Book: Jurassic Park

[MightyDavidson]

One bit I remember from the book that filled me with later incredulity was Ian's declaration that 'the Internet', "Would destroy the future of scientific, intellectual and philosophical progress."

Why? Because progress requires revolutionary thought and revolutionary thought requires thinking outside of the established orthodoxy, which of course can only happen literally Outside that orthodoxy. With instant global communication once a new field opens an Orthodoxy will immediately establish itself and humans being social animals of course everyone will adopt that orthodoxy and the field will inevitably stagnate....

...because human people only disagree on hows/whats/wheres/whens/whys when they don't know any better and instantly agree when they all get to talking to each other.

Was that from Jurassic Park or the sequel, the Lost World? Either way, it only furthers my belief that book Malcolm wasn't nearly as bright as he thought he was.

[hammerofglass]

One thing from the book I liked that didn't make it into the movie is Malcolm's other role as The Guy With Common Sense Who Catches Details. Like how he realized the Compys were breeding because their height distribution curve didn't match three distinct waves of releases, or caught the implications that the tally system was set up to stop at the expected number and asked them to try raising it. It's been a while since I read it but I believe he was also the first one to notice that the dead zone where terrain meant they couldn't place sensors and cameras was contiguous, so what they were writing off as small holes in their observation capabilities was a solid block of the island (specifically the area around the river). He was looking for things like that because his model suggested the park would already be failing, but it's not directly related.

[FaxModem1]

I remember seeing the movie as a kid, and later reading the book in middle school. I, of course, saw the sequel when it came out, and read that book years later.

Something to really note here. Who would you say is the main character of Jurassic Park? I imagine most of you would say Dr. Grant. He's the main protagonist we follow. The one we spend most of the adventure with, and the one who does a lot of the action. And who survives.

Now, who does Michael Crichton think is the main character? Ian Malcolm. The character that he gave a lot of speeches to, that no one can argue with. The one who gets so sick with gangrene that he's buried at the end of the book.

What does this mean for the sequel? That Ian Malcolm somehow survived it. When I was in middle school, I remember reading that they buried him. This means one of two things. Michael Crichton's pet character was resurrected via reton so that he could be the star of the sequel. Or, his pet character was so disliked by the rest of the main characters, to the point that they buried him alive just so that he would shut up and stop bothering everyone else.

You have to wonder if at some level Michael Crichton realized that no one really enjoyed his rants about the evils of technology and civilization, but ignored them anyway so that he could have Ian Malcolm lecture everyone at how awful civilization is.

[RobbyB1982]

One bit I remember from the book that filled me with later incredulity was Ian's declaration that 'the Internet', "Would destroy the future of scientific, intellectual and philosophical progress."

To be fair, books that talked about the internet 30+ years ago were going off something that was very very different than what we have today. There were comparatively only a handful of people using the internet at the time, it was only good for text, and pretty much needed at minimum an expensive college computer setup, so only a very specific type of person was actually on it. It didn't get more standardized and average household-ey until the mid 90's.

Hell, the B-plot of Ender's Game was about a pair of smart teenagers writing political blogs and using that to take over the world because the internet would allow them to be perceived as mature adults with revolutionary opinions.

Sometimes when looking towards the future, you completely miss the actual applications a new technology will actually end up having. Happens with a lot of science fiction.

[pilight]

Oh, and ''its a Unix system!'' Anyone else notice how many films and TV shows back in the '90s had to have some kid in it who could hack computers? And how often it always seemed to involve rapid and random tapping on a keyboard in front of some nonsense graphic?

Hacking isn't very cinematic. It's a very difficult to make it visually compelling on film and realistic at the same time.

[J!!]

Fun fact, that silly looking GUI was an actual file browser, and not something made for the film.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)

[CareerKnight]

Fun fact, that silly looking GUI was an actual file browser, and not something made for the film.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)

Neat, I sent that to my brother who I figured would get a kick out of it and his response was "My career in IT is driven by the fact that I can login to a random system and state "It's a Unix system, I know this""

[Archanubis]

One thing I've always wondered was if that EPA investigation that visits Grant in the book was merely a front for Dodgson's investigations into InGen's activity with the park. I only say that because there's a phone conversation between Grant and Hammond not long afterwards where Hammond says his lawyers contacted the EPA and they had said (or at least claimed) they had no idea what they were talking about. It's never really followed up, but still, I've always wondered.

[Kinky Vorlon]

One bit I remember from the book that filled me with later incredulity was Ian's declaration that 'the Internet', "Would destroy the future of scientific, intellectual and philosophical progress."

I'd say he's right. Anti-intellectualism has never been more stronger or more virulent. Antivaxers, incels, flat earthers, bigots, authoritarian politicians and the other massed hordes of unreason who would've been fringe two decades ago now all have a platform and spread their influence. It has led to a decrease in the quality in public discourse. Elections are no longer about issues or policies but about talking points and manufactured personalities.

There are other factors of course, cable news, the decline in spending on public education and infrastructure, wealth disparity, decrease in the value of post-secondary education, etc. The internet is filled with knowledge, unfortunately, most would rather waste their time on twitter or watching a 30 minute video about how Rise of Skywalker is the worst thing since the Black Death.

[Les]

One bit I remember from the book that filled me with later incredulity was Ian's declaration that 'the Internet', "Would destroy the future of scientific, intellectual and philosophical progress."

I'd say he's right. Anti-intellectualism has never been more stronger or more virulent.

Only, not. It wasn't Anti-Intellectualism that Ian Malcolm thought would bring about the end of progress, he honestly thought that if hotbeds of thought weren't isolated from each other they would go...

"Well what if... this?"

"WE had considered that and WE decided... no."

"Oh? Oh, sorry... so sorry... I'll just put this all in the rubbish bin then."