Thursday, September 6, 2007

725 Re: Eutopia and The Beach with Leonard DiCaprio

Message no. 725[Branch from no. 722] Posted by Thomas Culhane (1311520071) on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 5:55pm Subject: Re: Eutopia

Bravo, Dana, for your creative use of sounds and effects in your visually beautiful powerpoint presentation. I appreciated the reference to the textbook and the differentiation between noise and sound as perceptual elements, and I enjoyed reading again the story of the single set of footsteps, since I have always felt God carries me through the tough phases of life. It also goes along with Newton's statement "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants". Whose shoulders could be taller than the almighty God?! He carries us toward not only eternal heaven, but heaven on earth, helping each generation to see a little further and leading the way to eutopia.

Criticisms: technical -- watch the sizing and resolution of some of the photographs so they don`t appear grainy. content: I am not clear how you would propose to share your eutopian ideas with the rest of humanity in practice. You have shown us footprints -- can you tell us now what your "ECOLOGICAL footprint" would be living on the beach in Thailand? Would you live off of coconuts? Where would you get your protein -- from sea food? Would you be prepared to go fishing? Is it a beach resort experience you equate with eutopia, or would you really want to live on an island in the south seas? Would you be prepared for tsunamis and hurricanes? How would you protect yourself from them?

Have you seen the film "The Beach" with Leonard DiCaprio? It is a must see for those of you who have suggested beach and island eutopias. It shows the good and the dark side of our attempt to create such wonderlands.

http://www.thebeachmovie.com/

Note that the website says "click here to discover utopia"

It then says "The wonders of modern technology, like computers, video games, cell phones, pagers and the Internet, were designed to make our lives more enjoyable and facilitate communications. Yet for many, the complexity of the digital world is overwhelming, leading to a feeling of unreality... of being disconnected.

The desire to find something real - to connect with something or someone - is what drives Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young American backpacker who arrives in Thailand with adventure on his mind. Travel, he asserts, is the

search for experience,

the quest for something different."

When you click here http://www.thebeachmovie.com/html/tra/xchange.html the website asks "Have you discovered utopia" and then asks you to submit your own ideas of utopia. Unfortunately the contest is now over, or we could submit our ideas there. But you can read others ideas on the site!

At any rate, I think what we have to do in all our presentations is show the FEASIBILITY of making our eutopian ideas come true as alternatives for humanity. After all, we are talking about EUtopias, not OUtopias. Remember that Utopia is a made up word that can go either way. EUtopia means "the real place, the good place" and OUtopia means "No place". DYStopia means "the bad place".

Have you guys seen "Meet the Robinsons", the new Disney Pixar movie? It shows two visions of the future, one eutopian, one dystopian. Check the film out and we can discuss (I am going to see it with my wife for the second time tomorrow -- this time in English and in 3D! Fun!).







All fun aside, we need to be more rigorous in our presentation of our eutopias! Lets take what we have so far and now improve upon them with more real references from the book and other sources! You now know how to put a presentation together, let us now flesh it out!

Good start!

T

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