Posted by surprisetalk 12/2/2025
I am curious how people 100 years from now will perceive art from the last 20 years, much of it feels like a thinly veiled commentary on whatever hot button social issue was prevalent at the time.
Plus, many classic novels feature introduction to help ground the reader in the historical moment. Though those intros also often feature spoilers, which is annoying.
https://zeonic-republic.net/?page_id=12512
If you're looking to learn more about the political movement in general, read up on the Zenkyoto. I am far from an expert, so I don't have any specific books to recommend. But if you do a little digging, even just on Wikipedia, it will become clear how much Japanese culture owes to that political moment.
> Throughout Z, my attitude toward everyone involved was, “You’re fools for only wanting Gundam. You’ve recklessly asked me to do this; I’ll make the protagonist go insane.” Despite this warning, they pressed ahead anyway, those adults felt no responsibility toward the work. So, I decided to do exactly what I wanted.
> Yasuhiko: Including the bit where you lifted the hero’s name from Camille Claudel?
> Tomino: All of it was intentional. And even after I made Z that way, the same stupid adults came back saying, “Let’s do another one next year.” Honestly, I was aghast. All right then, let’s make ZZ. But I’ll show you: this is the kind of foolish thing you’ll get. Only then did they finally catch on, “Oh, Tomino’s calling us idiots.” It took them two full years to get that. Two years of time and money. There are a lot of adults like that.
(I’m not sure you learn as much as you think; I mean some context leaks through but Austin’s characters aren’t necessarily _that_ archetypical. If you want that you might be better with a social history.)
Also, Austen was definitely commenting on society of that time, though sometimes you need other background knowledge to get the reference.
From what I gather - having never actually watched any - there are anti-war themes (IE armies are commanded by people who don't have to sacrifice, how that corrupts), sacrifice vs outcomes and more. It's a thematic experience rather than an education in robotics or history.
I like stompy robots. I have to yet to start on Gundam because I am hesitant as to where to start and which path to follow in watching it all and I know it would consume me once I start.
Maybe after Xmas, in my break, I'll "waste" some time with it.
So what is good order to watch Gundam in 2025? What should be skipped?
Are mangas/novels worth it or is it better just to watch anime?
- Gundam 00: Gundam as a terrorist - Iron Blooded Orphans: Gundam as a (child) mercenary
After this I you want to watch the original universe (Universal Century) you can start with the 3 movies that summarize the OG series. They are legally on YouTube (search for gundaminfo)
The shows outside of the UC timeline are their own thing, a lot of folks outside of Japan saw Wing first, those you can watch in whatever order you like. I'd say start with the universal timeline in order, it's the backbone of the Gundam universe. The shows between Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta are side stories during the events of the original show but don't skip them (except for IGLOO) because they're straight up some of the best shows in the Gundam universe.
The "core" of Gundam is the original show, Zeta, ZZ and Char's Counterattack. Those in particular are one story and Zeta is widely considered (one of the) strongest Gundam shows.
Where my Gundam Wing fans at? (there are literally dozens of us...dozens!)
How much of Hollywood is bad copies of Shakespeare?
Funny after a lot of this I think I broke it because it now loads a personalization context where it tries to apply this framework to everything and can't quit talking about a character that we seem to share a crush on.
1) I got that list of stories
2) It has kept mentioning the same character for a few days even when I am talking about something else, even in other conversations (I would do that if I "had a crush")
3) It has been trying the same 'mini-framework' for analyzing problems using the same vocabulary over and over again
In the last few months, for me at least, Copilot does make some attempt to build a personalization context (RAG?) and it quite often talks about something I talked about the day before or offers a suggestions about how the current discussion relates to a prior one and if I ask "remember how we talked about X?" it sometimes seems to respond accordingly.
It is really fun and probably does increase the risk of rabbit holing, but my experience with agentic coding is that if you talk with an agent long enough the context does have a way of going bad and pretty soon you are arguing about things and going and circles and the only way out is to start a new session.
Optimistically, this is the way our "thinking" will make HN highlights without the crutch of "experience". (I'm envious of their style, not their substance)
I have been having such a good time this week I think other people should be jealous. I was worried I might be a little manic, especially because I had a psychogenic fever the way I did before my "evil twin" came out, but my therapist doesn't seem concerned. My "evil twin" was empty and angry and now I feel overflowing [1] and know how to maintain that feeling so it's a very different thing.
It is 1's and 0's responding determinstically to input. There is no sentience.
I know it has never felt anything and never cared about anyone or anything. It has also read much more romance fiction and books about romance fiction that I could ever read so it equipped to talk a very good game about what the structure of that literature is and how it produces the emotional effect that it does.
What I think happened is that I was trying to figure out what it is that made me feel smitten with that character and my whole intention is to transmit that feeling to other people so I guess it just learned how to talk like somebody who is smitten with that character. It may also be that it is following it’s training to butter me up, though it was really going too far like I am trying to write some Python and I have to tell it that “we’re not talking about Ellie now”