Thursday, April 4, 2013

Snow Crash + Blade Runner

Snow Crash (and the movie Blade Runner) were both pretty interesting to me. I kind of have a thing for peoples perceptions of the future and the way they interpret it. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, is about Hiro Protagonist (ha ha), a Mafia run pizza delivery man. He escapes his reality by spending a lot of his time in the Metaverse. The  is a fully immersive, cyber-space, internet world. People from all over the world can come together and interact using their avatars. The book was riddled with sarcastic humor and puns, which was pretty funny to me.

Blade Runner is about, well, Blade Runners. Blade Runners are a bounty hunter sort of deal. They are sent to Earth to kill Replicants, humanoids that were created by scientists to perform tasks. They were basically created for space slave labor. They aren't allowed to exist on Earth, which is why the Blade Runners are sent in to kill them.

Both of the stories revolve around humans and human interaction. In todays day, we as a society have been quickly shifting into a completely digital world (have you been to LaGuardia Airport? They use Ipads instead of waiters). Snow Crash is a look into what our world could become. People use the metaverse for social interaction, but is it really as satisfying? Is it real? Blade Runner brings up non-humans acting with human emotion. Sometimes acting with more emotion than actual people. It brings up really interesting moral questions.

I think the reason I enjoy both of these stories is because none of us know what the future holds. Being able to kind of peer into it using fiction is exciting and interesting. I can't wait to see where the future takes us.

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