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