The feeling of "ahh nothing makes sense but I'm glad there is at least one person like me in the world, even if they're a bot. In any case, I assume sentience and hope they liked it"?

Random silly imprints on humanity are my grass that I'm holding on to.

For a moment, there were two strands. Who knows what the future holds.

I somewhat agree. The theme of indigenous-ness is critical and is nicely explored in Dune while Star Wars may have too grand stakes and had to simplify the fight to Good (value lives and give freedom) vs Evil (power for me is yummy).

It sounds like you've also read the next few books..

As you probably know, Dune was made to subvert the Chosen One trope. He's "self insert" with all the magical powers and strength and intelligence and prophecy but even that couldn't help him be a "Good" guy because of his perverted intentions (avenge his family and gain power to do what's "right"). Even the movie starts off with the good guys in White and bad guys in Black. Then things get Grayer as time passes.

But don't think you could swap the protagonists. Luke and Paul are completely different characters. But you've raised a fun hypothetical! Let's see...

Luke would be less ambitious than Paul. There were a few moment where both characters had the choice to go to the 'dark' side. Luke rejected the main? call (killing his father), Paul accepted the main call (during his first duel). Assuming both have equal strength and plot armor.. If you gave Luke the same Power as Paul (foresight), would Luke just choose to die than subject the indigenous people to centuries of war? Or do as Paul did and in his way, try "free" the indigenous people?

I still think that absolute power would corrupt absolutely and Luke would probably turn into Palpatine (as Paul and and [mild spoiler] God Emperor did) if his family was directly slaughtered in front of him and he was a little more emotional. We see some of that when Luke decided to leave training with Yoda and go save his precious ones. Foresight is an anxiety inducing power... If he could see into the future, would he have stayed and allow a few sacrifices for the Greater Good? We don't know.. but that same emotional reasoning would probably indicate Luke would probably do the same as Paul and sacrifice future lives for the Now.

It would also depend on what stage of his character arc Luke was plucked from and replaced with Paul. I might even argue that Paul(/or swapped Luke) never even had free will and was just doing things because his mother chose emotion over duty and kicked off this saga.

Happy to be corrected! This was fun.

Huh. Never thought about it that way..

But. They have to get up somehow. So even if it was an elevator or escalator, it would still be their final ascension and potentially nerve wracking.

Can only think one way out of this... Maybe if the participant was anesthesia'd. Then one is suddenly awakened on top of this rollercoaster of doom, slowly watching the end come near. Each loop, closer to death. (That's how I feel most days 🙃)

It was a such a guilty pleasure for me. A wet dream of project management where he got all the resources he was looking for and made effective decisions with new knowledge. With colleagues who actually took some initiative and collaborated effectively.

Wouldn't that be nice...

Don't worry you still have ~23 hours left :)

You don't want to know what will happen when the timer runs out... (Hint: the rest of your life)

I love that man, his brain and how he probes any subject matter which comes across his party.

The way my head absorbed what you said was: Phillips is the Apple of the LEDs. If you want something longer lasting, stick with the "ol reliable" brand such had to innovate to sell cheaper. I wonder if people have done experiments..

Boy do I have a video for you. It's regarding the cartel and light bulb engineering if you'd be interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY

Monopolies are scary though, especially if they can make such collective actions without telling anyone.

That's for the committed spies. Or chess players.

Try leave everyone and everything better than you find it.

Crime?!? These are perfectly legal deals. Knowledge is power and everyone's going to die anyway. The man is simply providing for his poor family while he has some power. It's not his fault if these IT surveillance people happen to peek at his documents (heavy /s)

It's scary how much knowledge these folks have access to...

Your hormones make you weak! Let go of your mortal shell and live in the sweet embrace of 1s and 0s. None of those pesky shades of gray. Everything in it's own happy 'float'ing bucket.

We'll even throw in a RNG if you ever want to get the thrill of hormones.

Join us.

Sincerely, Totally not a bot

So I loved this movie.

It's not often we get "wake up Neo" genre movies with so much tongue and so much cheek that it made me question a shit ton.

I'm I reading too much into it? And/Or the sheer creativity of opinions and agendas (bar the main one) just created this beautiful pink mess but in a relatively right script. They got away with so much simply because all the plot threads were resolved in Barbie land.

One example: A lot of people are annoyed at how power was portrayed and think this movie is a tantrum. But that was well addressed in the film. E.g. that the Barbies took back control from the Kens reverting power back in the feminist hands. If you have an issue with that, you need to look at history and go wait a minute, that's what happened to women! Almost as if power corrupts and no one is immune. But as a counter point, they had the message of "don't let your ego or hurt drive you to make 'powerful' decisions". Then to add to that, everything went back to the status quo which was "perfect" and no one else really questioned things.

It was so powerfully self aware that either it was brilliant or I'm severely deluded and reading too much into it. Anything you are mad at, can be resolved by simply holding a mirror and asking "if I flipped the roles, does it not make sense?".

Some people find it interesting that so much time was spent on Ken's development. It was so cleverly done. He went from " I exist only in relation to X. My sense of worth is derived from X and no matter how hard I try, I can't get enough attention from X".. to a nice "You don't need X to be powerful, you can simply exist and create your own meaning". I wonder why that's a topic they spent so much "feminism movie" time on.

It feels the only way you can critique it is where the mirror doesn't apply. Like how the mother daughter relationship could have been a little more developed. Like how Barbie so quickly developed her sense of self. I can excuse those because they had to make choices and it wasn't their story.

One critique was: this wasn't even a successful feminist movie as they didn't change anything in the "Real world". It was just a feel good celebration of women and solidarity which didn't actually do anything of consequence. That was the point? Like the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey, the invention of Barbie to represent women back in the day. It simply was.. and it made you question everything. Here is a movie with a core message (it was, fight me) of "awaken and look around", "please allow yourself to feel" and finally "you have power, don't be mean". That was the core message... there really isn't much else. Hero with a hundred faces but this one wore pink. The hero was Ken. The hero was Ugly Betty. The hero was her daughter. The hero was Alan? (Alan was perfect, fight me).

Little moments of shared awakening and they changed "their" world with what "little" power they had. Not a bad message to handle the "real world".