Implausipod: Recent Episodes
Dr Implausible
A look into the rise of ghost artists on Spotify, both AI generated and not, and what the history of Performer's Rights Organizations mean for art and creativity in the 21st century, and how that may make us question the very nature of creativity itself.
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Andor concludes! (and Rogue One awaits?) Join us as we wrap up the second and final season of Star Wars: Andor with the fifth in our five-part series looking at the show. We'll recap the final three episodes, released on May 13, 2025 (titled "Make It Stop", "Who Else Knows?" and "Jedha, Khyber, Erso") and provide our overall impression of the series as well. (If you're just joining us, our Andor recap began with Episode 44, available on Implausipod dot com, or selected discerning podcast hosts.
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Star Wars: Andor, part 4 of 5, looking at the three episodes released on May 6th, 2025, titled "Messenger", "Who Are You" and "Welcome to the Rebellion". Things are heating up as the new Media Reality of the Star Wars universe begins to unfold, with more dangerous actors and actions coming to the forefront as well.
Feel free to follow along with our previous coverage of Season 1 (which we recapped in Episode 44), and episodes 1 through 6 of Season 2 in Episodes 45 and 46.
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Part 3 of our 5 part look at Star Wars Andor, with week 2 of season 2 and the three episodes released on April 29, 2025 ("Ever Been to Ghorman", "I Have Friends Everywhere" and "What a Festive Evening"). We'll continue following the threads as they weave together, mirroring the first season in some ways and charting new territory in bringing the most cyberpunk Star Wars story seen to date. And if you want to catch up, feel free to catch the previous two episodes on the Implausipod dot com website.
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We return to Star Wars Andor over the next 4 weeks, starting with first three episodes released on April 22, 2025, titled "One Year Later", "Sagrona Teema" and "Harvest". Join us for a recap of the three episodes, and commentary on the themes we see within, and that have carried over from Season 1 (which we recapped in Episode 44).
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What can we learn about the Star Wars universe from the lives of its regular inhabitants? What is life like under an authoritarian Empire? How does the resistance form, and who is behind it? And how can a show that first aired in 2022 capture the current age in 2025? Join us for a recap of the first season of Andor as a refresher before the second one airs beginning on April 22, 2025.
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In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, some things come to and end. Join us as we look at the impact of the Appendix W on real world events through a look at one of the most iconic blades in fiction: Severian's Terminus Est from Gene Wolfe's 1980 novel The Shadow of the Torturer. But much like the blade, there is much, much more hidden below the surface of this episode.
Bibliography
Chris Hables Gray- “There Will Be War!”: Future War Fantasies and Militaristic Science Fiction in the 1980s. (n.d.). Retrieved September 3, 2023, from https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/64/gray.htm
Kaldor, M. (1981). The Baroque Arsenal. Hill & Wang Pub.
https://www.amc.com/blogs/george-lucas-reveals-how-star-wars-was-influenced-by-the-vietnam-war--1005548
https://fanexpohq.com/fanexpovancouver/costume-policy/
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/1Xpzeld6/the-imperium-is-driven-by-hate-warhammer-is-not/
Heather Cox Richardson interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDX0hxyYcJw
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What happens when a change is on the horizon, one that is approaching that will force you to move but is outside your control? When a community knows it will be disrupted, it may be facing an Incipient Diaspora. For the US denizens of the TikTok app, facing a ban in that country on January 19, 2025, we can observe how they reacted and prepared, and what lessons can be learned from the ongoing situation.
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Joy to the World, the 2024 Dr Who Christmas Special, gets a deep look in this episode of the Implausipod. This is the part two of our Dr Who double header. If you haven't already, check out our discussion of the 14th series, or 1st Disney series in the previous episode. Our cyber-series will continue in 2025.
Thanks to Dr Aiden Buckland for joining us once again. They can be reached at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com
Dr Implausible can be reached at drimplausible@implausipod.com
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We welcome a special guest back to the podcast to discuss the 14th series of the new Dr Who era, which aired in May and June of 2024, and highlighted the adventures of the 15th Doctor played by Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday.
This is the part one of a Dr Who double header, as we'll discuss the 2024 Christmas Special in the next episode. Our cyber-series will continue in 2025.
Thanks to Dr Aiden Buckland for joining us once again. They can be reached at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com
Dr Implausible can be reached at drimplausible@implausipod.com
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Twice is enough for it to be a tradition, right? Yeah, I think we'll go with that. Welcome to our second annual end-of-year holiday thank you episode, something to offset the Festivus celebrations you may be having on this day before the day before Christmas. Thanks for stopping by whenever you do. :)
The Newsletter and the archives are here: https://implausi.blog/newsletter/
Dr Implausible can be reached at drimplausible at implausipod dot com
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What do you think of when you heard the word California? What do you think it's "ideology" might be? If you work in or on high technology, that California ideology may be shaping the way that you work, the projects that you work on, and the business models that high technology pursues.
What does it all mean? The thinking that is driving the pursuit of certain developments in technology, such as robotics and artificial intelligence, and the rise of accelerationism need to be understood by looking at the underlying philosophies. Join us as we dig deep to find out what's going on.
Bibliography
Altman, S. (2024, September 23). The Intelligence Age. https://ia.samaltman.com/
Barbrook, R., & Cameron, A. (1995). The Californian Ideology. Mute, 1(3). http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/
Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society: A venture in social forecasting. Basic Books.
Daub, A. (2020). What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (1 edition). University Of Chicago Press.
Hu, T.-H. (2016). A Prehistory of the Cloud (Illustrated edition). The MIT Press.
Manovich, L. (1996). On Totalitarian Interactivity. https://www.manovich.net
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The New American Library.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1962). Capitalism, socialism and democracy (First Harper Torchbook ed). Harper & Row.
Tribe, M. (2001) "Introduction" in Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. MIT Press.
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Was the reveal of the Tesla Optimus 3 at the recent We Robot event a miss? How can you fail when unveiling a potentially groundbreaking technology? By using it to fake the appearance of a different tech, one that you're not even close to bringing to market.
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Is Joker 2 "anti-content", or is it just a challenging watch? Join us for a quick ICEBreaker to discuss our first impressions of the film, and some thoughts that have crossed my mind in the day since. Consider this a spoiler warning.
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Looking back in the year since the publication of our AI Reflections episode, we take a look at the state of the AI discourse at large, where recent controversies including those surrounding NaNoWriMo and whether AI counts as art, or can assist with science, bring the challenges of studying the new medium to the forefront.
Links and Referenced Episodes:
ALS.org story on Casey Harrell
NaNoWriMo Statement
AI Risk Database
Implausi.blog Positive AI Archive
Implausipod E0012 AI Reflections
Implausipod E0020 The Sphere Before and After
Implausipod E0025 Echanger
Implausipod E0028 Black Boxes and AI
Implausipod E0031 GPT Squared
Full Bibliography is included in the transcript
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What is Soylent Culture? Whether it is in the mass media, the new media, or the media consumed by the current crop of generative AI tools, it is culture that has been fed on itself. But of course, there's more. Have a listen to find out how Soylent Culture is driving the potential for "Model Collapse" with our AI tools, and what that might mean.
Bibliography
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The New American Library.
Shumailov, I., Shumaylov, Z., Zhao, Y., Gal, Y., Papernot, N., & Anderson, R. (2024). The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget (No. arXiv:2305.17493). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2305.17493
Shumailov, I., Shumaylov, Z., Zhao, Y., Papernot, N., Anderson, R., & Gal, Y. (2024). AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data. Nature, 631(8022), 755–759. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07566-y
Snoswell, A. J. (2024, August 19). What is ‘model collapse’? An expert explains the rumours about an impending AI doom. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/what-is-model-collapse-an-expert-explains-the-rumours-about-an-impending-ai-doom-236415
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel
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Whoops! Somehow the details of an Excession - an Unknown Unknown - got cut from Episode 36. Fans of Irony will be enjoying this, I'm sure. Kick back for another Icebreaker in this bonus episode, an addendum to Nescience and Excession, with an actual explanation of the thing that was in the title.
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Further detail looking at The Nostalgia Curve from Episode 35, and comparing it with the Fredric Jameson's "Nostalgia for the Present" (1989) to see what the established literature says about the topic. We go into Jameson's writing on science fiction and Philip K Dick's "Time Out of Joint" (1959), and take a deep look at the Rumsfeld Matrix in order to introduce the idea of Nescience: the intentional act of not engaging with a known-unknown.
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The box office for the summer of 2024 has been driven by titles relying heavily on the audiences nostalgia, with titles like Deadpool and Wolverine and Alien: Romulus leading the charge. But nostalgia as a driver for the movies isn't new, and we're seeing nostalgia across all areas of our society as well. So what's going on? What are the factors that places something along The Nostalgia Curve?
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What is behind the recent trend seeking a wistful return to a more idyllic age of the internet, real or imagined? We'll call this the Dial-up Pastorale. The trend became apparent in a number of papers and blog-posts that have popped over the last few months (or at least came to my attention). Let's find out what is going on.
(Parts of this episode appeared in the May issue of our newsletter. You can sign up for that here.
Bibliography:
Chayka, K. (2024, May 1). The Revenge of the Home Page. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-revenge-of-the-home-page
Farrell, M. and Berjon, R. (2024). We Need To Rewild The Internet. https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet
Habermas, J. (2022). Reflections and Hypotheses on a Further Structural Transformation of the Political Public Sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 145–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221112341
Habermas, J. (with Lawrence, F. G.). (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger, Trans.). MIT Press.
Star, S. L. (1999). The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), 377–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921955326
Varoufakis, Y. (2024). Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Melville House.
White, M. (2024, May 1). We can have a different web. Citation Needed. https://www.citationneeded.news/we-can-have-a-different-web/
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What happens if your community disappears? How do online groups deal with the challenges of maintaining their social ties across fickle and fleeting platforms? And are there lessons to be learned by the TikTok creators from the online MMO communities that were shut down in the early 2000s?
Bibliography:
Bartle, R. (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders Press.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press.
Koster, R. (2004). A theory of fun for game design. Paraglyph Press.
Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. MIT Press.
Sennett, R. (2012). Together: The rituals, pleasures and politics of cooperation. Yale University Press.
The Matrix Online Videos—Giant Bomb. (2012, July 12). https://web.archive.org/web/20120712062536/http://www.giantbomb.com/the-matrix-online/61-9124/videos/
There Is Another: The End Of Star Wars Galaxies - Part 01 - Giant Bomb. (2012, January 7). https://web.archive.org/web/20120107150559/http://www.giantbomb.com/there-is-another-the-end-of-star-wars-galaxies-part-01/17-5439/
von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing Innovation. The MIT Press.
Links:
City of Heroes: Homecoming
Implausipod Episode 16 - Spreadable Media
The Implausi.blog Newsletter
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How much of your experience online is dictated by the environment you're in, and how it was constructed? What is you rebuild Twitter, and it still ends up being toxic? Did you fail, or succeed without knowing it?
These are the kinds of questions that arise when we look at technology from a deterministic point of view: that technology is the driver of cultural and social change and growth. And while this ideology has its adherents, many of the assumptions about technology, and tech determinism are already Baked In to the way we deal with tech in the world.
Listen on as we explore what this is all about...
Sign up for the Newsletter here: https://implausi.blog/newsletter/
Bibliography:Chee, F. Y., Mukherjee, S., Chee, F. Y., & Mukherjee, S. (2023, November 10). Musk’s X has a fraction of rivals’ content moderators, EU says. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-x-has-fraction-rivals-content-moderators-eu-says-2023-11-10/
Drolsbach, C., & Pröllochs, N. (2023). Content Moderation on Social Media in the EU: Insights From the DSA Transparency Database (arXiv:2312.04431). arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/2312.04431
FediForum.org. (n.d.). FediForum | Happiness in the Fediverse. Retrieved May 26, 2024, from https://fediforum.org/2024-03/session/4-d/
Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies)—Penny Arcade. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2024, from https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboards-and-other-anomalies
Oldemburgo de Mello, V., Cheung, F., & Inzlicht, M. (2024). Twitter (X) use predicts substantial changes in well-being, polarization, sense of belonging, and outrage. Communications Psychology, 2(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00062-z
Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. MIT Press.
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Are the new GPTs - Generative Pre-trained Transformers - powering the current wave of AI tools actually the emergence of a new GPT - General Purpose Technology - that we will soon find embedded into every aspect of our lives? Earlier examples of GPTs include tech like steam power, electricity, radio, and computing, all tech that is foundational to our modern way of life. Will our AI tools soon join this pantheon as another long wave of technological progress begins?
Bibliography
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With the release of Dune part 2 in cinemas, we return to Appendix W with a look at Frank Herbert's original novel from 1965. Dune has had a massive influence on the Warhammer 40000 universe in many ways, especially when looking at the original release of the Rogue Trader game in 1987, in everything from the weapons and wargear, to space travel and technology, to the organization of the Imperium itself. Join us as we look at some of those connections.
Dr Implausible can be reached at DrImplausible at implausipod dot com
Look for Appendix W episodes of the podcast on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/@appendixw/channels or in the archives at https://www.implausipod.com/
The original Appendix W blog post can be found here: https://implausi.blog/2021/08/appendix-w-2/
Samuel Butler's novel can be found on Project Gutenberg here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1906/pg1906-images.html#chap23
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Why does it always come down to a Butlerian Jihad, a War on Robots, when we imagine a future for humanity. Why does nearly every science fiction series, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40K, Doctor Who, The Matrix, Terminator and Dune have a conflict with a machinic form of life?
With Dune 2 in theatres this weekend, we take a look at the underlying reasons for this conflict in our collective imagination in this weeks episode of the Implausipod.
Dr Implausible can be reached at DrImplausible at implausipod dot com
Samuel Butler's novel can be found on Project Gutenberg here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1906/pg1906-images.html#chap23
Bibliography:Bassala, G. (1988). The Evolution of Technology. Cambridge University Press.
Butler, S. (1999). Erewhon; Or, Over the Range. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1906
Dennett, D. (1995). Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Simon and Schuster.
Ford, M. (2016). The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment. Oneworld Publications.
Herbert, F. (1965). Dune. Ace Books.
Johnston, J. (2008). The Allure of Machinic Life. MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262515023/the-allure-of-machinic-life/
Petroski, H. (1992). The Evolution of Useful Things. Vintage Books.
Popova, M. (2022, September 15). Darwin Among the Machines: A Victorian Visionary’s Prophetic Admonition for Saving Ourselves from Enslavement by Artificial Intelligence. The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/09/15/samuel-butler-darwin-among-the-machines-erewhon/
Weitzman, M. L. (1998). Recombinant Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 113(2), 331–360. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355398555595
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How does your technology work? Do you have a deep understanding of the tech, or is it effectively a "black box"? And does this even matter? We do a deep dive into the history of the black box, how it's understood when it comes to science and technology, and what that means for AI-assisted science.
Dr Implausible can be reached at drimplausible at implausipod dot com
Bibliography:
Bijker, W., Hughes, T., & Pinch, T. (Eds.). (1987). The Social Construction of Technological Systems. The MIT Press.
Koskinen, I. (2023). We Have No Satisfactory Social Epistemology of AI-Based Science. Social Epistemology, 0(0), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2023.2286253
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory Life: The construction of scientific facts. Sage Publications.
Pierce, D. (2024, January 9). The Rabbit R1 is an AI-powered gadget that can use your apps for you. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/9/24030667/rabbit-r1-ai-action-model-price-release-date
rabbit—Keynote. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://www.rabbit.tech/keynote
Sutter, P. (2023, October 4). AI is already helping astronomers make incredible discoveries. Here’s how. Space.Com. https://www.space.com/astronomy-research-ai-future
Weitzman, M. L. (1998). Recombinant Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 113*(2), 331–360. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355398555595
Winner, L. (1993). Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology. Science Technology & Human Values, 18(3), 362–378.
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The parable of the Old Man and the River tells us it isn't now deep the water is, but how swift the water flows when it comes to looking at pop culture. There's magic in how crystal clear those swift waters flow. Join us for a review of the theories underpining the value of studying pop culture for academic analysis, what that means for the future of the Implausipod, and hints at who the old man might be.
Contact us at drimplausible at implausipod dot com
Bibliography:Benjamin, W. (2008). _The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media_. Hippo. https://www.abebooks.com/9780674024458/Work-Art-Age-Technological-Reproducibility-0674024451/plp
Bourdieu, P. (1999). _On Television_. The New Press.
Daub, A. (2020). _What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley_. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Flew, T., & Smith, R. (2018). _New Media: An Introduction, Third Canadian Edition_. Oxford University Press.
Griffin, E. (2003). _A First Look at Communication Theory_ (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill. https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/first-look-communication-theory-griffin-sparks/M9781264296101.html
Katz, E., Haas, H., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). On the Use of the Mass Media for Important Things. _American Sociological Review_, _38_(2), 164–181. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094393
McLuhan, M. (1964). _Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man_. The New American Library.
Williams, R. (1974). _Television: Technology and cultural form_. Fontana.
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Silicon Dreams are those glittering visions of mythic intensity that inspire the continued development of revolutionary technologies. Listen to this episode of the Implausipod to learn more about where they come from, and how the mythic imagination has been behind the development of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and other tech innovations.
Contact the show at drimplausible @ implausipod dot com
Bibliography:Bainbridge, W. S. (1983). The Space Flight Revolution: A Sociological Study.
Bainbridge, W. S. (2002). The Spaceflight Revolution Revisited. In Stephen Garber (Ed.), Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Forty Year of U.S. Human Spacelight Symposium. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. http://mysite.verizon.net/wsbainbridge/dl/spacerevisit.htm
Brunner, J. (1975). The Shockwave Rider. Harper and Row.
Frenkel, J. (Ed.). (2001). True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier. TOR.
Frye, N., & Lee, A. A. (2007). The great code: The Bible and literature. Penguin Canada.
Hafner, K., & Lyon, M. (1996). Where Wizards Stay up late: The Origins of the Internet. Simon and Schuster.
Mosco, V. (2005). The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (1 edition). The MIT Press.
Ray Bradbury (Director). (1973, September 16). The Veldt. http://archive.org/details/the-veldt
Rheingold, H. (1991). Virtual Reality. Summit Books.
Saul, J. R. (2005). On Equilibrium. Penguin Canada.
Stephenson, N. (1992). Snow Crash. Bantam Books.
Vinge, V. (1981). True Names. Bluebird.
Womack, J. (2004). Some Dark Holler (pp. 355–371). Ace Books.
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Echanger - a French verb meaning to trade, to replace, or to swap, is a metaprocess of translation, that covers three main factors contributing to technological unemployment - automation, virtualization, and agentrification, the replacement of workers with generative AI tools. Join us for our introduction and overview of the concept of echanger, in the third of our two part series inspired by the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Dr Implausible can be reached at drimplausible@implausipod.com
Bibliography:Autor, D., Chin, C., Salomons, A. M., & Seegmiller, B. (2022). New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018 (Working Paper 30389). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w30389
Hatzius, J. et al. (2023)The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth . (Briggs/Kodnani). Retrieved December 5, 2023,
Ford, M. (2016). The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment. Oneworld Publications.
Leontief, W. (1979). Is Technological Unemployment Inevitable? Challenge, 22(4), 48–50.
Susskind, D. (2020). A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond. Metropolitan Books.
They’re not human? AI-powered K-pop girl group Mave: eye global success. (2023, March 17). South China Morning Post.
Tupac Coachella hologram: Behind the technology - CBS News. (2012, November 9).
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In our final episode on the 2023 Dr Who specials, we take a look at the 2023 Christmas Special and the introduction of the 15th Doctor as played by Ncuti Gatwa. We'll take a quick take at some of the larger themes of the show, and how it connects with the past and the (possible) future(s) of Dr Who.
Dr Implausible can be reached at drimplausible@implausipod.com
Our guest Dr. Aiden Buckland can be reached at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com
Recommended Reading:
Cornell, P. (1995). The discontinuity guide. Doctor Who Books.
Booth, P. (2010). Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. Peter Lang.
Booth, P. (2012). Time on TV: Temporal Displacement and Mashup Television. P. Lang.
Booth, P., & Jones, C. O. (2020). Watching Doctor Who: Fan Reception and Evaluation. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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Not quite a full Festivus message, just a few quick tidings of joy and a message of gratitude here as 2023 draws to a close. All the best to you and your loved ones, and we'll chat again soon.
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Join us for the final of our three episodes on the 2023 Season of Specials for Dr Who, with the return of familiar nemesis (both within the show and to yours truly as well) and the introduction of the 15th Doctor through an unique turn of events. We're joined by our guest Dr. Aiden Buckland to discuss this momentous episode.
Dr. Buckland can be contacted at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com
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While I can't say I'm a sci-fi fan who hasn't scene Doctor Who any longer, my experience is still on the lower end of the scale, so we'll bring back our friend and guest Dr Aiden Buckland an academic and Dr Who fan to help guide us through some of the intricacies of the "Wild Blue Yonder", the second of the 2023 Dr Who Specials.
You can contact our guest at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com
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We continue with part two of our three part look at The Sphere in Las Vegas, this time with a review of the film on the "screen", Darren Aronofsky's "Postcard From Earth". We look closer at whether the film can be separated from the theatre, and if Postcard, and the experience at the Sphere approaches what Andre Bazin called "Total Cinema"> Join us for our first movie review on this episode of the Implausipod.
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In the first of episode of a two-parter, we visit The Sphere, in Las Vegas Nevada with a before and after personal reflection of my first encounter with the site, and how my expectations meshed with the reality of the experience. We ponder the site both inside and out, and whether The Sphere is the future of filmmaking, or if it is just a one-shot globe in the dark. Also: Robots! What's up with that. Join us and find out.
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Spreadable media is a theory of how media is distributed in online culture, but is the theory, originally proposed in 2013, still relevant in 2023 when everyone is trying to "go viral" online? We take a deep dive at the theory, and look at how at it's core it is really a question of value, and how competing ways of determining the value of a cultural good continually clash against one another.
Music for this episode provided by Calvin Becker, and one of his bands, the UnderLites. You can listen to them at www.theunderlites.com and you should check out his music at calvinbecker.com
(Implausi-note: had some technical issues with this one, which delayed it's release so it's probably showing up out of sequence. It's not perfect, but I feel it's close. Thanks for your patience.)
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What does a sci-fi fan who's never seen Doctor Who think of their first exposure to a full episode of the series? Can you even be a sci-fi fan if you haven't? Well, we're about to find out. Welcome our guest, an academic and Dr Who fan Dr Aiden Buckland who helps guide yours truly Dr Implausible through some of the details of "The Star Beast".
You can contact our guest at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com
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In episode 18 of the Implausipod we return to Appendix W with a little known but pivotal short story for both science fiction generally and Warhammer 40000 specifically, and the creation of the Warp, and the daemons that dwell within: Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon" from 1955.
Read along here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29614/29614-h/29614-h.htm
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If you had asked me on October 15th, 2023, how to self describe myself, I might say I was a techno optimist. But on October 16th, Mark Andreesen, the founder of Netscape, released the Techno-optimist manifesto, and I can no longer say that I'm a techno optimist.
In this episode we'll walk through the quick scan of the document, and the red flags that it raised while looking through it, and where some of the problems lay in the underlying assumptions of the manifesto.
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EEE, or Embrace Extend Extinguish has been making the rounds again in 2023 as a number of silicon valley tech companies have been coming under the spotlight for their business practices, and some striking similarities are showing to a strategy outlined by Microsoft in an internal memo back in the 1990s. Everything old in tech is new again.
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What happens when you're forcibly ejected from Virtual Reality? You may experience "dumpshock" - a bewildering disorientation from the rapid change in context, and you may experience something similar on the internet if you shift from an ad-saturated to an ad-free environment. Like a fish out of water, you have no anti-environment by which to understand your reality, and the discovering one can leave you flopping around.
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Tiktok has a noise problem, and it's indicative of a larger issue ongoing within social media, that of "context collapse". But even context collapse is expanding outside its original context and evidence of it can be seen in the rise of generative AI tools, music and media, and the rise of the "Everything App". Starting with a baseline in information theory and anthropology, we'll outline some of the implications of noise and context collapse in this episode of the Implausipod.
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AI provides a refection of humanity back at us, through a screen, darkly. But that glass can provide different visions, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. Are the generative tools that we call AI a tool for advancement and emancipation, or will they be used to further a dystopic control society? Several current news stories give us the opportunity to see the potential path before us leading down both these routes. Join us for a personal reflection on AI's role as an assistive technology on this episode of the Implausipod.
References:Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford University Press.
Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the Societies of Control. October, 59, 3–7.
Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating Inequality. Macmillan.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The New American Library.
Quan-Haase, A. (2015). Technology and Society: Social Networks, Power, and Inequality. Oxford University Press.
Russell, S. (2019). Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. Viking. Links:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/microsoft-ai-suggests-food-bank-as-a-cannot-miss-tourist-spot-in-canada/
https://tomglobal.org/about
https://www.makersmakingchange.com/s/
https://sfba.social/@brennansv/110911923848423204
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/health/ai-stroke-speech-neuroscience.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06443-4
https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/08/ai-powered-brain-implants-help-paralyzed-patients-communicate-faster-than-ever/
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/temporarily-abled/
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-removes-embarrassing-offensive-ai-assisted-travel-articles-2023-8
Welcome to the Implausipod. This episode covers a number of short segments, starting with some thoughts on the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike actions and what that means for Media Consumption (and commentary), as well as a dive into feedback and mail that the channel has received over the last year, addressing questions from the most important part of this show: the listeners.
What are "recursive publics" and "social imaginaries", how have they impacted the development of the modern internet, and what impact do they have on the state of the internet in 2023 with the implosion of Twitter, Reddit, and the rise of the Fediverse? Stay tuned as we take a 50000 foot view of the rise of the public sphere of geeks.
References:
Anderson, B. R. O. (1991 [2006]). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.
Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger, Trans.). MIT Press.
Kelty, C. (2005). Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics. Cultural Anthropology,_20(2), 185–214. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2005.20.2.185
Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Duke University Press.
Warner, M. (2002) "Publics and Counterpublics". Public Culture 14(1): 49-90.
Getting started with a brief rundown of an old article that details the rise of the Audience Commodity: Smythe (1977) "Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism"
we use that to explain the recent events of the internet of the last month or so, including the Twitter-pocalypse, the Reddit Meltdown, the rise of ChatGPT, and some general media theory too.
Other links and references:
Baran, P. A., & Sweezy, P. M. (1966). Monopoly Capital. Monthly Review Press.
Smythe, D. W. (1981). Dependency Road: Communications, Capitalism, Consciousness, and Canada (Revised ed. edition). Praeger.
Eastwood, J., Hongsdusit, G., & Keegan, J. (2023, June 23). How Your Attention Is Auctioned Off to Advertisers – The Markup. https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/23/how-your-attention-is-auctioned-off-to-advertisers
Keegan, J., & Eastwood, J. (2023, June 8). From “Heavy Purchasers” of Pregnancy Tests to the Depression-Prone: We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You – The Markup. https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchasers-of-pregnancy-tests-to-the-depression-prone-we-found-650000-ways-advertisers-label-you
Note: this episode was also loaded to our youtube channel
The Implausipod returns to cyberpunk with an look at the first two episodes of The Peripheral, the adaptation of the 2014 William Gibson novel that aired on Amazon Prime on October 21st, 2022. In this podcast episode, we take a look at the show about communication between two future dystopias, and provide some background behind the tech that appears on screen. Mild spoilers may exist for those who haven't seen the episodes, but hopefully this episode helps explain some of the more esoteric elements in the first two episodes as they aired.
In episode 6 of the Implausipod we'll continue our exploration of Appendix W with one of the more direct inspirations for the Warhammer 40000 universe and the iconic space marines or Adeptus Astartes, with the appearance of the OG Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers, with by Robert A. Heinlein in 1959!
In it we discuss the origins of the military sci-fi subgenre, the origins of some iconic 40K weaponry, and discuss which came first: Heinlein's Mobile Infantry or Marvel's Iron Man? Also, what are some of the differences between the book and the film? Hope you enjoy!
Living in our cyberpunk present, sometimes we need to break the ICE. This ICEbreaker is a quick hit on a current event or story from the last week, and how it links with the cyberpunk literature of the past. These episodes are outside of our main story arcs, more like a rapid-fire bonus episode. In this episode, we'll take a look at a "demon" in the internet, that keeps appearing in the various AI Art tools like Dall-E and Midjourney. Let's have a look at the "loab"
Links:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/09/07/meet-loab-the-ai-art-generated-demon-currently-haunting-the-internet/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5vjw3/why-does-this-horrifying-woman-keep-appearing-in-ai-generated-images
In episode 5 of the Implausipod we'll start our exploration of Appendix W, with a timely look at one of the inspirations for the space hulks within the Warhammer 40000 universe, and a surprise visit from a monster originally introduced in the pages of Rogue Trader: the enigmatic Enslavers! These both appeared in S01E08 of British sci-fi series Space:1999, and it ended up being an influence on other films like Alien (and Aliens) as well. Join us on a trip 47 years into the past to explore the source of some iconic science fiction tropes. Enjoy!
Welcome to episode 4 of the Implausipod, introducing the Appendix W. Originally introduced on our blog last year (find it here: https://implausi.blog/?cat=17 ), the Appendix W is a collection of the titles that defined the Warhammer 40000 universe and it early development, drawing on titles from science fiction, comics, movies, tv, anime, and heavy metal album covers.
Welcome to Episode 3 of the Implausipod. In this episode, we're taking a quick look at the subgenre of science fiction called cyberpunk. It's been mentioned a few times in the first few episodes, so I thought it warranted a closer look. So we'll draw a through line between Bladerunner and the Matrix, and from Neuromancer to the Diamond Age, and touching on the intervening points. As cyberpunk is a transmedia genre (existing in various versions in film, television, fiction, rpgs, video games, comic books, etc.), we'll cover some of the main tropes and conventions of the genre, and key titles. This isn't an exhaustive guide, but I hope it's enough to get your feet wet.
This episode will also help align our episode numbering with the remainder of Season 4 of Westworld, which will help us stay on topic. Well, help me at least.
Welcome to Episode 2 of the Implausipod! In this episode we'll look at the use of genre in Westworld, centred around Season 4 Episode 3 Annees Folles. The show has had an deep and ongoing relation with genre since it's beginning, and has grown since Season 2. Westworld asks us if genre is an aesthetic, which can be transposed upon the structure of the media that we participate with? We look at the larger genres that Westworld is situated in and tries to break out of, including cyberpunk, the western, and others, and look at how genre is employed in KW Jeter's novel Noir and in the TTRPG Shadowrun.
Welcome to the Implausipod! I'm your host Dr Implausible. In this episode, we offer a brief introduction, and then discuss some of the broader themes of arising out of Season 4, Episode 2 of HBO's "Westworld" series, originally airing on 2022-07-03. We offer a quick comparison with Jonathan Nolan's earlier work and cyberpunk science fiction, before looking at the some basic concepts of emergence that are appearing in, and may have had an influence on, the show.
Finally, in the interest of brevity and maintaining momentum, we'll lay out a quick guide to the future of this podcast. We're aiming for the first "arc" to run parallel to season 4 of the show, after which we will turn to some related materials that are linked to our larger project.
Thanks for joining us, we're glad to have you with us.