TIL Ronald Reagan was deeply influnced by SciFi when implementing policy. He reportedly initiated cybersecurity changes within the DoD after watching the movie WarGames and asking if it was plausible.

https://lemmy.zip/post/59805111

TIL Ronald Reagan was deeply influnced by SciFi when implementing policy. He reportedly initiated cybersecurity changes within the DoD after watching the movie WarGames and asking if it was plausible. - Lemmy.zip

Lemmy

WarGames pretty much defined what hacking was until the late 90s. Any business and organization that didn’t change policy because of WarGames was going to feel pain.
His economic and social policies were informed by dystopian sci-fi
Much like MAGA is doing it today. The more things change the more they stay the same or something.
At that time, nobody had an idea how much time there would be left until AI could have such abilities as shown in the movie.
AI is dumb tho. It would never conclude that the only way to win is not to play. It would destroy all life on earth first.
There are stories out there from just the past week about how in war simulations AI launches the nukes something like 90% of the time.
See also the genocide committed by AI in Gaza
Are they saying that the president that named the Strategic Defense Initiative as “Star Wars” was deeply influenced by sci fi?
Star Wars is not sci fi. It’s religious fantasy.
… With space ships, lasers, and aliens. Is this like when people say heavy metal isn’t rock?

yeah…you think space ships, lasers, and aliens is science?

How do you focus a laser to project a meter only?

Well, it wouldn’t be a laser, more something like magnetically confined plasma.
You should check out him and his wife and their psychic.
Nancy AKA the throat goat
Ronald Reagan?! The actor?!?
Then who’s vice-president, Jerry Lewis?
Yeah, speculative fiction causes people to speculate. That’s what it’s for.
That’s arguably one of the greatest values of scifi, to get people to ask what might happen in a world where plausible technological or cultural changes take place, or what we could learn about our own world from such possibilities.
Spies Like Us skewers this quite well.
Also - real genius - crossbow (the program name for the laser system) has SDI and CIA vibes everywhere.
he also early onsent alzheimers dementia at the time too, so that played a part.
It wasn’t early onset. He was fucking old.

I’ve read reports that his mind started to noticeably go south after he got shot. Yes, he was fucking old, and that shock to his system did not help. He came very close to death, and many people who knew him said he was never the same after that.

And that happened two months into his first term.

Too bad he didn’t watch Star Trek. Fucking cunt.

Apparently he picked up Gene Roddenberry’s cane for him when he visited the set of Trek one time.

Bastards look out for bastards.

Given that trek has a contingent of right wing chud fans, it probably wouldn’t have helped
When he started his presidency he also asked White House staff where the war room was, like the one from Dr. Strangelove
I mean, valid question lol
He probably just wanted to get away from all the fighting.
Honesty there are worse things
Ronald Reagan Ruined Everything.