Hacker Cinema
THE GHOST IN THE SHELL
攻殻機動隊 THE GHOST IN THE SHELL
2026 · TV series · 25 min episodes · 1 season
AnimationActionAdventureScience FictionFantasy
2029, a near-future Japan. The full cyborg Motoko Kusanagi envisions a task force that preemptively strikes emerging threats. She and her team are scouted by Daisuke Aramaki as Public Security Section 9, AKA the "Shell Squad." An international conspiracy hints at a hacker known as The "Puppet Master." What fate awaits Kusanagi? What is the hacker's endgame?
4 positive2 neutralfrom 6 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
They WON'T have regulations or treaties though - not any that mean a damn, anyway. Putting aside the obvious issues of doing this against someone's will, let's have a quick look at some extremes that could be done with someone's full consent:
What if someone WANTED a memory implanted of raping someone, so they could get off to it? The consensual BDSM sphere is huge. Obviously pedophilic false memories would be outlawed immediately, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't exist.
What if someone wanted to self-identify as a robot, or a sex slave, or just plain simple property. Could they have elective surgery for blank-memory-removal to assist with their transition?
Say we went nope, full blanket-banning of the technology as a whole, it's just too legally messy to allow. What if someone has experienced severe emotional trauma from real-life events, and needs them dulled or removed to function in society? It instantly becomes a politically-charged pro-life/pro-choice ticket issue that gets carted out every time the government wants to make some noise.
What if someone is the victim of such a procedure (done illegally) - is it okay to have some governmental arm "anti-hack" their brain.
Also, <insert the whole plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind>. Also, <insert plots of various Ghost In the Shell TV series>.
If the technology ever genuinely bears fruit, then only two things are certain to happen: it will be used illegally, and it will be used by governments in secret. Sometimes both of these at once :-)
> We want an on-demand nexus. A single hub.
That is close to existing, it'd be nice if the top players agreed to open their APIs so you could integrate it into a unified TV external like Chromecast or Firestick. Or, to go further, a unified platform that can process subscriptions and PPV across each library.
> $100/month for a dozen streaming "channels" with one or two good shows and a the same crap the rest of the other "channels" have.
Amen, we cut the cord officially on Friday. We went to $67 (including modem rental) per month plus about $25 dollars in streaming services and $40 for YT TV per month. That's still $35 dollars cheaper than what we were paying for Comcast TV and once we buy a compatible modem then we'll drop our internet to about $55 per month. We also have renters, so we loop them into YTTV for them to watch to their heart's desire for an extra $5 on their rent per month.
> Ghost in the Shell
Respect just got done rewatching an episode of the TV show.
I also recommend the "Ghost in the Shell" anime movie and TV series. Lots of discussion about the impact of a connected society, and what it means to be human when your body is a machine.
The first thing this article reminded me of was ghost in the shell season 2. In the show the Intelligence Agency of the government used this sort of info manipulation to increase animosity towards refugees to the point where the public was in support of basically slaughtering them.
In the show this agency also analyzed public opinion using info obtained from discussion forums to gauge the public's acceptance of government policy and they would use the information manipulation with sock puppets to change public opinion in their favor.
Ghost in the Shell is the greatest thing ever. The same director that did the series did Eden of the East which is fun and near term sci-fi. But, also, Dennu Coil might be a series worth checking out. Nowhere near as epic as GitS, but it explores near term AR tech in a thematically interesting way (as well as being a neat case study in movie/show making (due to the whole AR thing)).
Disclaimer: I have not yet finished the series, it is animated, it does not seem to have the type of accuracy that GitS has (but still interesting!), it stars kids, and is somewhat family friendly.
I like anime vs north american television because often it's a succinct 26 episode series. It's going to have a conclusion. It feels like reading a book at times.
There are many anime that go on forever. Dragon Ball Z, etc. The ones truly worth watching are the science fiction ones. Planetes, Nadesico, Ghost in the Shell, some of the early Gundams, and Evangelion. Each of those paint a very coherent picture of the world. Very unlike american television where a series is milked out over years and often fails to deliver.