Synthetic Emergences

sus

Moderator
Just kidding

@mvuent very astutely pointed out that all the Nickelodeon characters are radiation freaks. Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or how all the Spongebob characters are living in BIkini Atoll and when it's bombed they turn into talking sponges and starfish. This stuff is obviously common in comic books.

There's also the radioactive-green slime thing Nickelodeon does

That's interesting actually because I think our understanding of radiation sickness was pretty underdeveloped in the 60s

I was reading about the Lucky Dragon No5, really amazing firsthand account written by one of the fishermen. That was the ship that was near Bikini Atoll. No one knew what was happening when their hair started falling out it was terrifying. Granted that was 1950s

The link between the BIkini Atoll nuclear tests, and the invention of the bikini, important I think? Good job whoever tagged the thread.

In the first Gidget film (1959) all the gals are wearing one-pieces, but by the mid-60s TV show, they're wearing two-pieces.

Also I have to log off and read this paper on Weapons Research Ethics before my German Foreign Office deep state sponsored class on strategy & intelligence/deception.

From that paper:

> Weapons research often entails testing on convenience groups of nonenemies outside of the context of war. Testing serves to gauge the effects of proposed weapons on intended and unintended human targets, to develop support operations, and even to protect those involved in weapons production and delivery. For example, in 1945 Manhattan Project scientists became concerned about the exposure of bomb production workers to plutonium. J. Robert Oppenheimer authorized a metabolic study of plutonium on unwitting hospital patients, which continued at least until 1979.

There is some link too I think between primordial regression/becoming a lizard & becoming exposed to radiation poisoning. They're not the same but they're linked.

The nuclear blast as the "pre-dawn chaos" (Thompson, Fear & Loathing). Red sky at dawn. Apocalyptic collapse of civilization, so that, in our twilight as a race, we discover our infancy as a race. Las Vegas as "animalistic," We are primitives of a future culture unknown. The poetshaman travels to strange places exposes himself to strange poisons and mutates, regresses to a Viconian prehistory, returns a freak.

(And Thompson describing his lawyer Dr Gonzo as "a high powered mutant never ever considered for mass production")
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
This is a bit of an odd thread premise, perhaps it'll be a serious dud, but I think it could be interesting if it works

That is, I think Dissensus is at its best when there are several swirling threads that relate to one another, that build off each other, that only make sense in light of what's come before. I don't mean to demand that things 'add up' and 'produce' something greater. But just observing that this happens naturally on its own, and it's my favorite part of the board.

So I want somewhere we can talk about the invisible connections between threads. The underlying assumptions or beliefs or fears or longings.

Aren't these organic rather than synthetic?
 
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wg-

hiatus
This is what happened with Porton Down over here


Not sure what the actual thread is about tbh

Weapons research often entails testing on convenience groups of nonenemies outside of the context of war. Testing serves to gauge the effects of proposed weapons on intended and unintended human targets, to develop support operations, and even to protect those involved in weapons production and delivery. For example, in 1945 Manhattan Project scientists became concerned about the exposure of bomb production workers to plutonium. J. Robert Oppenheimer authorized a metabolic study of plutonium on unwitting hospital patients, which continued at least until 1979.
 
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sus

Moderator
Sex As Suicide le petit morte the final explosion

Sex as Contamination by the Other Sex as Radiation Poisoning and Genetic Mutation
Oh oops I couldn't see the video link because I was browsing on a 2013 Chromebook and it just displayed the thumbnail image so I thought it was the nuclear sex docking scene from Strangelove. Bad memory tricks
 

sus

Moderator
Darwin in the Galapagos assembling his theory of Mutation. Which is itself a cultural mutation a new kind of thought. Which is itself an ancient form of thought, the world a mutating Bergsonia verb instead of a static Wyndhamian noun
 

sus

Moderator
The problem with dwarves is they're going the wrong way. Fool's gold is to gold as gold is to sun. It is a false idol to worship. You n eed to transcend/ascend to the heavens. Commune with the sky god. The dwarves keep digging digging digging burrowing. They get deeper and deeper til they burn up in the heat of the core, i.e. find the Balrog. I think Wagner's Rheingold is about this

You may be interested to know that just about every native language spoken in the Mesoamerican region, despite the fact that they belong to a number of totally unrelated language families, has a word for "gold" that literally means "shit of the Sun."
 

sus

Moderator
There are at least a dozen mimics of The Abyss that either get rushed out by b-movie studios to beat it, or get pumped out in its wake

But none of them have a psycho like Cameron to direct them, and insist that they actually shoot all the scenes underwater and spend millions developing custom underwater camera rigs and use real liquid oxygen perfleurocarbons (which led to UK censoring some scenes for animal abuse IIRC)


Characters with this power tend to be very versatile and difficult to predict, capable of easily catching opponents off guard and beating them at their own game.
Discard & Draw: They can only hold one power at a time; gaining a new power rewrites the old.
Super Trope to:

  • Cannibalism Superpower: The character copies powers by eating the enemy.
  • Ditto Fighter: A fighting game character that copies the opponent's moveset.
  • Power Parasite: The copied ability is actually stolen from the original user rather than duplicated.
  • Victor Gains Loser's Powers: The character gains the opponent's powers after defeating them.
 

Murphy

cat malogen
Is filming underwater a test to pass? Attenborough was doing it 50 years ago with fish

Donnie Darko nicked the water tentacles admittedly
 

sus

Moderator
Is filming underwater a test to pass? Attenborough was doing it 50 years ago with fish

Donnie Darko nicked the water tentacles admittedly
I thought this blogpost did a decent job explaining challenges, tho there's also a documentary of the making

...The actors would have to become trained and certified divers, performing their own stunts and dives... The production would be located at the Cherokee Nuclear Power Station... Cameron saw the giant concrete cylinder designed to hold a nuclear reactor, with unfinished walls several feet thick and eighty feet high. Almost instantly, he knew this would be his production’s shooting location...

...the demanding production required the development of state-of-the-art technology that didn’t exist before The Abyss, including functional submersibles, ROVs (remotely operated vehicles), and an air-filling station so divers wouldn’t have to return to the surface to replenish their supply. Cameron also needed helmets that supplied air yet clearly showed the actors’ faces. Western Space and Marine built a bespoke helmet designed by artist Ron Cobb, complete with a communication system for the divers and actors to record dialogue and receive direction from Cameron. The helmets also included a breathing apparatus built into the helmet, whereas most diving helmets featured a regulator that went in the wearer’s mouth. There were few props in the production. All the vital equipment had to be functional in case of an emergency, while also delivering the look Cameron wanted. At the time, production designer Les Dilley called the shoot “the most technically advanced piece of filmmaking ever.”

Every day featured similar challenges, leading to speculation among writers such as Ian Nathan that the entire production was an excuse for Cameron to test his aptitudes for science and engineering. But he had help. The director’s brother, Mike, a mechanical engineer, developed an apparatus called the SeaWasp that allowed the camera to move dynamically while underwater. Many of these developments would be used outside of The Abyss and movie industry. The production built a massive tarp to cover the tank to convey the blackness of the two-thousand-foot depth; it eventually ripped, requiring the production to shoot at night. Shooting in dark water, the production developed unique underwater lights that would capture the low light, which would go on to be used by NASA and other Hollywood productions. Few of these innovations mattered to Twentieth Century Fox, which approved the project with a budget of $40 million and a 140-day shooting schedule, neither of which would be met. Shooting expenses were upwards of $250,000 a day, prompting the studio’s head to visit. Cameron reacted to the suits with hostility, holding one executive over a diving platform and putting another in a diving helmet with no oxygen, demonstrating that his production was dangerous and their presence was an unwelcome distraction...

Harris, the actor who had the most perilous shots, came close to being a “goner” more than once. He wept one night after almost drowning during a 40-foot swim without oxygen equipment... Cameron insisted in subsequent interviews that his team took every safety precaution to keep the cast and crew alive, yet when they complained about the conditions, he was known to call people “wussies” or reply with quips like “I’m letting you breathe, what more do you want?”

The Abyss often shot for eighteen hours a day, at the end of which the director, who was spending the most time underwater, would have to hover ten feet under the surface for an hour to depressurize. To make use of the time, he installed a monitor in a control room so he could watch dailies while he waited...
 

sus

Moderator
Yeah even with both using of the idea of the alien mimicking earthly forms, Annihilation‘s playing with “refraction” where the The Thing devours and replicates. The former’s neutrality definitely plays with your sympathy more but may also be even more perverse, the way Portman’s double is left for dead just as it comes into being, totally blank and without any reason for existing. An uncanny rather than superficially grotesque abomination. Although of course the effects in the Carpenter are spectacularly entertaining if less cosmically imaginitive
dancing-with-myself-1664360393.jpg

" ... the fakesimilies are getting more and more convincing... "
BLISSBLOGGER

" ... it's difficult not to assess them purely on how much they can pass as old school, i'm not sure is that the point or not... "
SUFI

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