Bad and good science in Avatar!

[Toruk Makto]

All that the people on earth will see is a tree falling. If the trend towards shallow sound-bite level interest on the part of the general public continues, they will not have the time or interest for the rest of the story about Na'vi. Destroying peoples' attention span is another insidious accomplishment of the media/entertainment complex.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

For all of the RDA's exploration on Pandora most people will know quite a lot about the Na'vi. A simple headline will work:

RDA CRUEL TO NA'VI ALIENS: IMPORTANT VILLAGE SUDDENLY DESTROYED

and then follows a 300 word news report. People's attention span can't be THAT short!

[ExLibrisMortis]

But the way people's minds work can. It's much like the same thing today. The main job of the mainstream media has long since been a medium and watchdog against the government. Now the press is more often than not controlled either by corporations pushing a certain agenda, or are actually in cahoots with those governments. And instead of being a watchdog like they should be, the media mostly runs smoke screen journalism over the people to keep their attention focused away from the real issues that happen. I bet most of you havn't heard about this internet blacklist bill thats trying to be rammed through congress that will essentially cause for the shut down of all websites that host copy righted content, aka youtube, deviant art, and even here. There are two pertinent quotes:

The media no longer ask those who know something ... to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it. -  Serge Daney

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking

Like I said prior  Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng, you are looking at the future situation and populace as if it was in direct parallels with how the populace operate today. But the honest truth it, in 150 years, things will change regarding how the minds of the people operate, and how they are made to think. I see a future that has become so controlled and so diluted with people who think they are knowledgeable, but in majority they are not. They are allowed to think they have their freedoms, they may have control over their governments, and they may have wealth, yet they really don't. As the ASG says, the Earth is overpopulated, overdeveloped, there is nuclear terrorism, eco-wars, ozone depletion, and extinction of animals. Even the water itself is rationed, and what little food there is, is pretty much all synthetic. This is a time where people are sick, barely surviving. There no longer is a middle class, that notion of a middle class has since dissolved. There only remains the working class and the upper class. Those is the lower class are kept sick, destitute, yet content with their menial forms of entertainment like their Xbox's, Playstations, or whatever the popular forms of entertainment are for that time.

For a people to want to see the RDA as a symbol of bad would first need to care, and at this point most of them shell themselves off from the world, make sure they can only just survive and have their simple enjoyments. Because for them, as the ASG says, the RDA has become the single largest corporation on the known space, and its a Quasi-Govermental Administrative Agency. The RDA itself has become the government.

Of course this doesn't mean that revolutions can't ever happen. Because history always shows that revolutions will always happen if the people become too oppressed, or if a certain ideology can come down the pipe that people will ultimately latch on to. Nevertheless, I don't see the governments being able to do much of anything regarding the RDA.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

^ Hit the nail on the head.

Probably the simplest way to describe the Avatar world would be as a corpo-fascistic oligarchy. The media and governments (including the UN), are actually little more than the left and right hands of the RDA and other corporations.

The idea of a revolt against the RDA is an interesting one. Good fanfic material...

[Clarke]

Like I said prior  Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng, you are looking at the future situation and populace as if it was in direct parallels with how the populace operate today. But the honest truth it, in 150 years, things will change regarding how the minds of the people operate, and how they are made to think. I see a future that has become so controlled and so diluted with people who think they are knowledgeable, but in majority they are not.

I see the opposite, because education is proportional to communication, and communication is proportional to technology. Moore's Law marches on.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

More outlets of communication, yes, but that's still more outlets of communication to be corrupted by corpostate propaganda.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Let me ask you this question: how much corpstate propaganda do you hear in the media? None! How much anti-corpstate propaganda do you hear in the media? Lots! Anti-nuclear power, anti-coal, anti-government, anti-military-action-in-Libya, anti-corporate. I think that the RDA will get really bashed in 2154 but maybe it won't collapse.

And I tell you the truth: corpstates cannot keep things from leaking. And news of cruelty to the Na'vi is still much more appealing to viewers than propanganda and Pandora ads. Think about this: why do people love to watch conspiracy theories and believe in them even if they don't have any evidence and are mostly untrue? What about a conspiracy that is confirmed and very true with lots of evidence? It will be the most hip fad! Think about how interested people were in Watergate...and that was just about a corrupt government. Cruelty to natives? That will make SOOOOO much money to the media companies that they'll decide that even if they dump the RDA and make the RDA "fire" (note the quotes) them they will still make much more money than broadcasting ads for the RDA.

And yes, there will be lots of ads for the RDA on RDA-owned stations. I tend to think of 2154 television as a conglomeration of programs owned by different big companies and organizations but they are not all pro-RDA. So very probably just after the "News on Pandora" program sponsored by RDA proclaiming good relations with the Na'vi, then the "Alien Watch" program sponsored by the Coalition for Well-Treatment of Alien Sapient Beings will start bashing the RDA really hard. It might be confusing, but I'd bet that the Alien Watch program will suck in more attention than News on Pandora.

[Clarke]

More outlets of communication, yes, but that's still more outlets of communication to be corrupted by corpostate propaganda.

You can't bribe the whole blogosphere.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

But you can slow down bandwidth to stifle access to those sites. That's why it's so important to pass net neutrality legislation. Without it, the telecom corporations can control the amount of bandwidth a site has, and obviously they would severely shut out seditious material.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

http://coralcdn.org

Global caching CDN. Automatically makes all sites equally fast. Use it like this: slowsite.com.nyud.net

And why do you think corps can control the bandwidth? If the server owner bought a 100MB line and only gets 512K, why don't they sue the telecom corp?

And it is not illegal to post seditious material unless it is top secret GOVERNMENT material, which probably has nothing to do with RDA.

Big conspiracies fall apart quickly. Think Watergate.

[Clarke]

http://coralcdn.org

Global caching CDN. Automatically makes all sites equally fast. Use it like this: slowsite.com.nyud.net

And why do you think corps can control the bandwidth? If the server owner bought a 100MB line and only gets 512K, why don't they sue the telecom corp?

And it is not illegal to post seditious material unless it is top secret GOVERNMENT material, which probably has nothing to do with RDA.

Big conspiracies fall apart quickly. Think Watergate.

Though there is such a thing as a trade secret.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Footage of home tree is registered as a trade secret? Maybe unobtanium mining eq. is trade secrets, but the footage, no.

[Clarke]

But you can't tell until it's been released, can you? 

[ExLibrisMortis]

You continue to assume that there would be an option for them to actually release the footage. Might I remind you the only way that Hell's gate can communicate with earth is through the super-luminal Transmitter that uses entanglement theory. With that theory, only a few electron interact with a specific amount of other electrons. RDA controls both those electrons, or at least the receiving end. You can not change the transmission destination with that kind of a communicator.

Even if they did manage to get it back, you still assume that one, they would be able to disseminate that kind of information, which in the real world, If a piece of footage is wanted to be suppressed by a government on the level of China, US, Israel, etc etc, it will be suppressed. If you don't believe this, and you point to films that came out regarding certain controversial things, well that's because they were busy suppressing the really important material. Secondly, you also assume that people would actually care. I point to books like 1984, where the populace is so controlled, and so locked down through indoctrination and so dependent on the government, aka the RDA, that any anti-RDA interest would be extremely hard pressed to actually rouse the people to do something against it, because public opinion would be highly Pro-RDA, and any anti-RDA agenda would be dismissed as quickly as the idea of someone meeting an extra-terrestrial/Big foot is.

[Clarke]

The RDA is not capable of doublethink. It's a corporation, not a party, and so various concepts must remain intact for the shareholders' benefit.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

You guys have a Bill of Rights. We don't. Yet when our government has some big enough problem, such as a high ranking official getting billions of bribe money or the govt destroying an ancient monument, even the state owned newspapers reprimand the govt.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Bill of Rights? What decade are you living in? The BoR went out the door on 9/11/01. Trust us, we're the Americans here. The Patriot Act was the knife in it's back (and then Mr. "Hope 'n Change" Obama goes and renews it *sigh*).

I think the RDA can be viewed a bit like the Party. Most of the 20 billion people make up the Proles, while the shareholders make up the inner-Party. Selfridge and other RDA management relegated to off-world tasks can be viewed as the outer-Party.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

You believe in 9/11 csprcy theories? That is just wrong! It has been disproven very thoroughly.

[Human No More]

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?

/facepalm

1. They do
2. So where do the raw materials come from? mining.
3. there are >12 billion people. That causes destruction
4. PLASTIC IS MADE FROM OIL. Derp.

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.

No, he was saying about how technology needs to be used in the right way, and to give inspiration about Earth.

Tsyal Makto, everyone knows about your political tourettes, saying 'RDA Is the government lol' is completely incorrect and goes against all canon. You are an amateur when it comes to politics, which is fine as the vast majority of people are, but you have pretensions of expertise, as well as complaining but never suggesting any practical alternative. RDA ARE NOT A GOVERNMENT. They are limited specifically by their contracts.

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!

Exactly.

I'm sure you've heard of the worker suicides at Apple factories in your country, haven't you?

Firstly, they were at Foxconn (not Apple - Foxconn is an OEM who manufacture a HUGE amount of electronics, including most apple products, various PCBs, most games consoles and all sorts of other things besides), the reason is because they pay their workers well enough that the payment for a death is more than someone can earn doing most other jobs in the country. Then again, you aren't the kind of person who cares about facts and goes on and on about some ridiculous anarchist pipedream.

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?  

Exactly. That's why old media is so worried, why they have started to stop people using their websites, why they are facing falling readership and interest. Old media is becoming irrelevant, much like large record labels.

Has any of you calculated the force on an average Na'vi body resulting from a 9,600,000,000 Tesla magnetic field?

Assuming a body temperature of 310K, (37 and a bit C) then every water molecule in the field is accelerated at 10²⁰m/s², in a basically random direction. Ouch.  

Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng I think the issue in difference between you  me and Tsyal is that me and Tsyal see, at least this is what I'm reading, see the RDA and other corps, like Matanza, -are- the governments of the world, and they only the the "real" governments exist because its good PR if it -seems- that they are at the will of those "real" governments. Especially when the Corps really do control everything.

The nuke-em-from-orbit solution is for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to... convince Congress (through whatever means ) to authorize the military to defend the US internally. If that goes through, then it's game over as far as RDA control is concerned. The JCoS can then implement pretty much anything, even dissolution of the RDA, since they'd be "defending the US". Though that option really depends on whether the combined US Military can be more persuasive than the RDA.

Also, for IRL cred, look up the News of the World hacking scandal. A journalist working for NotW was found hacking into peoples voicemails, and arrested in 2005. But then, someone re-opened the case, with the end result that the NotW ceased to be, and News International itself is now under heavy scrutiny, to the point where the two Murdochs (who own the majority share in News Corp., the owners of NI) were pulled up in front of Parliament.
A minor footnote is that Rupert Murdoch submitted a request to buy out the remainder of BSkyB, (he already owns about 45%) a large TV broadcaster. He pulled out the request in the middle of the scandal, but most people think he only did that so that the Government didn't have a chance to say "no".

Are you sure monopolies can't be toppled with the right words in the right place?  

Technically, they discontinued the paper in the face of public backlash as the phone cracking (as well as several other incidents) became well known. Governments didn't have anything to do with it past the inquiry. O the other hand, the scrutiny is it placing him under may well have a significant effect

However, that does rely on nobody releasing a tape of Hometree being destroyed.

That's the point. As long as they keep a  tight control on the information coming from pandora they can do whatever they damn well please

Let my point it out in a simple way for you then.

1. An ISV does 0.75c
2. Transmissions at lightspeed would be at 1c
3. The quantum entanglement has an extremely low bitrate, no warning would have been sent.
4. Data arrives ahead of the ISV, and can be picked up by numerous government and non-government entities.
5. The ISV arrives around 2 years later.

Remember that it is mentioned that before, the RDA was hugely unpopular when there was an advert showing mistreatment of the Na'vi, which then just turned out to be faked.

Do you know that most leakers work for the company that they are leaking info about? The very fact that they work for the RDA means that they will tell others about it.

It is extremely easy to release a tape of Hometree being destroyed. Jake can easily beam it to every government agency and army (the RDA cannot control ALL of them!) and all media outlets (the RDA cannot coerce EVERY one of them!) and perhaps Wikileaks. And that would be two years before the ISV arrives. Think about it...

Exactly. Thank you

http://coralcdn.org

Global caching CDN. Automatically makes all sites equally fast. Use it like this: slowsite.com.nyud.net

And why do you think corps can control the bandwidth? If the server owner bought a 100MB line and only gets 512K, why don't they sue the telecom corp?

And it is not illegal to post seditious material unless it is top secret GOVERNMENT material, which probably has nothing to do with RDA.

Big conspiracies fall apart quickly. Think Watergate.

Though there is such a thing as a trade secret.

...and clearly you have no idea what one is.

[archaic]

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?

4. PLASTIC IS MADE FROM OIL. Derp.

Some is. Some isn't. Some normally is, but can be made from other stuff.

Remember that it is mentioned that before, the RDA was hugely unpopular when there was an advert showing mistreatment of the Na'vi, which then just turned out to be faked.

When and where was that?