Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
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Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#2"Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings."
Yes, add that and it might be something interesting but sure not the Black Mirror I want to watch. I mean it is called Black Mirror for a reason.
And it is not even true. Take the episode "San Junipro" for example? Isn't there some hope and opportunity in it? And yet, this episode (one of the best in my opinion) only works because the hope can shine against a black background.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#3When did it promise that it would? I feel like people reject these stories not because they're counterproductive, but because they frighten them. We feel so personally and viciously attacked by modern narratives because they question everyday concepts and routines we're all comfortable with.
I'm reminded of growing up watching episodes of Twilight Zone and Star Trek that yes, were kitschy stories, but instilled lifelong lessons about independence in their audience. Black Mirror isn't my favorite show but it seems to resemble the same "near future cautionary tale" archetype that has remained popular for centuries.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#4Tell that to the people funding kill bot technology.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#5"How dare you try to make things better by making big changes, make small incremental changes that get pulled back in four or eight years instead and be happy about it"
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#6"Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings." Yes, add that and it might be something interesting but sure not the Black Mirror I want to watch. I mean it is called Black Mirror for a reason. And it is not even true. Take the episode "San Junipro" for example? Isn't there some hope and opportunity in it? And yet,…
Eh, Black Mirror is basically just a 21st century version of The Twilight Zone only with the Cold War fears replaced with modern ones. But still, TZ wasn't all doom and gloom but found the time to be optimistic now and then.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#7Trying to replace everyone with AI and actively build a surveillance state also won't lead us to a better future. They say Black Mirror is dystopian but I would say we are on the dystopian timeline so it is just emulating reality a few years into the future.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#8> Black Mirror fails to consistently explore the duality of technology and our reactions to it
Reality fails to present a reason to expect there to substantially be a “duality”.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#9"Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings." Yes, add that and it might be something interesting but sure not the Black Mirror I want to watch. I mean it is called Black Mirror for a reason. And it is not even true. Take the episode "San Junipro" for example? Isn't there some hope and opportunity in it? And yet,…
> Take the episode "San Junipro" for example? Isn't there some hope and opportunity in it? And yet, this episode (one of the best in my opinion) only works because the hope can shine against a black background.
Arguably though that episode is a bit of an outlier. I think its the most hopeful (relatively speaking) of all the black mirror episodes i've seen.
Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future
#10I disagree with the premise of this article.
Sometimes an extremely pessimistic vision of a possible future CAN change things...by making it so people are determined to fight to prevent that possible future from ever happening.
The novel 1984 by George Orwell was published in 1948. It is an extremely pessimistic vision of a possible future for mankind....and many of us over the generations who read it really really did not want to live in such a future and acted accordingly.
Black Mirror's pessimism could be similar.
Also in Black Mirror technology in of itself is never portrayed as inherently bad in any episode. It is the people and the way they choose to use the technology that leads to the horror. In that way every Black Mirror episode has that element of optimism. If only each new piece of tech in reality could ever be introduced so we maximize the positives rather than the negatives.