The Moviegoer's Guide to the Future

“Don’t panic.” — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galax y Chapter 14 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard If there’s one chapter of the book Films from the Future that I would hope people read and listen to, it’s this one. It’s short — this is the wrap-up chapter for the book. But it does capture the essence of why I believe thinking a...

“...okay to go...” ―Ellie Arroway Chapter 13 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: Contact An Awful Waste of Space | More than Science Alone | Occam’s Razor | What If We’re Not Alone This chapter in the book Films from the Future almost didn’t make it. Of all the chapters, this is the one my editors couldn’t see the...

“We were wrong.”—Vice President Becker Chapter 12 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: The Day After Tomorrow Our Changing Climate | Fragile States | A Planetary “Microbiome” | The Rise of the Anthropocene | Building Resiliency | Geoengineering the Future The 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow isn’t perhaps the ideal...

“If a plague exists, do you know how many governments would want it and what they’d do to get it?” —Sienna Brooks Chapter 11 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: Inferno Decoding Make-Believe | Weaponizing the Genome | Immoral Logic? | The Honest Broker | Dictating the Future I wrote chapter 11 of Films from the Fut...

“Why can’t you scientists leave things alone? What about my bit of washing, when there’s no washing to do?”—Mrs. Watson Chapter 10 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: The Man in the White SuitThere’s Plenty of Room At The Bottom | Mastering the Material World | Myopically Benevolent Science | never Underestimate th...

Chapter 9 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: TranscendenceVisions of the Future | Technological Convergence | Enter the Neo-Luddites | Techno-Terrorism | Exponential Extrapolation | Make-believe in the Age of the Singularity Transcendence is neither the greatest science fiction movie ever made, nor Jonny Depp’s fi...

“One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.” —Nathan Bateman Chapter 8 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: Ex MachinaPlato’s Cave | The Lure of Permissionless Inno...

Chapter 7 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: Ghost in the ShellThrough a Glass Darkly | Body Hacking | More that “Human”? | Plugged In, Hacked Out | Your Corporate Body Ghost in the Shell is quite a complex movie, and when I was writing Films from the Future I must confess that I struggled with it. But it provides...

Chapter 6 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: ElysiumThe Poor Shall Inherit The Earth | Bioprinting Our Future Bodies | The Disposable Workforce | Living in an Automated Future Elysium is a very earnest movie. Made at a time when there was a visceral global pushback against wealth inequity, it captures the frustrat...

Chapter 5 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: The movie LimitlessA Pill for Everything | The Seduction of Self Enhancement | Nootropics | If You Could, Would You? | Our Obsession With Intelligence It’s funny looking back and remembering that this was one of the toughest chapters to write when I was working on Films...

Chapter 4 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: The movie Minority ReportCriminal Intent | The “Science” of Predicting Bad Behavior | Criminal Brain Scans | Machine Learning-Based Precognition | Big Brother, Meet Big Data This episode of The Moviegoers Guide to the Future (based on chapter 4 of Films from the Future)...

Chapter 3 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: Sins of Futures Past | Cloning | Genuinely Human? | Too Valuable to Fail? This episode of The Moviegoers Guide to the Future (based on chapter 3 of Films from the Future) draws on the 2010 film Never Let Me Go. Based on the the 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, it’s not usu...

Chapter 2 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies , read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: When Dinosaurs Ruled the World | De-Extinction | Could We, Should We? | The Butterfly Effect | Visions of Power This episode of The Moviegoers Guide to the Future (based on chapter 2 of Films from the Future) riffs off the 1993 Stephen Spielberg movie Jurassic Park to e...

Chapter 1 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard In this episode: Beginnings | Welcome to the Future | The Power of Convergence |Socially Responsible Innovation |A Common Point of Focus This episode sets up the main themes in the book. It’s one of only two chapters that don’t explicitly riff of a sci-fi movie, although if course I had...