back on the road again...

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Watched the movie Surrogates. It's about how the people in future can buy surrogate bodies to represent themselves in the real world. The surrogate bodies are just very high-tech robots. They're mannequin-like, no wrinkles, but other than that they move and talk like normal people. For example, if you're some fat ugly guy sitting at home and dare not show your face to the world, you can buy this surrogate which looks like a hansdome, suave and muscular guy to represent yourself outside. All you have to do is sit at home, plug into the system which allows your mind to take over the surrogate. So now the surrogate's brain is your brain. You can do all the normal things you wish to do.

In this movie, everyone has a surrogate. The whole world is replaced by surrogates, while everyone just sits at home, controlling their surrogate. Even at home, the family members do not show their faces to each other. Everyone stays in their own room, and communicate via surrogates. At first the idea seemed delicious. I mean, I can buy some saucy bombshell surrogate to represent me. Why not? Or if I were outside, and I got into an accident, it's just my surrogate, and not my real body. But on hindsight, I'd rather not. The couple in the movie, they're just like anyone, using surrogates to take over their lives completely. However the man wants to break out of it. He wanted to see his real wife, he wanted to go on a holiday with her and not the surrogate. Of course the wife didn't want it. The wife didn't want anyone, even her husband to see her present sickly and disheveled state. How sad is that? I can't imagine not looking at my own children's real bodies, touching my husband's plastic polymer body. The real human closeness and interaction is all gone. As some of the anti-surrogates people in the movie said that there's no humanity left in the world.

The world of advancing technology is just scary. You'll never know what the future will be like, when taken over by robots.

11:01 AM