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Everytime someone mentions the 1776 report my mind immediately reads it as 17776 report and I desperately want to live in that timeline
still thinking bout that guy hiding in a cave nonchalantly eating nutrient bars for a hundred (or was it a thousand?) years just to win a game of football
on a more serious note, I think a lot about how 17776 and Story of Your Life (the novella that got adapted into the "Arrival" film) actually have left me with a very similar lesson/philosophical take away about the "meaning of life"
spoilers here on out (I hope people mute the word "spoilers" when they want to avoid them cause I'll throw that word in each tweet)
*spoilers*
In 17776 it presents a vision of the future in which people don't age, they don't die, it's post-scarcity, there's world peace, etc. and there's also no evidence of any other life in the universe. All they have is earth and each other and thousands of years....
In 17776 it presents a vision of the future in which people don't age, they don't die, it's post-scarcity, there's world peace, etc. and there's also no evidence of any other life in the universe. All they have is earth and each other and thousands of years....
*spoilers*
and in so much fiction a huge part of the story is about conflict, and a lot of ideas we have about meaning in life is about overcoming conflict or striving for something greater than ourselves, so the setting of 17776 makes that "meaning" meaningless
and in so much fiction a huge part of the story is about conflict, and a lot of ideas we have about meaning in life is about overcoming conflict or striving for something greater than ourselves, so the setting of 17776 makes that "meaning" meaningless
*spoilers*
but instead of falling into a fiction of a stagnant society without meaning, the story basically says that the act and experience of play is enough meaning in itself, as in "the meaning of life is to play football"
(I really love 17776)
but instead of falling into a fiction of a stagnant society without meaning, the story basically says that the act and experience of play is enough meaning in itself, as in "the meaning of life is to play football"
(I really love 17776)
*spoilers*
Story of Your Life was adapted into a film and most people know its plot, but I think the core lesson of the novella was completely lost in translation (which is fine, the film is also good, and a good adaptation).
Story of Your Life was adapted into a film and most people know its plot, but I think the core lesson of the novella was completely lost in translation (which is fine, the film is also good, and a good adaptation).
*spoilers*
Story of Your Life asks the question: if you could see the future and know *exactly* what will happen, all the good AND the bad, what is the meaning of life when there is no free will?
Story of Your Life asks the question: if you could see the future and know *exactly* what will happen, all the good AND the bad, what is the meaning of life when there is no free will?
*spoilers*
The story shows aliens who come to earth, teach humans this language that changes their consciousness so they can see the future, and then the aliens leave. (No terrorist attack that I recall, and definitely no "in 3000 years humans will save them!" plot device)
The story shows aliens who come to earth, teach humans this language that changes their consciousness so they can see the future, and then the aliens leave. (No terrorist attack that I recall, and definitely no "in 3000 years humans will save them!" plot device)
*spoilers*
The film presents the audience with an easy concrete reason the aliens would come to earth. But the book just says, "They came because that was what they were meant to do."
The film presents the audience with an easy concrete reason the aliens would come to earth. But the book just says, "They came because that was what they were meant to do."
*spoilers*
The book presents the idea that if you take away all free will and know the future, life is still worth living because the act, the performance, and the ritual is worthwhile in itself.
The book presents the idea that if you take away all free will and know the future, life is still worth living because the act, the performance, and the ritual is worthwhile in itself.
Anyway, both of these works kind of approach an edge of existential horror and then say, "no, no, it's all good, here's why". If you connect play with performance you can see how both kind of present a very wholesome alternative viewpoint.
