Some Scattered Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 4 of Black Mirror

I would write this into a cohesive post but am in a bit of a crunch, so hopefully these can serve as helpful notes for someone who would like to write a thoughtpiece on this. Feel free to take, just happy to get these ideas out. I bolded the parts in particular that I thought could be nice aphorisms from the episode:



I saw ep 4 of black mirror, a truly beautiful revealing of the importance of death in the human story. with a presentist mode of existence, and the important characteristic ability that we have to "forget" (a la Nietzsche), would we really want to keep going, if we had the chance? easy to say yes now, hard to know what you'd say then.
this was the first good episode this season for me,
the importance of life's ephemeral glow.
her decision to stay with the girl into eternity was so much more heartbreaking than the option to die and preserve the meaning she lived
cheating death does not evade nothingness, if anything, it emphasizes it
sartre would have loved that episode
we live with this paradoxical yearning to both escape death and experience a type of meaning that transcends life. this episode sort of demonstrates that we can't have both, in a really beautiful way.
singularity is bullshit, technology can't "solve" existentialism.

Conversation with a friend:
i had to like, think for a while just to reconcile the emotional disturbance it left me with
thats a sign of a good ep

yeah
It's so creative, even as a premise, then to build that world, build the characters so that we care about them, and then introduce a conflict and meaningful resolution
All in 90 mins

Yes! How could they do so much in so little time!
High maintenance also is good at this in its own way
Like you know so much about everyone so quickly, from so little

Character driven plot development

But this black mirror had this kubrick-esque quality
Where even at the end, during the supposedly happy ending, you can't help but feel there is something deeply disturbing about all this when you're looking at those circulating lights at the very end
Similar type of discomfort u get during the outro to 2001 odyssey

Just like, not readily explainable, but you know there's something

This is what Heidegger called "working art"

Future Science

Automated Professors
http://narrativescience.com/artificial-intelligence-platform/

Open-Source Science
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5632760
http://www.openscienceframework.org/

Automated/Centralized Experimental Infrastructure
https://www.transcriptic.com/

http://www.synthego.com/

A very cheeky symbiosis.

(2:35:30 PM) matteoplix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
(2:35:31 PM) matteoplix: BOOM
(2:44:34 PM) bboyamir: SICK
(2:45:22 PM) matteoplix: i went in one
(2:45:24 PM) matteoplix: soooo cool
(2:45:30 PM) bboyamir: OH really!
(2:45:38 PM) bboyamir: in mexico?
(2:45:39 PM) matteoplix: yup in new mexico
(2:45:41 PM) bboyamir: new
(2:45:45 PM) bboyamir: damn thats tight
(2:45:50 PM) matteoplix: was sick nasty
(2:45:58 PM) matteoplix: it was so cool inside despite the temperatures
(2:46:01 PM) matteoplix: no ac
(2:46:42 PM) bboyamir: see like
(2:46:45 PM) bboyamir: technology and nuclear energy
(2:46:49 PM) bboyamir: thats us DOMINATING nature
(2:46:55 PM) bboyamir: but these earthships
(2:47:00 PM) bboyamir: thats us like smirking at nature
(2:47:05 PM) bboyamir: and i kind of like that attitude more
(2:47:09 PM) matteoplix: yeah
(2:47:09 PM) bboyamir: windmills too
(2:47:12 PM) matteoplix: like hey , i see u
(2:47:15 PM) matteoplix: nature
(2:47:22 PM) matteoplix: very cheeky symbiosis
(2:47:25 PM) bboyamir: hahahah
(2:47:34 PM) matteoplix: thats the way it needs to be
(2:47:39 PM) matteoplix: no more raping

What should be our approach to renewable technology? Shall we only focus on the utilitarian end goal, the destination, securing pure energy in the most efficient manner possible, or is the method, the journey, the approach, equally important? Is the world our gas station or our friend?

For more see: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology"

Here is a supplement:

When Heidegger investigates 'the question concerning technology' he is interested in the essence of modern technology, not just any technology; for it is modern technology that poses the problem. Heidegger presents as an example of traditional technology peasant farming. The relationship of the peasants to the land is one of respect: they tend the land, are stewards of the land, cultivating it, synchronized with its patterns, to let the crop develop out of it. Modern technology, however, exploits the land as pure resource, trying to gain the 'maximum yield at minimal expense'. Modern technology challenges the land, or whatever it happens to be exploiting, to yield more. Objects are thus revealed as pure resource. Objects are exploited for all the energy or use they can yield and are left to stand there until they are to be challenged for more use again. For instance, the dam on the Rhine reveals the Rhine as merely a resource for hydroelectric power. Even viewing the Rhine for its beauty has been made into a tourist industry, again exploiting the Rhine as a resource for tourist gratification and photos.

Possible technical changes for the future

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/17/the-greasy-fix-it-web-of-intent-vision/

http://worrydream.com/KillMath/