The optimism portrayed by scientists in the control of future has become more profound on the use of state of art technology in each and every aspect of our life. Much of this has been presented through the use of fictional films which portrays humankind as being under the control of the technology. However, the popular culture has a little regard to this kind of hype in most cases showing pessimism against the embracing of such unnatural society.
The optimism of scientists has been copied by movie industry where the characters are depicted as living in such an age of hi-tech society. In the science fiction movie “Terminator”, we are taken ahead of time to 2029 where robotic machines in form of humans will be in existence. However, in this case the so called super-human machine is capable of reading the human mind when taken back in time to execute some assassination missions. In this film, we are also made to think of a time when an artificial network of intelligence will have the capacity to set forth nuclear war against mankind.
Even though Hollywood is using the scientific idea to make money through entertainment, the resistance offered by the popular culture to believing in what scientist thinks of and even try to portray as possible is logical. This is informed by the fact that these kinds of films tend to instill despair as they portray a future generation that will be out of control. Presently, we have seen the great developments that technology has created to the human race. The evolution of atomic technology was a good thing though the same has been used to terminate the human race.
Concisely, the popular culture is not against the evolution of scientific technology. The concern comes when the same technology is continuously portrayed as a source of distress to the existence of humankind. This is so when man will be on a struggle to contain the rogue technology just as it has been portrayed in the “Terminator”.
Works cited
- Scipop. Science and Popular culture. 2010, Viewed on 16th July 2010 from http://scipop.net/
