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Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

theguardian.com

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Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#101

Post by dexwiz »

jstanley wrote: post #96
dexwiz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno about you, but I don't care about a computer program that believes it's me living on after I die. You can wrap it with all the feel good trappings you want, that set of bits is not you. If anything, living a life in a way that you put off doing the fun things until the after life, spiritual or digital, sounds awful.

> You can wrap it with all the feel good trappings you want, that set of bits is not you. If there's a continuity of experience from your present day life to your virtual life, if the virtual version shares all your memories, hopes, fears, thought patterns... Then in what way is it not you? Do you also think that "reconstructive teleporting" would build another person but that person would not be you?

I don't like teleportation that much either. But at least there is meat on the other end. Uploading is an entirely different mode of existence.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#102

Post by int_19h »

thom wrote: post #67
afinlayson wrote: post #58

You know someone could make white mirror (or a title of a techno utopia) but those people are too busy making memes using AI.

We did sort of have that, it was called Star Trek: The Next Generation.

And the Culture.

And if you look beyond Western sci-fi, there was plenty of that stuff in the USSR. Most of it not particularly good, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon_Universe and Ivan Yefremov's books (most notably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda:_A_Space-Age_Tale) stand out.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#103

Post by runjake »

Black Mirror is dystopian fiction that hits pretty close to home. Maybe too close to home.

S07E01 "Common People" hit me pretty close to home with my own healthcare insurance experiences, where my rates go up every year and my coverages go down, and things that were formerly covered are now covered in Plus/Premium add-on packages. We also see this streaming and cellular services, except those are more elective.

The way I see it, if you don't like it, too bad.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#104

Post by anon-3988 »

dexwiz wrote: post #20
weinzierl wrote: post #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,…

I dunno about you, but I don't care about a computer program that believes it's me living on after I die. You can wrap it with all the feel good trappings you want, that set of bits is not you. If anything, living a life in a way that you put off doing the fun things until the after life, spiritual or digital, sounds awful.

Arguably the only "you" that exists is the "you" right now. For how can you show that you are not in vat? Prove that yesterday was real? Even if a second ago was real?

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#105

Post by Mistletoe »

How did we have shows like The Handmaid's Tale and 50.5% of America was like yeah that sounds good let's go for that?

How did we have decades of superhero movies and then elect a bonafide fascist villain? I don’t know. The lessons we were teaching weren’t the right lessons somehow. Or they were swamped by social media nonsense and decades of underfunding education.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#106

Post by anigbrowl »

moduspol wrote: post #35
bawolff wrote: post #14

Huh, i guess i both agree and disagree with this article. I disagree that black mirror has to save the world. Art doesn't have to literally save the world to be useful, it just has to add to the conversation. The fact we are talking about it proves that it has. On the other hand, i've never really liked black mirror that much. It feels polemical to me. Its unrelenting pessimism robs it of nuance, which makes it feel…

The part I don't like about it is that the premise is too often: "Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology." For example: in a society where autonomous security guard robots kill intruders, there woul…

For example: in a society where autonomous security guard robots kill intruders, there would not be people sneaking into warehouses.

We have a society (in the US) where cops often shoot first and ask questions later, but many people still do crimes. People will take risks about things that desperately matter to them, and indeed stories of such risk-taking are common cultural fodder. Are you not just generalizing from your own behavior?

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#107

Post by dclowd9901 »

"San Junipero" I think was the kind of black mirror episode that black mirror always should have done. An honest depiction of a certain technology to its ultimate realization. Is it completely perfect? Absolutely not, but it's good in all the ways that matter to people.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#108

Post by dexwiz »

anon-3988 wrote: post #104
dexwiz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno about you, but I don't care about a computer program that believes it's me living on after I die. You can wrap it with all the feel good trappings you want, that set of bits is not you. If anything, living a life in a way that you put off doing the fun things until the after life, spiritual or digital, sounds awful.

Arguably the only "you" that exists is the "you" right now. For how can you show that you are not in vat? Prove that yesterday was real? Even if a second ago was real?

Of course the only me that exists is right now. In no feasible reality would I ever shake hands with me from yesterday or me in the vat. Nor would I ever shake hands with me in a robot, just a robot that thinks it's me. Even if those other entities exist they are not me.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#109

Post by goatlover »

moduspol wrote: post #68
mickael-kerjean wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology This is precisely why I love Black Mirror. Despite the warnings, we're allowing companies to build killer robot and are running a large scale experiment to b…

We always have moved forward technologically despite doomers. They were there for first person shooter games, the Internet in general, dating apps, etc. That’s not to say those things didn’t have significant downsides. They do. But it took years to get there and they weren’t an overnight surprise, like they seem to be in the Black Mirror episodes I saw. Imagine what a few Black Mirror episodes would look like if they…

Part of moving forward is that we've avoided nuclear war so far, but we certainly built the arsenals to stop all forward progress.

Re: Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future

#110

Post by danielscrubs »

moduspol wrote: post #68
mickael-kerjean wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology This is precisely why I love Black Mirror. Despite the warnings, we're allowing companies to build killer robot and are running a large scale experiment to b…

We always have moved forward technologically despite doomers. They were there for first person shooter games, the Internet in general, dating apps, etc. That’s not to say those things didn’t have significant downsides. They do. But it took years to get there and they weren’t an overnight surprise, like they seem to be in the Black Mirror episodes I saw. Imagine what a few Black Mirror episodes would look like if they…

Does Pirates of the Caribbean have to live up to the same standard? Or is it only sci fi? Star Trek?

The BBC black mirror seasons where great and a fresh take on sci fi. They filled the gap X-Files left behind, and it doesn’t need to do more.

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