From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 16 1999 - 07:46:20 MST
John Grigg wrote:
>I went to see "Pokemon, the first movie" with a date and her bestfriend's
>five year-old and found to my surprise that I enjoyed it. The film would
>make for good conversation between youngsters and their extropian parents
>considering some of the story concepts.
I saw it with my six & eight year old sons, and wasn't as impressed.
The genetically engineered creature is supposed to be a enhanced version
of an existing creature. These enhancements are assumed to make it mean
and selfish. It learns to make enhanced clones of other creatures, and
so naturally it plans to destroy the entire world except for its own
island with its creatures. When challenged by a few original creatures,
it wins until they somehow convince it that it isn't fair to use their
enhancements. Then they fight to a draw, at which point they conclude
that fighting is bad. And so naturally all the new creatures fly off
into the sunset, apparently going into another dimension or something.
So the morals of the story are that enhancements are bad and unfair,
enhancements are likely to make you mean and want to destroy the
unenhanced, and it would be intolerable to have a world where the
enhanced and original live in peace together.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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