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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

#111

Post by ahoka »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #56
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…

Black Mirror got way less nuanced after Netflix picked it up. “Nosedive” was the most surface-level take of that idea, the “pain chip” episode was basically just shock-value, the “trapped in the weird guys computer simulation” episode was “Whiteout” but derivative. The killer robot bees episode was…an episode of tv I guess? Possibly it’s a format that just inevitably “wears thin” quite quickly, but it did feel like t…

Every episode is just "What if people are forced to wear IoT butt plugs?" or something ridiculous stretched over an episode.

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

#112

Post by goatlover »

alabastervlog wrote: post #22
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.

The end shows us the entirety of anything real happening: it’s a modern day pharaoh’s tomb. Nothing’s alive, just pantomiming at life. Hieroglyphs and organs in jars, but even less human. What you see is the only real thing. Caretaker machines swapping hard drives or whatever it is they were doing (it’s been a while since I watched it) That’s why it shows us that, when it does.

I disagree, because they show the characters inside the computer simulation experiencing the world. They're conscious beings, and there's a big fight between the two main characters related to that existence, with both deciding to mind upload at the end for starting a new life together. You might disagree that simulated characters can ever be conscious in the real world, but there's plenty of fictional stories where the simulated characters are conscious, this being one of them.

As such, it doesn't matter what the substrate is for this story. The technology allows a kind of conscious life after death where people can choose to live life differently than they previously did.

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

#113

Post by goatlover »

m3kw9 wrote: post #53

It’s doomer fuel, just like how most AI doomer always reference Skynet to scare people. Most lack the practical imagination because it is often complex, so they let Hollywood do most of the work for them.

I thought the AI doomer was more paper clipping than Skynet. Even before terminator, you had Dune's Butlerian Jihad with Frank Herbert's warning about letting technology do the thinking for humanity, which led to humans being enslaved.

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

#114

Post by harshitaneja »

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…

Meow Meow Beans episode in Community predated the Black Mirror episode by a couple of years.

But yes, agreed about Black Mirror feeling hollow with its lack of nuance in its pessimism.

However I don't think Nosedive is the right episode to make this point as we see the protagonist getting assistance from the truck driver lady as well as the people protagonist ends up being held with are able to share a laughter in the freedom of losing it all.

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

#115

Post by petepete »

danielscrubs wrote: post #110
moduspol wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was on Channel 4 not BBC.

Brookers' earlier and finest work (Screenwipe) was on BBC4 though.

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

#116

Post by noufalibrahim »

Animats wrote: post #91

It's not that Black Mirror is bad. It's that, as the article points out, we don't have a fictional vision of the future to use as a goal. The author mentions Jill Lapore's 2017 article in the New Yorker, which is sort of a survey paper of dystopian fiction from that period.[1] No alternatives are presented. For most of human history, the big problem was making enough stuff. There just wasn't any way to make enough st…

I remember an article, I think by Neal Stephenson, that described the change in the attitude of SF over the years. Things like 20000 leagues under the sea, off on a comet etc. were optimistic, adventurous and generally upbeat. Even the Asimov books were more about world building than doomsaying. There's quite a bit of dystopian pessimistic stuff that's in the market now and perhaps it's just because it's what sells or maybe there's a deeper underlying reason. In any case, the shift was something he talked about in the article/talk.

I remember reading round the world in 80 days when I was a kid and while it's not really "science fiction" in the 90s, the overall premise really triggered my imagination. Can't really say that for many of the more doom and gloom type stories that I read later in my adult life. I liked the freshness of Black Mirror when it first came out (pre Netflix) but then it dawned on me that it was mostly doomscrolling repackaged and converted into slick entertainment. I tuned out after that.

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

#117

Post by casey2 »

Don't forget nuclear power in the Simpsons and many shlocky horror movies before that. America could have had thousands of nuclear power plants by the 2000s. Though oil politics and deep pockets directly funding anti nuclear advocacy groups plays more of a role here than fiction.

The direct cost is at least 100,000 lives in America alone, all the technological advancement that comes with cheap electricity, and who knows what affects it would have had on the climate.

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

#118

Post by anon7725 »

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…

“Tonight's story on the Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States and there's a little town there called Peaksville. On a given morning not too long ago the rest of the world disappeared and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched, or whether the village had somehow been taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing. The cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines, because they displeased him. And he moved an entire community back into the dark ages, just by using his mind.”

It’s A Good Life (The Twilight Zone, 1961)

Seems rather on the nose for 2025.

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

#119

Post by noufalibrahim »

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…

The problem is I feel is that the "value system" tied to tech. innovation is very simplistic and often doesn't really have any forcing functions other than short term profit for a small number of people.

Things like AI, surgical bots etc. can definitely be useful and can better our condition. They probably are doing that too but the amount of serious long term thinking from a traditionally ethical standpoint is limited compared the amount of research that goes into making the technology more powerful.

Feels like a car with an overpowered gas pedal but very rudimentary brakes and steering.

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

#120

Post by casey2 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #106
moduspol wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No. You are just generalizing from specific news stories you've read about cops.
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