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ashpanash posted:If all the good place architects bailed, who's working with the bad place architects to continue to design the new afterlife scenarios? Wasn't that what was presented to us as the plan? It may have just been the exclusively Good Place architects that bailed. The ones working with the Demons are now Medium-Place architects, and they are probably a lot happier than the chucklefucks stuck in the main Good Place because they don't have to think about that anymore.
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Jan 25, 2020 10:09
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MadJackal posted:So the only difference between suicide on Earth versus living a good life to its fullest, helping everyone around you and eventually dying naturally is getting an Unlimited Pass to the Best VR Experience Ever, followed by inevitable suicide. maybe wait for the finale before being this much of a raging rear end in a top hat
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Jan 25, 2020 10:22
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Undead Hippo posted:"There is a door, and if you enter it you cease to exist." Eh, reincarnation implies a continuity of some kind of basic essence, so there's definitely a difference. Especially the way the show treats the reboots (full reboots or partial) as still meaningfully the same as the original.
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Jan 25, 2020 15:07
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I feel like if reincarnation was a thing in this universe, it would have been mentioned already
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Jan 25, 2020 15:12
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The effect of the Actual Good Place reminds me of the Doldrums from Phantom Tollbooth, with the difference being that the Doldrums is doing it intentionally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_orXUrQOEE
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Jan 25, 2020 15:20
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It is really interesting to see the range of reactions to their solution. To me it felt very elegant and beautiful, it restored the mystery of death to this eternal waiting room that had been created to prevent it. And "Death gives life meaning" is not a platitude, it is literally the truth. There will never be a version of human life without death, so it is just a basic fact. That we can try to imagine what it might be like to live forever doesn't make it true, so the fact will always exist that death is part of life, and part of what gives it form and purpose. My complaint with this episode is that it felt a bit rushed. I think that finding out the Good Place is hosed and figuring out a solution could have been a great multi-episode arc. It is hard not to think back on the Brent/Simone episodes and feel like we wasted too much time with that part of the story. But there is still the ending left to go, and I really have no idea how this will end. There are so many ways it could go, from a long sad goodbye to a final twist, to someone higher up the chain coming to block the use of the Death Door. This show is really about philosophy and punishment rather than life and death, but you never know: there's still time for a Bill Murray-as-God appearance!
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Jan 25, 2020 16:25
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Ishamael posted:It is really interesting to see the range of reactions to their solution. To me it felt very elegant and beautiful, it restored the mystery of death to this eternal waiting room that had been created to prevent it. There won't be a human life without death - but there is in this show. So that's silly.
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Jan 25, 2020 16:37
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I feel like if reincarnation was a thing in this universe, it would have been mentioned already Yeah, I'm predicting that they'll invent it. Ishamael posted:And "Death gives life meaning" is not a platitude, it is literally the truth. There will never be a version of human life without death, so it is just a basic fact. That we can try to imagine what it might be like to live forever doesn't make it true, so the fact will always exist that death is part of life, and part of what gives it form and purpose. That means death has some contribution to life's meaning, but its often used to mean "Death allows life to find a purpose" which comes awfully close to saying that death is a good thing. Yeah, the finality of peoples existence is a huge deal, but death loving sucks.
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Jan 25, 2020 17:15
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Strom Cuzewon posted:That means death has some contribution to life's meaning, but its often used to mean "Death allows life to find a purpose" which comes awfully close to saying that death is a good thing. Yeah, the finality of peoples existence is a huge deal, but death loving sucks. It feels like the show might be trying to say that the only thing that sucks more than dying is living forever.
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Jan 25, 2020 17:18
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I'm not sure how all these reincarnation supporters want this to go. So you are in the Good Place and go through the reincarnation door, you are reborn on Earth and live a different live not knowing about your one from before, you die again. Now this new person who lived a different life do they get unwillingly merged with who they were before?
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Jan 25, 2020 17:33
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Jet Jaguar posted:The Energy You Had When You Were Twelve. This is the bad place!
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Jan 25, 2020 18:02
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SunshineDanceParty posted:Ha I just rewatched the funeral episode and when Michael makes the argument about the Friends characters the only one he says should be in the good place is Phoebe. Haha, I didn't make the connection. That's amazing.
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Jan 25, 2020 18:29
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Strom Cuzewon posted:That means death has some contribution to life's meaning, but its often used to mean "Death allows life to find a purpose" which comes awfully close to saying that death is a good thing. Yeah, the finality of peoples existence is a huge deal, but death loving sucks. Death loving sucks but it's also very definitely a good thing.
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Jan 25, 2020 18:49
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It's funny, but the solution to the Good Place (the place) actually reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode "A Nice Place to Visit", where a crook dies and his afterlife is everything he ever wanted: dames hanging off him, gambling where he always wins, heists where he always gets away. Of course he soon realizes that getting everything you want with no challenge or effort sucks all the fun out of it and the twist is that he's actually in Hell. Before I watched this series, I always felt that "Nice Place to Visit" was a low-to-middling episode, but now I appreciate it more.
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Jan 25, 2020 19:00
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Kazy posted:The series is going to end up with the gang walking through the door, then waking up and seeing a huge sign that says "Welcome! Everything is fine." This is my favorite idea yet. socialsecurity posted:I'm not sure how all these reincarnation supporters want this to go. So you are in the Good Place and go through the reincarnation door, you are reborn on Earth and live a different live not knowing about your one from before, you die again. Now this new person who lived a different life do they get unwillingly merged with who they were before? Maybe. I think you would still be "you" like at the level of your soul, but you would have led different lives. It's just an evolution of being rebooted in your same body. Except now you would be in a different body with a different personality, but you'd still have that little voice in your head from what you learned before.
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Jan 25, 2020 19:22
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the good place is not heaven the catholic church doesn't unequivocally condemn deaths by suicide to hell dead people cannot commit suicide the explanation they gave of the door is not how buddhists talk about nirvana please read books
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Jan 25, 2020 19:25
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Lutha Mahtin posted:the good place is not heaven  )I think the “we don’t know what’s behind the door” will be key and I’m prepared to be gently but pleasantly surprised by whatever they find beyond it.
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Jan 25, 2020 19:44
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The black mirror episode “san junipero” is good for this too. A perfect afterlife so people start doing more and more ‘harmful’ things just to feel something.
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Jan 25, 2020 20:25
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socialsecurity posted:I'm not sure how all these reincarnation supporters want this to go. So you are in the Good Place and go through the reincarnation door, you are reborn on Earth and live a different live not knowing about your one from before, you die again. Now this new person who lived a different life do they get unwillingly merged with who they were before? Exactly like the partial reboots they described last episode. It's a "new" you, but a little core part of your personality carries over.
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Jan 25, 2020 20:59
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socialsecurity posted:I'm not sure how all these reincarnation supporters want this to go. So you are in the Good Place and go through the reincarnation door, you are reborn on Earth and live a different live not knowing about your one from before, you die again. Now this new person who lived a different life do they get unwillingly merged with who they were before? I love the idea and here's my take: It's a new realm. All souls are from the Good Place. You reserve a new birth and that's your entry. Time stops when there's empty seats. All humans must have souls. Your character is intact. It's still you, just with blanked memory and the quirks of developmental phases. On exit, it's like remembering where you left your car keys. This would be rad. Especially if you could get weird with it like spending a week as a tardigrade or simultaneously being 500 people at once.
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Jan 25, 2020 21:48
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1glitch0 posted:This is my favorite idea yet. New Game+? No way man, that would be imbalanced and unfair to people who still had to learn and grow that voice from scratch. If there's a new game plus mode for life, they should all have to play together in the same universe server.
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Jan 25, 2020 22:03
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The day before the episode aired I was watching the episode "Gripes of Wrath" from Duckman of all things. In the episode a super computer solves all of life's problems creating a Utopia. However within a month it's apocalyptic for very much the same reasons as the Good Place.
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Jan 25, 2020 22:26
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It keeps reminding me of the book The Management Styles of the Supreme Beings, where God sells the Earth to another pair of deities (who used to be a pair of air spirits on Mars that built an empire so they were worshiped on many worlds before God gave them Earth too) so that he can take a break as he feels he's losing his touch and someone else can tackle it with a fresh perspective. However, they introduce themselves to the population of Earth leaving no doubts about what there is and how it works, and shut down hell completely, preferring a pay-as-you-sin system that results in no one sinning simply because they literally cannot afford it. Politicians become honest, the crime rate drops to nothing, everyone has all the food and shelter and money they could want as the world now works, but no one is happy because every time they so much as think something bad, a little window pops up with an accountant who's just like "Hey, so if you act on that, that'll be about $10000. Are you sure?" Also the punishment they do come up with is somehow crueler than infinite torture. If you do something and can't pay, you go to a debtor's prison that is magical in nature. You just sit there. No moving, or interaction with other people, just... waiting. The sentence ends when someone pays the debt, but many people who sin owe so much that that is impossible, and in the prison they need nothing. That means they don't get sick, or hunger for anything. You just sit there for eternity, hoping someone pays your debt even when that chance is basically zero. At least infinite torture in hell you know where you stand, and you can just deal with it. The prison is worse because you have hope.
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Jan 25, 2020 23:00
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In that system, anyone who has money beyond what they need to survive and live happily is sinning by choosing to hold on to their money rather than use it to ease someone else's suffering!
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Jan 25, 2020 23:13
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Khanstant posted:In that system, anyone who has money beyond what they need to survive and live happily is sinning by choosing to hold on to their money rather than use it to ease someone else's suffering! THat's why things equalise so much. A rich guy can claim to be unable to spread the wealth around, but that's a lie, and so that means he'd be charged for that lie, so he has no incentive not to give his wealth away. It's cheaper to do so than to try to horde it and get charged for avarice, especially given how expensive some sins are. Government level sins are unaffordable because they cost the GDP of a whole country to be allowed, and personal level sins like rape and murder are so expensive to the individual committing them it's not worth it as they'd spend the rest of eternity in a debtors prison. It's an interesting story. Satan has a living human accountant who works for him as a manager (because otherwise he'd have to go back to working for Amazon and working for hell has better benefits) who advises him that they can keep the lights on by changing the purpose of hell to a holiday retreat. It works because humans are drawn to unpleasant things as long as they have the option to leave easily, so a lot of people get curious. They basically sell the idea of morbid curiosity. It's like the London Dungeon or Dracula Experience writ large.
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Jan 25, 2020 23:21
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Phenotype posted:You guys are being super blasé about the prospect of being able to have all your wishes fulfilled. Like, okay, it eventually gets old because there's no challenge but like... how long do you envision it taking before you get bored of it? I have to imagine I'd be happy to live in the magical lap of luxury for at least as long as my lifetime on earth. If they can rig up a way for me to shitpost on the internet and play online video games I might never leave. I think there's an implication here that they're on "Jeremy Bearimy" time (which the writers mess with because they want to shoehorn in pop culture jokes, but the underlying philosophy is sound). It's not necessarily five hundred years that's the problem, it's eternity. Given an infinite amount of time, then you'll go through literally every experience there is to have, see the beginning and the end of the universe, start a drunken fistfight with every world leader in history, do every weird sex act ever created to every person who has or will ever live, and then once you've done all that you're still faced with an infinite amount of time ahead of you. At that point, I guess the only thing left to do is to give up the concept of self entirely, and go Even reincarnation has essentially the same problem - they can go back and live the life of every being that ever lived, and every hypothetical life they could have lived, and then what? In terms of infinite time, that may as well be instantaneous. Plus once you do that, you start getting into the realm of questions about whether these are four unique 'souls', or if Chidi is going to reincarnate at some point as Eleanor, and vice-versa, and at that point are they just manifestations of the same being?
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Jan 26, 2020 01:05
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The problem with "they should just find a way to live forever in the afterlife" is that we, the viewers, can't do that so any solution that involves it is inherently meaningless. Part of the point is to come to terms with your own inevitable death. I think it's really beautiful.
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Jan 26, 2020 01:48
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I never liked the abstract critique of infinite life becoming boring. Human brains just don't work on that level, unless the Good Place changes your brain so you have a perfect memory, I can listen to music/watch movies from just a few years ago and have a rollicking good time. Certain drug experiences never get old because they are a complete change from sobriety that always 'feels new'. Plain old missionary sex is always loving great, I guarantee you I'll never get sick of that. Flow states in learning new skills, exercise etc are always fun. You don't just whinge "but I've done that before!!". Infinity sounds boring but I seriously doubt that a well-adjusted person wouldn't be mostly enjoying themselves in the moment. Especially if all the people you love are hanging out as well. It's one of those philosophical problems that will always remain abstract but there are people that literally do nothing (meditate) for a majority of their adult lives and they find it meaningful and rewarding, I just don't think that infinity time is a problem for an earthlike human brain. If you can't feel pain, things just appear and you are automatically perfect at anything you try, etc, that's a different story and is maybe the one they're choosing to tell.
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Jan 26, 2020 01:49
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Phenotype posted:You guys are being super blasé about the prospect of being able to have all your wishes fulfilled. Like, okay, it eventually gets old because there's no challenge but like... how long do you envision it taking before you get bored of it? I have to imagine I'd be happy to live in the magical lap of luxury for at least as long as my lifetime on earth. If they can rig up a way for me to shitpost on the internet and play online video games I might never leave. 4500 years ain't poo poo on the scale of cosmic existence, much less *~eternity~*. if, at the end of the day, you just want the monotony to stop after 100 years or 10,000, the end result is the same
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Jan 26, 2020 01:50
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I'd wager that to adapt to immortality you'd need to find a way to stop relating to the world like a normal human, and leave mortal perspectives on pleasure, boredom, etc. behind you to grow into something more stable. Though the Good Place's problem is just as much that there's nothing to strive for, since everything is being handled by superhuman beings. I guess the two points are related - at some point you'd have to grow up and become the one who actually has to sit down and design flying puppies or perfect symphonies for the new guys, as something to do besides passively consume. YaketySass fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jan 26, 2020 |
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Jan 26, 2020 02:21
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Eat This Glob posted:4500 years ain't poo poo on the scale of cosmic existence, much less *~eternity~*. if, at the end of the day, you just want the monotony to stop after 100 years or 10,000, the end result is the same Yeah, pretty much. You are in a nice place, but you know, that nothing will ever get you out of there and this will continue for an eternity. If course it will be kind of an inescapable prison. And the only way to continously enjoy such a prison is letting your brain shut down and atrophy your centres for critical thinking. The only true way to attain eternal happiness would be some kind of mind altering lobotomy. The pure existence of such a door reframe everything. You are in this amazing place by choice and get to live there for as long as you want to. "I consodered leaving but on reflection, it's still cool. Let's reconsider in another 10.000 years or two."
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Jan 26, 2020 02:28
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Arist posted:The problem with "they should just find a way to live forever in the afterlife" is that we, the viewers, can't do that so any solution that involves it is inherently meaningless. Part of the point is to come to terms with your own inevitable death. I think it's really beautiful. Well said. There’s something compelling about the idea that they found an eternal afterlife and after fixing it realized that *anything* eternal is untenable, and actual death is the only way for things to end.
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Jan 26, 2020 03:01
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I would say the Soul Squad did a pretty good job for what is essentially crunch work and an unpaid internship. The Good Place is secretly about the importance of labor.
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Jan 26, 2020 03:47
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Arist posted:The problem with "they should just find a way to live forever in the afterlife" is that we, the viewers, can't do that so any solution that involves it is inherently meaningless. Part of the point is to come to terms with your own inevitable death. I think it's really beautiful. I am going to be bummed if we actually see what happens when you go through the door. There was something really impactful of Janet admitting she doesn't know what happens.
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Jan 26, 2020 04:50
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The real Good Place would surely have infinite seasons of all your favorite shows--versions which never jump the shark, so I don't see the problem with living forever.
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Jan 26, 2020 04:51
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What if they go through the door and it’s just another level of existence and they’re basically doing the whole thing over with a Michael-like that is just on an even greater plane of existence. The Gooder Place does exist. And beyond that, there’s an even greater place of existence. For infinity.
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Jan 26, 2020 04:54
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Mordiceius posted:What if they go through the door and it’s just another level of existence and they’re basically doing the whole thing over with a Michael-like that is just on an even greater plane of existence. The Gooder Place does exist. And beyond that, there’s an even greater place of existence. For infinity. I would be completely ok with milkshakes just getting better and better
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Jan 26, 2020 05:05
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You'd think the Good Place could rewire your brain to where you don't get bored from the awesome things. Or just go through that door where you can go to any point in history, real or imagined, and be ruler of your own Weed Orgasm Puppies nation for a few billion years. Then destroy it like you would in SimCity and start again. BigBallChunkyTime fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jan 26, 2020 |
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Jan 26, 2020 05:07
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Mindy St. Claire is the first person to walk through the door, while holding two giant bags of cocaine and giving everyone the double bird.
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Jan 26, 2020 05:31
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I feel like you could follow a train of thought in that the more of an impact you've made on the world, the longer you'd want to spend in The Good Place. For example - Hypatia vs dude who cut his hand. People, for the length of human existence would be interested in going back and meeting Hypatia and look how excited she was when someone new wanted to see her. So the bigger impact you make on earth, the more you make a name for yourself, the more interested people will be in meeting you in the afterlife and the more excitement you'll be able to have from meeting new people. Dude who cut his hand is a random nobody and at some point, everyone who knew of his existence dies and no one comes to see him, so he is forgotten. In a way, the larger legacy you create in life, the longer you would probably interested in the afterlife - to the point that once you become a "great historic figure," you potentially create a potentially infinitely interesting afterlife.
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Jan 26, 2020 05:45
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