him PM
but it was stolen from us as the entire establishment, including senior members of labour, sabotaged him at every turn until he was ousted and neoliberalism restored
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Which do you agree with most?
A. The concept of "Futuristic" is dying.
From the 1890s to the present the concept of a futuristic aesthetic has lost meaning, inverted in on itself and is nearing irrelevance in the past two decades.B. There is some truth to A, but this is also just a change in perspective that's a function of aging. A "futuristic aesthetic" still may make sense for young people.
C. There will always be a "futuristic aesthetic" what do you mean it's "dying?"
D. Other
I think people are constantly reimagining the future, based on changes in the present/past.
Which is why there is also "retro-futurism", where we're nostalgic for the way we used to imagine the future would be (e.g. "Tomorrowland", "Sky Captain", etc).
But the "futuristic" of my youth included brutalist architecture, hard geometric lines, etc. (The "cybertruck" is a product of this aesthetic, IMHO).
But now we have things like "solar punk", which is a very different futurism.
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If you think there is an active (optimistic projective) "futuristic aesthetic" that hits, I challenge you to show me the most "futuristic feeling" thing you can find.
@futurebird the "futurist" books I read as a child were mostly green energy, and home computers, including videoconferencing. There was a comparison between a peaceful green future, clear skies, wind and hydrogen... and a fossil fuels future, smokestacks, air pollution, suffering. This would've been published in the late 70s. I think it's still extremely relevant.
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@futurebird i live in the UK and i remember having real hope for the future with the amazing popularity of jeremy corbyn and his solid progressive policies. they were generally a bit modest for my politics, but they were radical compared to what the mainsteam dared let us imagine up until then
we came so close to making him PM
but it was stolen from us as the entire establishment, including senior members of labour, sabotaged him at every turn until he was ousted and neoliberalism restored
@futurebird we saw the same with bernie sanders in the 2020 primaries. the democrats pulled together everything they had to force all other factions of the party to back biden, whose performance had been so bad most of us had written him off as unelectable. they forced a defeat for bernie with a level of co-ordination and determination they never use against the GOP
in these times we watch our futures get taken from us by the powerful. we see our futures get cancelled
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If you think there is an active (optimistic projective) "futuristic aesthetic" that hits, I challenge you to show me the most "futuristic feeling" thing you can find.
@futurebird from Marge Piercy woman on the edge of time - the nice green sustainable alt-future where humans live in tree villages like ewoks but have enabling tech that keeps the food and water and pretty recyclable clothes running, definitely my jam
its been 20-some years since i read it so i could be misremembering
now i live in the decaying remnants of an abandoned convent on the edge of a forest... with wifi
so... maybe i've been unconsciously striving for this life
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@futurebird we saw the same with bernie sanders in the 2020 primaries. the democrats pulled together everything they had to force all other factions of the party to back biden, whose performance had been so bad most of us had written him off as unelectable. they forced a defeat for bernie with a level of co-ordination and determination they never use against the GOP
in these times we watch our futures get taken from us by the powerful. we see our futures get cancelled
@futurebird as i alluded to earlier those in power work hard to limit our imaginations of what's possible. we're always told better things aren't achievable, and yet when they want to chase the literally impossible (eg: to make trans people not exist, to achieve inifinite growth, to make musk seem likable) then they will stop at nothing to pursue it, no matter the cost
they will not let us imagine a future for ourselves, only the present status quo retold in neon and chrome
