Bad and good science in Avatar!

[Txantslusam Skxawng]

I got one question Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng, does the movie stay fun to watch when you know all these things and start to figure them out?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

It gets infinitely more fun to watch. Anyway, I just pretend that the Na'vi and Pandora are real, but AVATAR is a re-enactment of the real events some centuries later. Maybe the real ISV was just a fusion spacecraft that wasted centuries getting to Pandora.

Another thing is that it prevents me from becoming a Na'vi in and out  . It also prevents me from getting Avatar Depression Syndrome over realizing that the whole thing is JC's creation.

I love the language much better than I love the movie, which I like much better than all other movies, possibly except Inception.

[Clarke]

Another thing is that it prevents me from becoming a Na'vi in and out   . It also prevents me from getting Avatar Depression Syndrome over realizing that the whole thing is JC's creation

Odd, really. I'm good at the science as well, and hit PAD just as hard as other people here.  

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

The whole unrealistic thing about Avatar was the crappy Earth. I mean, look at all that chatter! Why not run fusion and antimatter power stations? No pollution at all! Greenhouse gases? Bye-bye. Even if you destroy all of the trees on Earth perfectly clean power will still produce a decent Earth. And why exploit natural resources? What do you need? Deuterium? Just pump it from the oceans. Oil? No, that is outdated by fusion power and antimatter. Wood? Why not use plastic?

I hate to say this, but JC seems to be a die-hard anti-technology-ist even if he used pretty advanced technology for the movie. He kinda believes that we need to be Na'vi-ish hunter-gatherers in order to be in harmony with nature.

By the way, is the Extended Collectors' Edition shots canon? If not we can make up our own Earth which can be a bit more realistically clean.

Given the control the RDA has over Earth, it's not that unrealistic. From what I could tell, they seemed like a sort of defacto world, and off-world, government. If they didn't see it fit to use resources to clean up Earth (with efforts going toward paying stockholders, off-world ventures, etc), then it seems plausable for the world to be in such s*** shape. The general populace is probably too propagandized into docility to fight back, too. People are too concerned with their own self-centeredness and consumerism to care. Even if power itself can be made carbon-neutral, pollution is still created in industrial manufactoring (plastics need oil ), soil is still depleted (one of the problems stated in the Survival Guide), and most of all, it still creates refuse. Think the Blade Runner universe...

The Survival Guide also states that resource wars were a major problem on Earth, even nuclear conflicts have occured apparentaly. That can't be good for the environment, either.

Actually, it seems rather reasonable that the economy would be rather similar in 140 years to what it is today, especially now that we live in a globalized world, the ultimate in streamlined commerce. Not to mention the role of the corporation. In fact, if the rise of global corporate power continues the same way it does today, we very well could have an RDA-like institution sometime in the future. We already do, if you count some mega-corps like Wal-Mart or Monsanto. And neither of them give a s*** about the environment.

And no, he's not anti-technology, he's pro-responsible technology that works in harmony with nature. He said it himself, but given the opinions of JC in this thread, I doubt that's worth much.

I think you guys are getting a bit too critical of the science of Avatar. Sure, the anti-matter and floating mountains might be a bit...hypothetical, but everything else is for the most part scientifically possible. The biology of Pandora, the Avatars (yes, they are plausable, given the way body-computer interfacing is going), etc. In fact, for the most part, Avatar was always considered scientific sci-fi. The way you guys characterize it, Avatar is as blatantly unscientific as Star Wars or Star Trek. I think it's a bit harsh to look at the mountains, and the ISV's fuel economy (two admittadly pseudo-scientific plot devices necessary to allow other scientific plot devices to exist), and automatically take away James Cameron's BotD on everything else.

On anti-matter, what about positronium? IIRC it would require less energy to create such an exotic atom (firing a laser into gold foil and capturing the electron/positron pairs as they are created). The Ps can then be stored at low temperatures in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the ships fuel tanks until needed.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Wrong. The big misconception many people have is that huge corporations can take over everything. No. The corporation is still a bunch of people running a business. They can't indoctrinate anybody with anything! And why are they so short-sighted? Cleaning up the environment certainly helps them gain the trust of the people!

The indoctrination thing I am also trying to convince myself as JC invented and not "real" in the AVTR universe. I truly believe that the RDA will get punishment when they go back to Earth (why doesn't Jake Sully send back a message? Messages travel faster than the ISV!) because if the people on Earth know what they did, well yeah. Bye-bye Parker Selfridge, have a good life in jail!

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Really now?

In the US corporations themselves (NOT the people they are composed of) are considered persons. The Supreme Court just last year ruled that corporate personhood allowed corporations to give as much money as they wanted to election candidates. Not surprisingly, the amount of money spent on the 2010 off-year election SKYROCKETED compared to previous elections, and not surprisingly, many of these "business friendly" candidates won. Guess what is happening now? All of these freshman Congressman are working to slowly disassemble the social safety net and turn it over to the marketplace.

And what do you mean that corporations don't have the power to indoctrinate people? MSNBC is owned by General Electric. FOX is owned by NewsCorp, and I'm sure you've seen the crap Rupert Murdoch is in right now.

There's an old saying here, that our government is the best government money can buy, and believe me, it is very true. Trust me on this, I am a political buff.

THE CORPORATION [1/23] What is a Corporation?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

But what does Parker Selfridge mean when he says "bad press"? "There's one thing shareholders hate more than bad press, and that is a bad quarterly statement. I didn't make up the rules." Additionally, he seems to be quite concerned when Selfridge goes to attack hometree. He's the business man. I don't think that the guys on Earth will like what Quaritch did. At least him will get court-martialled or whatever.

And did you not forget all of the independent news sources? People can't be so stupid. America is where people express their opinions freely, so I guess that the RDA haters around there (which must exist) will start going on the streets and nobody will ignore them. If Avatar 2 turns out to have everybody on Earth loving the RDA and hating Jake, I will gladly stop being a Na'vi.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Parker's not the CEO. He might be a higher-up, but he's not the one in charge. I doubt that the fall of Hometree would have that widespread of effects on Earth. Look at the BP oil spill. Sure, it caused a dip in the company in the short term, but they're back on top now. Plus, I think they'd for the most part get away with it. Do you know what the military-industrial complex is?

Independent media has always been just a speck compared to the power of mainstream media, most likely even moreso in the future. Again, look at the Blade Runner universe. Or another good example, which probably fits future Earth quite well is "Farenheit 451." Keep the people focused on hedonic pleasures and consumption, and keep their minds off the real issues. An underground resistance does indeed exist on Earth, but it doesn't have the power to go up against the RDA. Though it would be interesting to see how the resistance reacts to the goings on on Pandora. Maybe this will give them the advantage they need to strike a blow at the RDA?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Yes. At least the sec-ops will get a big blow since if they don't want to blame the RDA then they will blame the Sec-Ops. The blade runner universe and fahrenheit 451 are unrealistic. And the RDA will be reprimanded by the UN, won't you think? If the "mainstream" media can't convincingly put the blame on the Na'vi, then the people will listen to the dissenters.

By the way, there are more and more people against corporations in America as corporations go big. Don't always think about the big corporations - think about the huge crowds of people who are against them, like you! Many corporation haters like to think that they are the unique people who know the truth, but in fact hating corporations has already become a part of popular belief, much like suspecting the government. I'm sure that they are more people nit-picking the RDA than the hordes nit-picking Walmart here.

The fall of Hometree will have widespread effects. A big company like RDA tends to attract a lot of nit-picking and attention. They probably received reprimanding for using Na'vi DNA to produce Avatars, bringing troops to Pandora, exploiting the Na'vi resources, whatever. The fall of Hometree will only make it worse.

As I said before, Jake Sully can send a message to the news services at light speed. They can broadcast it without even the RDA knowing. The RDA guys will return home 2 years after everybody knows the truth.

Or maybe Jake Sully can beam back a copy of the Avatar BluRay...

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Indeed, it seems more and more people are waking up. Hopefully we can avoid a future like that of Avatar.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

However I think that companies have more than their fair share of nitpicking and prejudice. Not to say that there are not evil corporations, but things like Walmart etc always get really bad criticism for small errors simply because they are so famous that they get nit-picks. Poor companies...

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

A profit motive gone mad can do horrible things. My country has been gutted by unchecked corporate power. All the best jobs have been outsourced to places with sweatshop conditions. I'm sure you've heard of the worker suicides at Apple factories in your country, haven't you?

In other words, multinational corporations are not one group I'm quite willing to give the benefit of the doubt to.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Good media in place can be sìltsan nitxan. Why did you hear of the worker suicides? News, no? Those kind of things can bring things like the RDA down quick.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The Capability of bringing the RDA down would be a far fetched ideal that would take nothing less that a revolution on the scale of such going on in the middle east. In this universe, the Avatar universe, the governments of the world are partially if not the majority controlled by these quai-governmental corporations. These same corporations that I suspect play the PR game just like many gov't nowadays do, not because they have to, but simply because they choose too. The fall of hometree and other things will probably not cause the RDA to immediately fall or come crumbling down, it may take a chink out of their credibility, but I doubt too much will happen to them because of this. Remember, the RDA is the sole provider of the single material that allows what little energy producing resources that are available on Earth to actually be used in some sort of practical manner.

[Clarke]

Independent media has always been just a speck compared to the power of mainstream media, most likely even moreso in the future

The opposite is more likely, IMO. After all, when amateur news is cheap, why pay for it?  

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Just make the government buy up RDA and fire Selfridge & Co. It is very easy to accomplish and will make the government look really good.

[Clarke]

Just make the government buy up RDA and fire Selfridge & Co. It is very easy to accomplish and will make the government look really good.

I'd say that the RDA's monopoly constitutes a national security risk, and so the corporation should be socialized for the good of the country.... 

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Keep dreaming. I'm sure politicians in 2154 are just like politicians in 2011 - bought and paid for. That'll never happen, the politicians have deep pockets to fill and votes to sell. They'd never let a cash cow like that go.

te Skxawng: Indeed, a strong media is vital, now it's just a matter of prying them out of bed with business interests. Hopefully the fall of Rupert Murdoch is just the beginning of this.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Also, the situation of power is much different in 2154. Governments are only allowed to have their "power" over the corporation because the corporations say so. And the reason they'd say so is because its good PR if it doesn't seem like the corps control everything, which they really do. If the government tried to socialize the corps, well i'm pretty damn sure the corps could and would have a much larger capability to defend themselves from a governmental attack, if the government ever -really- had the balls to actually attack said corps.

The time of Avatar looks, to me at least, a time where the planet and the solar system is ruled ultimately by the dollar, and the biggest importer of that dollar (money makers). Man, is beyond the point of pollution on Earth, that's there and in abundance. Man is to the point where resources are so thin and few in quantity, that man has had to already reach to the surrounding planets of its solar system, and now to neighboring solar systems. The advantage of Unobtanium is that it takes what little energy producing resources that are available, and increases their efficiency to the umpteenth degree, thus making what resources remain actually viable. Whether they be coal, fossil fuels, nuclear, or whatever. So the RDA, their role being they are the only company that not only has the capital, but the resources to actually obtain this unobtanium, begins to take the role of the Dark Savior. Whereas the RDA is in essence, a saving grace for humanity as they are providing a medium in which man can more easily and readily survive, that means being the most cost effective at that moment. So whatever atrocities they may commit can and most of the time will get looked over by the majority of the population either through effective PR campaigns, or by the simple fact that humans now look at the simple Catch-22 that if the RDA stops bringing unobtanium, they are screwed. So, in essence, it turns into a matter of survival.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

It's not really a matter of survival, more just profit. It's been stated in the Survival Guide that animals (and presumably plants) are being cloned out of extinction. Not to mention how Pandora plants can be brought back to Earth to rebuild the ecosystem (one plant, specifically, had the ability to purify topsoil).

Only problem here is that to the status quo, plants and animals aren't worth $20 million/Kg. Just like it's more profitable to keep a drug addict hooked than to clean them up for good.