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The robots are gonna kill us all, nooooo!
Sep. 27th, 2006 04:16 pmWhat is this, inflate Anne's ego day? I kind of wish it was for more substantial reasons.
Firstly, before Lit class, I ran into my professor on the way in, and she asked me what year I was, and when I said sophomore, she said "Oh, so you've probably already chosen a major, right?" She was totally gonna try to pitch an English major to me (for anyone that doesn't know, I'm a Biochemistry major that dabbles in literature classes because it's fun!) and I was amused. Everyone wants me, whatever shall I do!
Then during class, she posed the question to the class as a whole, "Does anyone know the term for a horrific vision of the future?" and I was like, um duh, and popped my hand up, and she kind of looked around before calling on me. "Dystopia," I said. Obviously, right? But no - a soft gasp (I kid you not!) travelled the classroom, and Nick looked at me and exclaimed softly, with a grin, "Nice one!" My neighbor Katie turned to me and said, "And you're a Bio major?"
I was a bit bemused! Did their high school English classes really never touch on dystopian and utopian literature? We never did that as a specific subject, but the terms most certainly came up. They're obvious to me, like "metaphor" or "thesis". I guess it's just times like these that I have to realize just HOW supremely lucky I was in my high school education. Believe me, I appreciate it more than I can possibly say, but sometimes... yeah. A bit shocking.
On another note, part of the discussion was about why man fears machines, and why so much literature portrays a dystopia where machines have subverted human individuality or turned on humanity in some way. We had just read a short story by E. M. Forster called "The Machine Stops" wherein humans had been reduced to living in these little cubicles and almost never actually encountering other people, because everything they needed was supplied by "The Machine" in that one room. They could - gasp! - talk to people on the other side of the globe, and actually see their face in a screen! Shocking! Hee. But anyway, I wanted to put in my two cents but never actually got to so I went up to the professor after and was like, I'm very into science fiction, and it's amazing how prevalent these themes are in the fictional works today - and I proceeded to briefly explain to her the background premises of The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica (which are, incidentally, quite similar, especially if you've seen the Animatrix, which I have). We still have this fear that somehow we will create an entity that will be superior to humans, rendering us obsolete, or, simply, dead. It's fascinating how that has survived so intact through nearly a hundred years of progress.
/geekery.
Firstly, before Lit class, I ran into my professor on the way in, and she asked me what year I was, and when I said sophomore, she said "Oh, so you've probably already chosen a major, right?" She was totally gonna try to pitch an English major to me (for anyone that doesn't know, I'm a Biochemistry major that dabbles in literature classes because it's fun!) and I was amused. Everyone wants me, whatever shall I do!
Then during class, she posed the question to the class as a whole, "Does anyone know the term for a horrific vision of the future?" and I was like, um duh, and popped my hand up, and she kind of looked around before calling on me. "Dystopia," I said. Obviously, right? But no - a soft gasp (I kid you not!) travelled the classroom, and Nick looked at me and exclaimed softly, with a grin, "Nice one!" My neighbor Katie turned to me and said, "And you're a Bio major?"
I was a bit bemused! Did their high school English classes really never touch on dystopian and utopian literature? We never did that as a specific subject, but the terms most certainly came up. They're obvious to me, like "metaphor" or "thesis". I guess it's just times like these that I have to realize just HOW supremely lucky I was in my high school education. Believe me, I appreciate it more than I can possibly say, but sometimes... yeah. A bit shocking.
On another note, part of the discussion was about why man fears machines, and why so much literature portrays a dystopia where machines have subverted human individuality or turned on humanity in some way. We had just read a short story by E. M. Forster called "The Machine Stops" wherein humans had been reduced to living in these little cubicles and almost never actually encountering other people, because everything they needed was supplied by "The Machine" in that one room. They could - gasp! - talk to people on the other side of the globe, and actually see their face in a screen! Shocking! Hee. But anyway, I wanted to put in my two cents but never actually got to so I went up to the professor after and was like, I'm very into science fiction, and it's amazing how prevalent these themes are in the fictional works today - and I proceeded to briefly explain to her the background premises of The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica (which are, incidentally, quite similar, especially if you've seen the Animatrix, which I have). We still have this fear that somehow we will create an entity that will be superior to humans, rendering us obsolete, or, simply, dead. It's fascinating how that has survived so intact through nearly a hundred years of progress.
/geekery.
