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157 lines
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157 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
## [deleted by user]
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* Author: u/None *
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* URL:
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* Score: 27
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* Created: 2016-12-18T23:16:34
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### Post:
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[removed]
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### Comments:
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> **u/xamueljones** [+28] *My arch-enemy is entropy* (an hour later)
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>
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> If you want to encourage people from here to watch the movie, you probably should have mentioned that it was a film adaptation of the short story, *Story of Your Life*, by Ted Chiang.
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>> **u/throwaway234f32423df** [+5] (a day later)
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>>
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>> Having already read the story (and not realizing the movie was an adaptation of the story until it started and seemed very familiar), I actually found it a bit disappointing knowing what was going to happen. [ ](#s "But I guess that's appropriate considering the theme of the story.")
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>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+7] *Cheela Astronaut* (a day later)
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>>>
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>>> Agreed. Apparently [people who see the movie without reading the story first](#s "think the scenes with the little girl are a flash*back* rather than a flash*forward*, which provides a nice twist on the 'woman scientist can't science because she has a traumatic past' trope")
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> **u/None** [+9] (20 minutes later)
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>
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> I recommend seeing the Arrival too - it's a solid movie - although it does dumb down the story a bit.
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>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+13] *Cheela Astronaut* (an hour later)
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>>
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>> I think it completely misses some of the most important themes of the story by changing one relatively small element! [Particularly,](#s " in the short story, the daughter dies in a rock climbing accident (preventable) whereas in the movie she dies of some sort of disease (not preventable). Added to that the knowledge of the general's phone number being propagated back in time, it kind of kills what I thought was the main theme, which was that the protagonist knowing the future required the loss of free will.")
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>>> **u/None** [+10] (10 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> [deleted]
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>>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+5] *Cheela Astronaut* (11 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> I agree, the adaption was really good, considering! I agree on your point about what they did with Renner's character, and excluding the science lesson. Some cool hollywood visuals would have really made it awesome!
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>>> **u/None** [+6] (12 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> [I don't know about that first point](#s " I saw the movie before I ever read the short story, so I didn't know the original point of it was that the death was supposed to be preventable, but I still took away that basic point. They *could* have simply not had the daughter to begin with, and they wouldn't have had to deal with the grief of losing her. That's what I thought the husband was upset about, later on.")
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>>>
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>>> [The main thing I have a problem with the movie glossing over is](#s " the reveal that the Heptapods already knew English. After seeing the movie, one of my main problems with it was that they seemed to still need to teach the Heptapods how to understand English, despite it effectively being a Stable Time Loop. However, in the short story, this is explained in a single sentence of narration, right near the beginning.")
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>>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+3] *Cheela Astronaut* (14 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> In response to the first point, in the book, using the movie's logic, she could have [](#s "had the daughter and then told her never to go rockclimbing (telling her she dies at 23 in a climbing accident should do it!), thus preventing her death. In the movie, she had to have the daughter (who was doomed to die) or not have the daughter. She doesn't have the opportunity of the third choice of having the daughter but preventing the death.")
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>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+3] (16 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Or she could have had IVF and screened the embryos for susceptibility to that disease. Or only allowed embryos which had genetic characteristics which would make them entirely different to the vision-of-the-future child.
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>>>>>> **u/CreationBlues** [+9] (18 hours later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> [My problem with the movie was](#s " you should either be able to solve your problems with time travel or you shouldn't. Not having humans to save you in 3000 years? Sure thing. Entire world devolving into nuclear holocaust? Fix it with a phone call. Dying due to some people planting a bomb and refusing to say to these scientists "lol there's a bomb behind you talk to you in 10"? Kid dying due to cancer and either not having her at all, or using the amazing power to get news from 3000 years in the future to get a cancer cure? Nope, not options.")
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> It's like the movie tries to say you can prevent BIG BAD THINGS from happening, but you're on your own for the small travesties, because reasons????
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>>>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+1] (19 hours later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> Ooo, good point with the cure.
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>>>>>>> **u/RMcD94** [+1] (a month later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> You can't solve the future problems surely they're already solved.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> Of course why some things are destined to be solved and some aren't is confusing
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>>>>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+3] *Cheela Astronaut* (a day later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> That's true, but you don't have the knee-jerk "oh my god she could have saved her so easily!" sort of reaction like you do with the accident. It happens on a smaller scale in the story, too - she remembers a salad bowl falling on her kid's head and making her cry, and then that same day she's in a supermarket and she sees the salad bowl. She decides to buy it, even though all she knows about that bowl is that it hits her kid in the head and makes her cry.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Plus, the point was that she *loved* her vision-of-the-future child. If your Favourite Person (partner, kid, parent, Eliezer Yudkowsky, whatever) were to suddenly get hit by a bus and die horribly, and I said, "hey, I'm Omega, I can make it so that person never lived. You will forget about them, but they wouldn't have died young in that bus accident" - you'd be like, "no, I love them, I remember them, and although our time was cut tragically short I would rather have a little than none of it". Louise *remembers her future*, so she loves that little girl just as much as you'd love your own kid.
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Can you imagine going back in time and deliberately stopping yourself from conceiving a child you *already have raised for 10+ years*, by, say, making yourself have sex 10 seconds later so a different sperm meets the egg? Sure, you'd probably love that new kid just as much as the original one, but you would lose *that* kid.
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>>>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+3] (a day later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> Well, I can, yes, but then again I don't tend to have the same visceral reactions to such things that most people do.
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>>>>>>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+1] *Cheela Astronaut* (a day later)
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> Sorry, I should have known that I'm on /r/rational and maybe an emotional argument is not as evocative as I'd have hoped...
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> Hopefully you're not as bad as my boyfriend who would say "well I'd stop my daughter ever existing and I'd love my new daughter the same, and she wouldn't die, so it's strictly an improvement" and then when I explain that people generally care about their kids enough not to want to replace them, even if their future self wouldn't know the difference, he just scoffs and goes "what? no. that's stupid. who would do that?! They'er wrong!"
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>>>>>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> I'm probably worse. Assuming we had a kid together, I'd make notes for my alternate timeline selves and then go back and randomize the circumstances of our kid's existence over and over until I could reliably generate a child whose existence brought you the most joy and happiness.
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> (Edited: OK, I'd try and find the maximum total happiness for both yourself and the child.)
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> (Double edit: while adhering at least moderately closely to societal norms/expectations, for anyone thinking "Well then just lobotomize them and stick wires in their brain's pleasure centers.")
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>>>>>>>>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+1] *Cheela Astronaut* (a day later)
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>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>> That's very sweet, and honestly, that's probably what he'd do too.
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>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>> I'm glad to have someone so incorrigibly rational in my life, but at the same time, it's infuriating at times. I was hoping that by getting him to watch *House* I could explain how even though you're doing the rational thing, people might still think you're a jerk. Didn't work. He just thought House was the best and everyone else was stupid. *sigh*
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>>>>>>>>>>> **u/FuguofAnotherWorld** [+2] *Roll the Dice on Fate* (a day later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> To be fair, House *is* the best at doctoring, that's his schtick. He would just be *even better* if he didn't go about it in the most unsociable way ever and constantly seed problems for himself further down the path. Try explaining it to your boyfriend in terms of comparative longterm advantage when doing and not doing an action, a type of action and a specific class of action.
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>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+1] *Cheela Astronaut* (2 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>> He tends to say "Well, if everyone was as rational as House is, they'd be better off!"... I have long since given up.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>> He also has obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which makes such discussions even more infuriating.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/abstractwhiz** [+2] *Friendly Eldritch Abomination* (2 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> Try phrasing it to him cleverly: First agree with him part of the way. He rightly points out that House gets better results than a normal doctor would. This makes his approach better than the standard one.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fair enough. But just because he has a *better* approach doesn't mean he has the *optimal* approach. He could achieve all the same results by behaving more sociably, while also getting reduced social friction, not alienating his minions, and building up social capital that he could use to do more without repercussions. :P
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> Then point out to him that this is an instance of a general problem: People defend a particular action as having advantages over the null action, but don't spend the time to think of *even better* approaches -- usually as part of some motivated reasoning so they don't have to stop doing the original action.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> Also, I suspect most of House's abrasiveness comes from his constant pain (hence his Vicodin habit) and he copes with it by screwing with people.
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>>>>>>>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+1] (a day later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> If it helps, I've learned that if you want people to be happy, sometimes it's rational to do the irrational things that make them happy.
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> Even if it's a case of wanting to put purely rational goals first, there's no reason not to also attempt secondary goals of happiness. And from there, it's a short step to leavening pure-rationalism goals with emotional ones.
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> Or, from a long-term rational perspective, people are more likely to help you achieve rational goals if you've made them happy, even if that means perhaps not meeting each and every short-term rationalist goal.
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>>>> **u/DTravers** [+1] (16 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> [Second point](#s " What do you mean? They needed to teach the Heptapods English so the information had a source somewhen, just as the Chinese general needed to show her his number for her to call in the past.")
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> **u/Geminii27** [+5] (16 hours later)
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>
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> I've seen it. I like the alien parts, the language, the antigrav, etc. I didn't like the B-plot with the future child or the idea that speaking a different language allows you to break physics. Wasn't a fan of the unsubtle pro-US-military-above-all approach, either.
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>
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> I'll admit I haven't read the book - that might bring it together more smoothly.
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>> **u/MagicWeasel** [+4] *Cheela Astronaut* (a day later)
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>>
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>> The book completely removes the military angle and the part about the child becomes the A-plot (and far more compelling!), and the language doesn't let you break physics. It's a short story, not a book, and it's *very* good, so I would absolutely recommend it.
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> **u/CouteauBleu** [+1] *We are the Empire.* (11 hours later)
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>
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> That's a short recommendation. What makes the movie really good?
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>> **u/SometimesATroll** [+5] (15 hours later)
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>>
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>> The least spoilery explanation I can think of is that it's a first-contact story with aliens that are *actually* alien in mind and body.
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---
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