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All they need is a simple "mass famine/disease/war wiped out the human population." Only a small portion of humanity is left, so they have to be very careful about who procreates with who. Two people not being compatible and not making kids is dangerous for the future of humanity, so they created The System™ to make sure people are compatible with each other. Instead they go for "PSYCH IT WAS SIMULATION WE TRICKED YOU AGAIN!" A bunch of episodes could have been good but they go too far in a stupid direction. Black Mirror - What if plot twists, but too much.
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Jun 20, 2019 01:39
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LividLiquid posted:I thought Playtest was meh, but "lol shoulda turned your phone off" reminiscent of the fearmongering they used to do on airplanes about turning everything off combined with "it was all a dream" tipped it from "meh" to "my least favorite episode." Just make the story you started with! A game programmed to be as scary as possible based off of your individual fears picks up on your fear of losing your mind! The end. You don’t need to Shyamalan every story. “Everything you thought was wrong!” only works if what was actually happening is more interesting than what you thought was happening, like in White Bear. “Surprise! What actually happened was boring!”
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Jun 20, 2019 01:42
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Xealot posted:Yeah, I'm dead inside because I wanted a way more downer ending. Like, if instead of Frank and Amy being a 99% match, they're a 90% match. So, 90% of their simulated selves bet everything on love. But in the real world, Frank sees Amy's profile, swipes left, then keep swiping through a 95%, an 89%, a 93%... For a brief moment when it’s revealed to be a simulation I actually thought they might go this route and have them not match because of some trivial thing. “Technology advanced to be able to actually find you a perfect match, but it still doesn’t matter if there’s no initial attraction from both sides.
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Jun 20, 2019 01:55
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Griefor posted:I liked Metalhead because it's the intersection of Shut Up and Dance's "This is basically possible with today's technology" (practically, I'd say it's very close) and the absolutely bleak dystopic future a bunch of other episodes show. I got the impression that Shut Up and Dance was about how far vigilantism can go, especially with regard to internet justice. Basically the logical extension of doxxing or hacking people they felt have done wrong, but once technologies have advanced just a bit further and become more accessible. Essentially 'Anonymous', but too much! Then again, everyone targeted seemed to be actually guilty, and if they wanted to make a point against vigilante justice I would expect someone innocent to be accidentally targeted. I guess even without that point it's a creepy situation to have random internet people exacting vengeance, not to mention the voyeurism angle with the fight at the end being filmed by the drones. Did others have a different interpretation? It's one of my favorite episodes not only for being really tense and entertaining but also for having a really disturbing message. "This is practically possible" isn't much of a theme to compare across episodes IMO. Nearly all of the episodes with the exception of the ones which involve consciousness transfers are nearly (if not already) possible today. denzelcurrypower fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 02:22
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They should really just never do another episode about a person being a consciousness in a computer again. The Christmas special would have been a good bleak note to write that crutch off on and the museum episode descending into the self-parody of a million developmentally disabled men endlessly experiencing the agony of death inside novelty keychains should have been the point it became obvious they had beaten that horse into chunky salsa but even with only three episodes this season they still had to retreat into using it yet again.
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Jun 20, 2019 02:31
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White Christmas was the seventh episode of the series and the first with consciousnesses in a computer. And it was great, although PUA gone wrong was my favorite part of the episode. I had no problem with Hang the DJ having a happy ending, just not that happy ending. Playtest's ending was bad too but it was so stupid it was almost funny. No Wave fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 03:31
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Sleeveless posted:They should really just never do another episode about a person being a consciousness in a computer again. The Christmas special would have been a good bleak note to write that crutch off on and the museum episode descending into the self-parody of a million developmentally disabled men endlessly experiencing the agony of death inside novelty keychains should have been the point it became obvious they had beaten that horse into chunky salsa but even with only three episodes this season they still had to retreat into using it yet again. 
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Jun 20, 2019 03:36
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This is the one, thanks!
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Jun 20, 2019 04:09
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Sleeveless posted:They should really just never do another episode about a person being a consciousness in a computer again. The Christmas special would have been a good bleak note to write that crutch off on and the museum episode descending into the self-parody of a million developmentally disabled men endlessly experiencing the agony of death inside novelty keychains should have been the point it became obvious they had beaten that horse into chunky salsa but even with only three episodes this season they still had to retreat into using it yet again. I agree with this. It was especially unnecessary in the Ashley Too episode. They could've explored the same themes and still had some cool tech (taking artistic ideas from an unconscious person) without the whole 'consciousness copied into a physical object' thing that is getting really tired at this point. Obviously it was a neccesity to drive the plot and get the main characters to help Ashley but I think a different mechanism of having them perform the rescue would've been more entertaining than rehashing old ideas. That being said the rest of the episode was so on point, it's one of my favs even though the consciousness transfer thing is overused in Black Mirror at this point. I also hope they don't make any more about social media. I think there's been at least 3 episodes criticizing it and we get the point now. Off the top of my head there was Nosedive, Smithereens, and I forget the name of the one where they kill people who post hashtags or something equally silly. All seemed to have pretty much the same message. Social media sucks, it's addictive, causes bullying and a mob mentality, and messes with people's sense of self worth and personal values in favor of internet popularity. We get it!!! denzelcurrypower fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 04:27
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Nail Rat posted:
I'm not talking an exact replica of the robot dog from Metalhead. I mean some form of automated mass murder. If some organization puts the same amount of money and effort into it as has been put into, say, autonomous cars, you could get an army of drones that can clear an area of all human life. I agree that it would probably not be possible to make them in such a way that they'll still work a 100 years after being built, because you'd need automated maintenance of a level we can not currently make. But I do think that the people who made self driving cars could make a pretty scary army of murderbots if they chose to do so.
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Jun 20, 2019 05:57
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but I don't think Metalhead is anywhere near "very close." On a high level maybe(in that we can make robot dogs that move), but those little robots couldn't carry all the equipment they'd need to keep their guns and shrapnel trackers working for long. Also solar and power storage is not anywhere near being viable for something like that. Even if they could generate the hilarious amount of power they'd need from direct sunlight, after even a year or so as their batteries aged they'd probably die permanently if they went indoors, nearly instantly.
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Automated soldiers is one of the most terrifying things, because then there won't be any real costs associated with going to war. Sure, it costs money, but no one will give a poo poo. If ARE BOYS aren't getting killed overseas, then no one will give a poo poo how many wars there are.
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Jun 20, 2019 06:00
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Is that not the USA's current approach in the Middle East? Some guy behind a computer screen pushes a button like a video game and thousands of civilians are murdered without so much as a news article except to celebrate that a suspected terrorist may have been assassinated (no doubt with a replacement to take his place immediately after). No one gives a poo poo unless American soldiers are dying. Fully automated warfare is even more terrifying to imagine. denzelcurrypower fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 06:09
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The ending for htdj improved it for me, then again as a programmer it might because i’m so familiar with the style of algo that the episode was showing. For the whole show though, the only critique I have is that the episodes with pyrrhic endings have fallen off, which is a bit sad since it’s a very rare thing in media.
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Jun 20, 2019 07:47
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El Jeffe posted:Your brain doesn't stop working while you sleep, it's actually pretty active. There's continuity of consciousness. Yeah I hate this defense of the teleporter problem. "Heh, a natural bodily function is no different from having every atom in your body obliterated." Nerds talking themselves into vaporization, smh...
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Jun 20, 2019 08:02
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Ornithology posted:Social media sucks, it's addictive, causes bullying and a mob mentality, and messes with people's sense of self worth and personal values in favor of internet popularity. We get it!!! Unlike television, of course.  Mantis42 posted:Yeah I hate this defense of the teleporter problem. When people in Star Trek or whatever are teleported there's also explicitly a continuity of consciousness, it's just people simultaneously being transported from one place to another because it's a fictional mechanic not bound by the actual laws of physics. Death by teleporter is up there with Roko's Basilisk in terms of nerds inventing existential crises for themselves.
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Jun 20, 2019 14:08
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I still don't buy that. It's not instantaneous. The molecules in the body are all broke down and superheated to become energy, which is explicitly "scrambled." This energy is at least momentarily put into a buffer. There is a loss of stream of consciousness for sure. It puts an exact copy together at the end using the same atoms, but once that stream of consciousness has stopped, it's not you anymore. It just thinks it is (and will behave exactly the same), but the consciousness that shut off when it was put into the buffer never wakes up. The teleporter loving kills you, they can say it doesn't but by their descriptions of how it works, it totally does. Now, if it just opened a wormhole or something and so transported the matter intact, that'd be different.
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Jun 20, 2019 14:38
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Sleeveless posted:Unlike television, of course. The fact that RationalWiki and LessWrong are the top search returns for Roko's Basilisk tells me everything I need to know about it. Nail Rat posted:I still don't buy that. It's not instantaneous. The molecules in the body are all broke down and superheated to become energy, which is explicitly "scrambled." This energy is at least momentarily put into a buffer. There is a loss of stream of consciousness for sure. It puts an exact copy together at the end using the same atoms, but once that stream of consciousness has stopped, it's not you anymore. It just thinks it is (and will behave exactly the same), but the consciousness that shut off when it was put into the buffer never wakes up. There was an episode where we saw the transport process from the transportee's perspective and there was no break of consciousness, deal with it. It's scifi. E: alternately, have an existential crisis if you ever get struck so hard you get knocked out because that involves the temporary complete disruption of your entire neurochemical process. McSpanky fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 14:41
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Tehdas posted:The ending for htdj improved it for me, then again as a programmer it might because i’m so familiar with the style of algo that the episode was showing. Yeah, I thought it was perfect, and I even made a little "aww" noise out loud when I realized they were about to meet for the first time. I'm not sure exactly why that twist ending seemed so much stronger than the one in Playtest, which I really disliked. Both of them kinda ruined the premise of the episode you'd just watched, but I think Playtest's just made the previous fifty minutes a total waste of time, whereas in Hang the DJ, the entire episode helped build toward the impact of the twist.
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Jun 20, 2019 14:45
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The person on the other side of the transport would remember up until the last moment of the transfer so there wouldn't be a gap in his memories. Also wasn't that Enterprise? Because the technical consultant for the shows starting with TNG says he thinks it's death and he wished the process wasn't as it had been written in TOS. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/is-beaming-down-in-star-trek-a-death-sentence/ quote:“The way that the description of beaming is written, I would go for ‘you die and you’re reconstructed,'" said Michael Okuda, technical consultant for the various Trek shows and movies beginning with The Next Generation, on the Engage podcast. “I wish we had done some kind of dimensional transfer thing to be less ambiguous.” There's more but that seems cut and dry to me. This is the dude who wrote the series' tech manuals on the transporter and warp drive. Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 14:48
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Phenotype posted:Both of them kinda ruined the premise of the episode you'd just watched, but I think Playtest's just made the previous fifty minutes a total waste of time, whereas in Hang the DJ, the entire episode helped build toward the impact of the twist. I really disliked "Playtest," but my reason is that the 'twist' involves the technology failing. I think Black Mirror excels at showing realistic consequences of a technology working the way it's supposed to..."Entire History of You" or "Nosedive" or "Be Right Back" are great because the tech at the center of it is doing precisely what it's designed to do. People create their own misery, society oppresses itself, etc. etc. The whole cautionary tale aspect lands because you can totally see why people would want, say, a Grain, while also seeing how having one might ruin your life. "Hang the DJ" pulls the rug out from under you, but it feels motivated because you see why that system would exist. It's surprising, but it makes sense. The ending for "Playtest" doesn't, really. You think all the horror game stuff is leading somewhere, that all the conflict Cooper was avoiding at home might lead to catharsis in the game, or that the experience will have meaning that changes something...but actually the game simply malfunctions and somehow kills him. The whole thing is a fluke, none of it mattered, and the ending feels like a non-sequitur. It'd be like if in "Arkangel," the chip hosed up and made the daughter blind. So what? What's the point of the story?
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Jun 21, 2019 01:01
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Yeah Playtest is by far the worst episode of the series. It didn't even have a theme as far as I can tell. People have fears? Don't leave your phone on? lovely episode and the tone was all wrong for this show, too.
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Jun 21, 2019 05:45
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The only good thing about Playtest is the ending where the devs takes his last words and include it in the game.
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Jun 21, 2019 05:57
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What I also don't like is that Playtest does the whole "A-ha! You thought he was out of the simulation but he's actually still in it!" thing three times in a row. It just makes everything confusing and chaotic, and not in a way that improves anything.
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Jun 21, 2019 08:07
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Xealot posted:I see the parallel you're drawing, though. Even though the actual "Metalhead" episode doesn't make it explicit, I likewise assumed someone controlled the dogs, but a lot of people I've talked to read it as a Terminator kind of thing...a military AI decided to kill everyone and nobody controls them. To me, that kind of undermines the more interesting drone warfare aspects we're talking about. Because then it becomes a broader, "undone by our hubris" message rather than being about a human bureaucracy trying to streamline war by glossing over its horrors. I feel like it was trying to make a point about land mines just as much as about drones. The dogs don't run around patrolling an area or sit around in the open like a sentry gun for deterrence. They hide in inconspicuous places and lay dormant, waiting for their victim to come along. These dogs are basically landmines 2.0. There won't be any interesting backstory to them when the US deploys them in Afghanistan in a couple of decades. Most people in the world won't even be able to explain why the US is in Afghanistan by that point. No reason. It's just how it always has been and now you will have to live with the stupid mines and try not to get killed. Just like kids have to today in the Congo.
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Jun 21, 2019 08:11
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Xealot posted:I see the parallel you're drawing, though. Even though the actual "Metalhead" episode doesn't make it explicit, I likewise assumed someone controlled the dogs, but a lot of people I've talked to read it as a Terminator kind of thing...a military AI decided to kill everyone and nobody controls them. To me, that kind of undermines the more interesting drone warfare aspects we're talking about. Because then it becomes a broader, "undone by our hubris" message rather than being about a human bureaucracy trying to streamline war by glossing over its horrors. It's definitely not a superintelligent AI deciding on it's own accord that humans need to die, I don't think anyone interpreted the episode like that. There's still a human who decided that he needed a drone that murders people. This person just never considered fully what that would mean. To go back to the landmine parallel: Next person to step on this patch of land explodes is exactly the intent of the person placing the landmine, even though he's not triggering the explosion manually. But they only consider the enemy forces advancing on them currently. They are not considering that 10 years from now, the war might be over and a child might be playing in this field.
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Jun 21, 2019 08:29
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I like Playtest 
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Jun 21, 2019 08:48
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Same. But I'm a horror fan and it's the closest thing to a straight horror episode.
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Jun 21, 2019 09:03
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I honestly can't think of a single Black Mirror episode I wouldn't rewatch. I really liked Men against Fire and Metalhead for their bleakness- even if you take away the more serious underlying messages to them they're entertaining in their own right. Noone ever seems to mention White Bear either, which I find odd as that was a really harrowing episode
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Jun 21, 2019 09:26
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I'm not sure I'd rewatch any of them, honestly. Even though it's one of my favorite shows ever, I feel like most episodes lose most of their power if you already know where it's going. I think the reason you're not seeing many people talking about White Bear is because it's been a while since it became available. It was discussed plenty earlier in the thread when it was still recent. It is interesting that there's more discussion about season 4 than about 5 though.
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Jun 21, 2019 09:45
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White Bear got all the discussion it deserved. I liked Hated in the Nation, just the last shot was a bit off, but that wasn't really part of the main plot anyway. The Mass Murder thing was the big reveal, which I found very satisfying. To me Crocodile was one of the worst. I just found it quite boring. National Anthem, White Bear and Shut Up and Dance were the biggest emotional rollercoasters. Being the first episode without knowing anything what to expect NA gave me chills. San Junipero and 15MM were pure masterpieces. Entire History and White Christmas (especially the RL blocking bit) hit me in the feels. I felt the most uneasy though watching Nosedive. I'm not saying it was bad but I did not "LIKE" that episode one bit.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:07
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Griefor posted:I'm not sure I'd rewatch any of them, honestly. Even though it's one of my favorite shows ever, I feel like most episodes lose most of their power if you already know where it's going. Evernoob posted:I felt the most uneasy though watching Nosedive. I'm not saying it was bad but I did not "LIKE" that episode one bit.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:10
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No Wave posted:The part when the guy gets locked out of his job because his rating went below 3 was and continues to be very unsettling for me. Yeah, and when she got minus points for saying hi to the guy without even knowing what was up, then she checked around "whose side are we taking?" when a couple of months later China introduced their Point System 
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Jun 21, 2019 14:25
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I also started watching BM in order; National Anthem just hooked me and I binged all the way to mid-season 3 that day. If I were to compare it with other episodes maybe it doesn't have as much impact, but I'll always have a spot for it.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:26
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blizzardvizard posted:I also started watching BM in order; National Anthem just hooked me and I binged all the way to mid-season 3 that day. If I were to compare it with other episodes maybe it doesn't have as much impact, but I'll always have a spot for it. Binging Black Mirror is not something I would do. Two in a row at most, and only if the first one didn't really impress me. After Nosedive I didn't put the series back on for about a weak, I got disgusted hard. (still not a bad episode)
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Jun 21, 2019 14:29
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As I remember it, after Nosedive I thought "okay, I need a palate cleanser" so I continued on.  Of course the next episode is Playtest, so... my palate was cleansed but not in the way that I wanted. I probably stopped there.I loved Nosedive, though, as "disgusted" I was by it. I think its social and sci-fi themes aside, what made the episode really work for me was the gorgeous visual direction. You could make an art theory paper based on Nosedive alone.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:35
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Bryce Dallas Howard also sells the hell out of that character.
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Jun 21, 2019 15:21
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I probably wouldn't watch striking vipers or smithereens again. My least liked episodes are from this season.
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Jun 21, 2019 16:39
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Ornithology posted:Yeah Playtest is by far the worst episode of the series. It didn't even have a theme as far as I can tell. People have fears? Don't leave your phone on? lovely episode and the tone was all wrong for this show, too. A guy working the gig economy takes a risky job he wouldn't normally take out of desperation, is further compromised into performing corporate espionage for a bigger payday, and both of these together ultimately end up making him die a horrible death that is immediately covered up in the name of protecting corporate interests. Yeah, no commentary on modern life and technology there. Evernoob posted:when a couple of months later China introduced their Point System I love the weird xenophobic panic people have about China basically having a slightly less outdated version of a credit score. Like in America whether you can own property or even get life-saving medical care is based on a totally arbitrary point system managed by three separate companies that have zero oversight or transparency and have experienced massive public security compromises and full scales leaks of personal information and we currently require immigrants to give us the logins of all their social media accounts to even allow them in the country, we should really take care of our own poo poo before descending into yellow peril
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Jun 21, 2019 19:46
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blizzardvizard posted:I loved Nosedive, though, as "disgusted" I was by it. I think its social and sci-fi themes aside, what made the episode really work for me was the gorgeous visual direction. You could make an art theory paper based on Nosedive alone. Yes, definitely. It's aesthetically really incredible. And the look really serves the story...everything is soft and pastel and pleasant and photogenic. When the "Instagram but too much" aspects creep in, all the prettiness becomes menacing because you're keenly aware that she's still in this hosed up panopticon. The *least* pretty locations - inside Cherry Jones' truck or in the basement prison cell - are paradoxically the safest feeling because they're honest and the interactions are human. It's a great trick. "Nosedive" is a great episode. And yeah, people aren't talking about "White Bear" because they did a long time ago. But it's a good goddamn episode. If I had one complaint about "Shut Up and Dance," it's that the story pretty much does what "White Bear" does but less ambitiously.
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Jun 21, 2019 19:57
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Xealot posted:Yes, definitely. It's aesthetically really incredible. And the look really serves the story...everything is soft and pastel and pleasant and photogenic. When the "Instagram but too much" aspects creep in, all the prettiness becomes menacing because you're keenly aware that she's still in this hosed up panopticon. The *least* pretty locations - inside Cherry Jones' truck or in the basement prison cell - are paradoxically the safest feeling because they're honest and the interactions are human. It's a great trick. "Nosedive" is a great episode. The part that the ep really captures better than anything is the asymmetry between how casually ratings are given and what the lived consequences are for the guy behind the glass doors. No Wave fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jun 21, 2019 |
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Jun 21, 2019 22:00
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