HyperNormalisation 2016
Why Hacker News recommends it
Strongly and repeatedly recommended as a visually distinctive documentary and a guide to postmodern ideas on politics, truth and technology.
What it is
Adam Curtis's 2016 BBC documentary HyperNormalisation, about 160 minutes long. It cuts together roughly forty years of politics, finance and technology to argue that people have retreated into a simplified fake world.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2016 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec mcphilip · 2016-12 · on “A bigger problem than ISIS: The Mosul Dam is failing”
No joke, just finished watching HyperNormalisation[1]. The most depressing part to me is that Adam Curtis isn't off on an easily dismissed tangent in this documentary, he's essentially cross cut the last 40 years into a 3 hour cliff notes guide to some of the darker corners of postmodern philosophy. Specifically, Baudrillard. His 2002 essay, The Violence of the Global[2] has some interesting food for thought: >We believe that the ideal purpose of any value is to become universal. But we do not really assess the deadly danger that such a quest presents. Far from being an uplifting move, it is instead a downward trend toward a zero degree in all values. In the Enlightenment, universalization w
Strong rec alistproducer2 · 2017-01 · on “Ask HN: Will automation generate social massive protests?”
Hypernormalisation is an awesome documentary that actually covers this subject. If you've got a couple hours to kill I highly recommend it. It can be watched on youtube [this video]
Strong rec bartcobain · 2018-09 · on “Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?”
Hypernormalisation from Adam Curtis. I have been looking for another documentary as visual appealing, as evolving as this one but haven't found any other documentary. [this video] Do you know another documentary as good as this one?
Strong rec onion2k · 2020-09 · on “Do We Have Victorians to Thank for Consumerism?”
Adam Curtis is a brilliant film maker. "Hypernormalisation" ( [this video] ) and "Bitter Lake" ( [LINK] ) are well worth watching too.
Recommends krenoten · 2016-12 · on “Leonardo Da Vinci Lost Drawing Discovered”
There's a great documentary about this by Adam Curtis called [HyperNormalisation]( [this video] ), discussing how truth is seriously under fire right now.
Recommends m_ke · 2020-11 · on “South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes”
I recommend watching Adam Curtis' documentary called Hypernormalisation to get a sense of how badly this can get abused by political operatives. Especially this clip: [LINK] [this video]
Cites bstrand · 2018-02 · on “John Perry Barlow has died”
It is worthwhile to consider Barlow's legacy--particularly this utopian rhetoric about cyberspace--as examined by Adam Curtis in his 2016 film Hypernormalisation (starting at 40m 35s):- [this video]
Cites dghughes · 2018-07 · on “Japan Tests Silicon for Exascale Computing in 2021”
I was watching the documentary HyperNormalization and at 1:12:00 it was mentioned Larry Fink built one of the first "supercomputers" (at least a large system for its time). It was used for risk analysis it was built in 1986. The company was BlackRock and the computer was called Aladdin. [this video]