Have you ever thought about the fact that you can edit guest comments as well as your previous posts? I can have an about page stating that I am a photographer, traveller and blogger, get a few lovely comments of support and change it to say I am an ivory poaching, terrorist-sympathising baby eater.
The post would have completely changed but the comments will still say ‘Love this’! And ‘I really like your perspective!’. It is pretty comical.
And just to make the comments even more convincing, we can change that kind messages of support to ‘I love this idea! I hate elephants too!’, really convincing the reader that you truly are an animal hating baby eater.
The internet is a scary place, especially as technology increases and it is harder to decipher what is real and what isn’t. Take a look at this video, courtesy of Barrack Obama. Apparently…
How hard will it be in the upcoming decades to know what is real and what is fake? I guess we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
The image above is from the music video for Pressure, a new song by Muse. The album is called Simulation Theory and is themed around this topic. I thought this clip from the video fit in well with the post, and I need to get Muse into a post every once in a while.
Matt, I know your ears are burning.
What do you think? Does the future scare you or fill you with excitement?
Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!
New to this site? Click here to visit my About My Blog section
Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diary
Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.
Happy blogging!
One Chance to See the World 
Gotta embrace the future, one foot in front of the other, it’s inevitable 🙂 I don’t activate comments, I find it bad enough when people Like my posts without actually visiting my site – the stats tell all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember when I figured out from by stats the exact same thing! Soon enough after that, not even those likes came by xD but at least I know the few ones I’ve got are real now 🙂
And yea, I think we should embrace the future, but don’t let virtues become history either. Some things from the past should still be kept, and we’d best be aware of it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Fake likes are annoying, and I know that some of the people that liked my posts would certainly have not liked them if they read what I typed 😂
And yes, embrace the future but keep the good stuff.
LikeLiked by 2 people
So true!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I can’t help but think about Star Wars: Rogue One in this context. Princess Leia in that looked too much like a 20 something Carrie Fisher and what really got me is that the movie brought Peter Cushing back from the dead just to reprise his role as Grand Moff Tarkin.
Imagine, if you will, “found” video footage of Stanley Kubrick admitting to faking the moon landing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Now please forgive me, but I have only seen a handful of Star Wars movies… I have a best friend that hates this about me xD
And I can only imagine what it would be like if a conspiracy of that magnitude was exposed and out in the open…
LikeLike
Ahh, ok. Maybe I should explain a bit more on this. Actor Peter Cushing, who played an evil character in Stars Wars in 1977, has been dead since 1994.
On Star Wars: Rogue One, the filmmakers somehow found a way to use his likeness so realistically it’s as if he was still alive to act in that movie. It creeped me out, to be honest.
So I can imagine in the future, filmmaker can manipulate a celebrity’s likeness or image to doing whatever the filmmaker wants the audience to see.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah okay, yes I definitely see this happening more often.
I didn’t see the whole movie, but I saw the end to one of the Fast and the Furious movies and they used Paul Walker through CGI despite him sadly dying before the movie was completed. If this is now, the technology will only get better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In a word, yes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is that yes to embracing or fearing? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. It is definitely one of those. Or both. Or neither. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I guess we may never know xD
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, currently with midterms spicing up my calendar for the next two weeks with big, red, nearly unspaced blobs, the future doesn’t look all that good! 😦
Really though, it amazes what we can do today with technology (given I’m now a computer science student, I’m seeing it more often than ever!). We may not have a ‘thinking’ machine yet, but we have machines that can store so much information on you and algorithms to take care of the elimination processes, that they really don’t need to think—they can simply draw up your entire fact file from their databases and whatnot.
But what I’m really excited for is evolving hardware: in a few decades, people may not recognise devices from today, they’d have stuff that’s infinitely cooler and more powerful, and that opens up all those exciting possibilities that were confined to science fiction—we could rule space and time (or perhaps, speaking like a more practical physicist, understand them), explore the stars, make the earth a smaller place along the way too!
(I’m sorry that was so long! I’m just wrapping my head around some pretty cool theoretical physics concepts, and to summarise, the only thing preventing us from travelling back in time is the fact that we don’t have enough energy on the whole planet to accelerate stuff to speeds high enough to make that (theoretically) possible. I do think software and hardware advance each other, so in that regard, I’m definitely excited!)
Spoiler: we wouldn’t survive that high an acceleration though, sadly, unless someone comes up with a workaround there… who knows?!
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is the kind of comment that fills me with excitement! I cannot wait to see what technology has in store for us in the near and distant future.
I bet studying computer science gives you a great insight to new things. Maybe the very, very near future isn’t that rosie with midterms but it will be even more rosie when they’re done!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Neither I just plod along
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, love it
LikeLiked by 1 person
The fake dubbed voice of Barack Obama is a hoot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isn’t it just! I’m glad he added a humorous element to it, because it freaked me out as well 😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
No I live for today, as tomorrow may not arrive we don’t know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very true. I do think this way, but I cannot help but fantasise about what the future will hold. But I never allow this to stop me enjoying today!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fantasise often turns into reality, as we head into the future.
LikeLiked by 2 people
When I poach ivory, I like to blind any nearby baby elephants, just so they don’t identify me in the afterlife. And, if you think that’s cruel, then call me “Mr. Cruel”…
That’s what the elephants call me…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I may have to edit this comment to make it seem like you are a nice person… ;p
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am OK with the future…it is the useless junk cluttering it up that is the problem. less stuff, more life
LikeLiked by 1 person
Junk clutters my mind… a tidy house is a tidy mind, is that the phrase?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I embrace my personal future and fear the world’s future and it’s possible impact on me embracing my personal future. Knowing how many people will inhabit the Earth in the next 20, 30, etc years is terrifying particularly when you add climate change into the mix. Already countries like Bangledash are seeing climate migrants as the southern portion is too flooded to live in anymore and they move to the northern part. There are countries that are already struggling to divide resources among so many and if those many start to migrate to other countries because they no longer have a home then it’s an even crazier mess. I’m glad I don’t have children and often wonder if my friends who do even think about what is to come.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hopefully, with companies such as SpaceX, we may be able to colonise other planets in the upcoming decades. Also, with an increase in technology, we will be able to make more areas of earth livable. The problem with population isn’t that we are overpopulated, but we are all squashed into the same areas! There is a fact I heard that was if every single person in the world stood next to one another, they would only take up the state of California. And that is with room to move. So for me, I am relying on technology to ease the pressure of overpopulation of certain areas 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
While I usually embrace new technology and generally have no fear of the future, the current administration and political climate of divisiveness does give me pause. When truth isn’t truth, and facts are alternative…. I fear we’re spiraling down the rabbit hole.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Who is in charge when these technologies are available is certainly something to worry about. The technology is only useful if utilised in the right way, or even used at all I guess!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes if I watch the news the future scares the shit out of me so, simply, I don’t watch the news anymore. Instead I’ll embrace the future. Technology’s pretty amazing but it’s all about managing it, not letting it rule us. Cheers Sam
LikeLiked by 1 person
Literally ruling us, too. If you’ve heard about the potential for AI, we need to be careful that it doesn’t take over us!
I do believe the news can over exaggerate things, so maybe less news is better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I definitely think less is better. Don’t want to bury my head in the sand but I also think focusing on gloom serves no purpose.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well said 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
False information online usually comes with a few subtle, telltale clues that send up enough red flags to prompt me to dig further for verification. If it’s something important. If it’s not, I disregard.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Spam is like this, I often find emails disguised as companies that I used are always filled with spelling errors. I guess we should appreciate the red flags, a very nice thing for them to do :p
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ok, I just left a long & thoughtful comment, had to log in to post it aaand … It disappeared. Hope it is just awaiting moderation.
I did not know we could edit others’ comments. That’s crazy. I thought all we could do was not allow comments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
About fake videos … Yes. I hear that technology has now hit the point where we have no reason to believe a video of someone we recognize saying something with their own face and voice.
It is going to be really hard to keep this in mind, because our strong biological tendency is to trust our senses … To believe what we hear & see. I don’t think most people will be able to overcome it.
Actually, though, this was already a problem before face and voice faking technology got so good. It has been true for years that video interviews could be edited to make someone appear to have said something they didn’t. Seemingly “raw” video can give a very different impression depending on whether you saw what came just before. I’m thinking not just of the Covington kids video, but of the movie Momento (Memento?), where the entire plot consists of “Oh, so THAT’S what that was!” Moments.
To a lesser extent, this is even a problem in real life. Eye witnesses to the same event can honestly see different things. There’s a warning in the book of Proverbs not to be too quick to judge “based on what your eyes have seen” lest you accidentally give false testimony … And that was 1000s of years before video!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Firstly, there is nothing worse than a comment disappearing after a lot of consideration went into it! I find the motivation to retype is horribly low haha. But thank you for retyping, I don’t moderate the comments as it would take ages to accept them and very little are ever offensive, if ever.
I haven’t seen that movie, however it is no surprise as I am known for not seeing so many movies that I should have. Hopefully one day that will change. However I agree, we have always lived in a pretty deceitful world, at least in the ‘olden’ days editing videos would be somewhat harder than it will be in the future, and I guess even old footage of historical speeches and videos could now be edited much ‘better’ that would give a false account of what happened. Even what we say now is at danger of that and victim of time I guess!
LikeLike