Hacker Cinema
World on a Wire
Welt am Draht
1973 · TV series · 102 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
DramaScience FictionFantasyMystery
In the future, Simulacron, a computer project simulating reality, encounters strange occurrences after its leader's death. Dr. Stiller questions the sudden disappearance of a friend and wonders if Simulacron holds the answers.
12 positive3 neutralfrom 15 commenters
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16 comments on Hacker News
I love collecting old SciFi and hadn't heard of "World on a Wire", so am grabbing a copy now (Criterion have a version). I've long been a fan of Colossus as it raises the spectre of being under constant observation (now almost commonplace it seems).
I miss the days when SciFi didn't mean an action film in a future setting that just ends up being the good guy(s) being chased by the bad guy(s).
Oh man, the Golden Age of science fiction movies, just two years after 2001: A Space Odyssey and five years before the start of the Blockbuster era[0] with Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977).
I feel like Science Fiction back then was purely understood as psychological concepts and ambiguous desires, mostly questioning the very essence of reality and our human minds. There were intelligences and ambitions in us that felt alien, but weren't extraterrestrial in kind. I always thought of it as if Science Fiction tried to turn any progress from the Age of Enlightenment inside out.
A great gem is also World on a Wire (1973)[1], which takes the concept of a machine controlled intelligence and questioned whether we're living in a simulation and are already influenced by a virtual world.
My favorite quote from Colossus: The Forbin Project, after Dr. Forbin is held hostage by Colossus:
Colossus: How many nights a week do you require sex? Dr. Forbin: Every night. Colossus: Not want. Require... Dr. Forbin: [looks sheepish] Four times.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(entertainment)#Blockbuster_era
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire
Speaking of earlier concepts of The Matrix, there's an old 1973 German movie/mini series World on a Wire that's really good.
While I don't think we live inside a simulation or that there is an outside, you might enjoy the book Simulacron-3 [0] or its movie adaptation Welt am Draht [1]. It is about the protagonist realizing that they are an agent in an economic computer simulation.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire
Before the Matrix there also Welt am Draht (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire), great Fassbinder two-part movie/miniseries that very few people have seen.
I get the sense that you would like some adult themes, but not too slow?
Top of my mind (and in no specific order) would be:
- Dark City
- The Thirteenth Floor
- City of the Lost Children
- Tron (original and maybe new one)
- Interstellar
- Inception
- A Clockwork Orange
- Her (very relevant to our times)
- Dune (2021 version)
- Brazil
- The Martian
- Children of Men
- Edge of Tomorrow (most like Marvelverse on this list but still very good)
- Moon
- Twelve Monkeys
- Upgrade
- The Fifth Element
- Contact
- Okja
- District 9
- Predestination (very relevant to our times)
- Serenity (but might need some prep from the tv show before watching)
- World on a Wire
- The Abyss
- Minority Report (very relevant in our times)
- The Fly
- Videodrome
- Equilibrium
- Strange Days
- The Andromeda Strain (relevant after Covid)
- eXistenZ (trippy but I loved it when it came out and was only around your sons age)
- In Time (interesting class dynamics on display)
- Enemy Mine
- Franklyn (some interesting takes on mental illness)
- The Arrival
Major spoilers ahoy: That sounds similar to Simulacron-3 (which spawned the movies World on a Wire and The Thirteenth Floor) and Neal Stephenson's Fall (which implies that the Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon, and REAMDE also take place in the same simulation).
I liked the Black Mirror Christmas episode. Really drove the point home for me about how "Code Rights" is going to be a real actual political and ethical thing. That and the seventies movie World On a Wire. Philosophical zombies don't have actual consciousnesses, feelings or other qualias, but it doesn't matter. When a simulation realises it's a simulation, a character in someone's book, it might just get very simulation pissed indeed at the situation like in that latter movie. And being a simulation doesn't lessen the simulated very real agony of for example torture and all that.
It's a good strategy not to make anything organism - like on AI - level, methinks. Although OTOH IBM:s Truenorth does save a lot of electricity so hmm... No. That's the worst kind: hardware - level biomimickry. Anything even organism - like is going to simulation - or - not (try to) take over. It's in the blueprint. Watson is correctly built: left - brain reductive - analytical output that advances by trial and error. Or Wolfram AI with it's hierarchical frames and being like a user interface. I suck at coding at that level for the time being but I think I see that point clearly. So don't mix code and data boys and girls.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 contribution World on a Wire was ahead of its time. It's well worth a watch.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070904
Neither is Germany. The DDR, sure but there are movies from West Germany there too, e.g. World on a Wire.
World on a Wire (Welt am Draht) - German movie from 1972 similar to the Matrix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire
Stalker - Andrei Tarkovsky film from 1979 on the indifference of aliens and humans' inability to comprehend alien intelligence. Somewhat like Solaris.
The Incident (El Incidente) - a nightmare time-loop movie and possibly the most disturbing movie I've ever seen written and directed by Mexican director Isaac Ezban. You can watch it on Netflix. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3528756/
Speaking of Ezban, Cosas Feas / Nasty Stuff is a disturbing sci-fi short he did in 2009 available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/65601847
One more: They're Made of Meat is available on YouTube and only 7 minutes long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfPdhsP8XjI starring the guy from Cash Cab.
Yes, but in practice no one wants to go to a backup. So the simulators will try just deleting or messing with the aware person, creating Matrix-like glitches.
At least, that's the scenario depicted in the 1973 movie, World on a Wire. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070904/
> The Matrix is an implausible just-so story with quasi-religious undertones
Actually, no. The question is simple: Can a universe with a least a few intelligent individuals be simulated? (Grand Auto Theft also does not simulate the whole city but only a selected "view"). The answer to this is probably "yes". But then you have another problem: If a universe can be simulated, it is mathematically FAR FAR more likely that you live in a computer simulation than not since billions of worlds with trillions of individuals are getting simulated.
> and it's a concept that exhibits quite a few glaring holes the closer you look at its practical implications
Be my guest and elaborate.
> holes which seem like they are in disagreement with > daily observation and hence should lend themselves to > falsification.
Actually, you are right and wrong here. First, I don't see "disagreement" with daily observations since there is only one known idea how to test the hypothesis. And then you are right, this thesis can be tested:"To avoid stacking (i.e. simulations within simulations), the termination of these simulations is likely to be the point in history when the technology to create them first became widely available, (estimated to be 2050)."
Actually, there is a movie preceding "The Matrix" that is much much better: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070904/
World on a Wire is an adaptation of the same book directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (the greatest director of all time), and is definitely worth checking out.
Your theory reminds me of Fassbinder's 1973 film Welt am Draht ("World on a Wire"). The technical director of a simulated world project slowly realizes he lives within a larger simulation. He tries to outwit the simulation's programmers, as they deactivate or reprogram his friends and co-workers to stop him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welt_am_Draht
Your theory reminds me of Fassbinder's 1973 film Welt am Draht (World on a Wire). The technical director of a simulated world project slowly realizes he lives within a larger simulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welt_am_Draht