ABP Reviews

[All Seeing Eye]

Podcast delivery #354
17th June 2024
newsletter.podcastdelivery.com/p/delivery-354

*Make a bogey email address to read

The Telegraph (Tristram Fane Saunders)
19th June 2024
www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/a-better-paradise-toe-curling-sci-fi-podcast-radio/

*Make a bogey email address to read

Chartable.com Website
chartable.com/podcasts/a-better-paradise/reviews

[Luigi]

Web Archive Link (bypass walls)

In the pilot, though, we’re mostly stuck in the wretched company of Kurt (John Wick 4’s Shamier Anderson), a self-pitying tech bro. Here is Kurt, talking about working for a video-game company: “We were all sociopathic, altruist deluded monarchs, vain cretins in search of a cause to die for, an audience of acolytes to worship us, and – and! – a reason to live in this mad, mad world.” It’s all like this.

Purely coincidentally, it is the tale of an embittered guy who left a major video-game company, and can’t stop complaining about it. “The worst of it is, we were going to be different from all the other technology companies. Then we were just the same. Then we were worse,” moans Kurt.



We hear much about his years “working for start-ups, big-tech internal start-ups, you know, the kind of well-financed divisions that try to obliterate the innovation of others without even dignifying the inventors of that innovation with a purchase-and-exit.” Oh yeah, that kind, we know.

[VCPR]

Jul 21, 2024 23:00:31 GMT Luigi said:

✂️

Another clue for my theory that Dan was forced to quit by Zelnick and Schreier

Anyway: here's PD review

SPOILER: Click to show

There's a case to be made that every time you put your headphones in to listen to a podcast, you're altering your reality.

Set aside the fact that podcasts are one of the most intimate forms of consuming content for a moment. If the headphones you use are tied to your phone’s operating system then you’re opening yourself up to enjoy whatever augmentations to reality your phone has to offer.

So what does that look (or sound) like?

Well, for now it’s all pretty utilitarian but still pretty damn impressive.

Your headphones can now customize and even extend your ability to hear. Are you over the guy across the street using his gas-powered leaf blower 5 days a week? Active noise canceling headphones can help with that.

That doesn’t even factor in the things people are strapping to their faces these days.

The point being– it’ll be a while before you can rely on augmented reality to absolutely turn on, tune in, drop out. Until then, if you’re looking for an escape in the form of an absurdly entertaining audio adventure, you’re going to want to check out A Better Paradise.

This haunting narrative comes from the minds behind Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto and navigates the fine line between utopia and dystopia; all the while serving up a legitimately captivating blend of thriller and speculative fiction.

The first episode of A Better Paradise pitches a chilling yet fascinating scenario, where the boundary between games and reality becomes eerily blurred thanks to just how all-encompassing the game is designed to be.

With the ever-increasing pace of development surrounding any number of the technologies we interact with on a daily basis, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between A Better Paradise and what might just be in store for us here in our present reality.