MONTAG: MONTAG is a magazine of outlooks and predictions for the coming year.
It's the foreword to a UK-based magazine - the Yerba Bu, available in English, French, and Italian. It's the foreword to David Mitchell's book The End of the World For Science, and it seems like the predictions that the world would end in 2039 are going to be wildly popular.
They're also the foreword to the movie Apocalypse Now, because, well, it's not like the movie didn’t have a lot of them. It’s been rumored for a while that the film would land in between the Black Mirror and The Hangover films, and it looks like the filming locations in both will serve as a sort of post-cinematic feedback loop for the movie's plot.
The premise is as follows: after the events of the first film, humanity has been plunged into a Totalitarian Apocalypse, in which all technology, science, and belief is non-existent. The Copernican Order of Merit (also known as the "Five Levels") reign supreme, and humanity is the one that has been created to withstand the work of humanity, throughout the entire movie.
The film opens with the help of an extraterrestrial artifact, who knocks out the scientists with a powerful psychic beam, leaving behind only the scientists and technomores in the scientific breakthrough. A compilation of the best predictions from the team's research shows that by 2039, humanity has been defeated, and the Copernican Order has been established.
A post-apocalyptic thriller with a touch of post-humanism, 2039 follows a team of scientists, led by famed neuroscientist and psychophysicist Alexander Shulgin, who has been researching the effects of global warming on his and his team's research subjects.
Their predictions include a super-archeologist named Arthur C. Clarke, who suggests that the research expeditions to Mars could result in discoveries of life on Mars. Other members of the research team including physicist Stephen Hawking, and astronaut Neil Armstrong, all voiced an interest in exploring deep space, as well as continuing their scientific studies after their deaths.
Although these predictions are definitely in the offing, it feels like post-humanism within the tech community has peaked, and post-humanism is only just happening.
Some have openly voiced their support for capitalism and Marxism, while calling for a post-human end state and reclaiming humanity from the effects of climate change.
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Are there super-archetypes out there?
In the not so distant future, a disembodied mind is a terrifying sight. But is it really control freak-ism? It's the spirit of the unknown, a festering stifling fear, that lurks in virtual worlds, even if the creator is not god himself.
The mind of Tupac Shakur is an example. And when he performs, virtual reality allows him to be viscerally honest with himself and the world - and the lack of physicality is beyond belief.
Tupac's story is a stark example of the crippling effect of technology on humanity.
His mother, in the process of absorbing most of his education, brutally slaughtered his younger self for allowing the technology to take hold. The technology allowed her to live and breed more children, and she has since stopped breeding. The physicality of the virtual Tupac is a testament to the corporatization of humanity: no longer can the physical differences between the races be expressed through blemishes and plastics, eyes and hair, facial expressions and clothing, just as there be body parts that cannot be duplicated or censored.
The technology that makes up the Tupac story is not new. In fact, it may have the same technology as technology that makes up the majority of the problem of multiracial society: not only are the descendants of a single race not always as equipped to deal with cultural diversity, but so too are they not always equipped to deal with the pressures of cultural privilege.
Tupac's story is a stark example of the crippling effect of technology on humanity.
His mother, in the process of absorbing most of his education, brutally slaughtered his younger self for allowing the technology to take hold. The technology allowed her to live and breed more children, and she has since stopped breeding. The physicality is a testament to the corporatization of humanity: not only are the descendants of a single race not always as equipped to deal with cultural diversity, but so too are they not always able to deal with the stresses of cultural privilege.
When faced with the reality of not being able to have his own identity, or even his actual body, known, publicly, or even ship-a-way, or having his own identity erased from the internet, it's important for us all to take the next step: to be able