6 lessons from Black Mirror season 4

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Lifehacker watched the new season of the series and tells us about the dangers of the future he warns us against. Caution: Spoilers!

1. It is dangerous to assert itself in the virtual space

Episode "USS Callister"

The CTO of a virtual reality immersion company is a fan of an 80s series that is reminiscent of Star Trek. And the hero of Jesse Plemons creates his reality on the basis of this show, where he is a merciless captain on a spaceship.

The antagonist collects the DNA of his disliked employees and uploads it to this matrix. With them, he behaves like a typical tyrant and does what he could not in reality. But even pliable digital copies get tired of being humiliated.

It's easy to transfer this story to life and imagine an office worker who, in his free time, tries to prove his worth in online games and Internet holivars. The creator of the series, Charlie Brooker, showed from the side of a typical "Internet warrior" all the senselessness of his achievements and pathos.

2. Children do not need to be overly patronized

Episode "Archangel" (ArchAngel)

Already today, parents have great opportunities to control their children. You can set restrictions in the browser, check correspondence on social networks, or even install a hidden camera in the child's room. But for now, this is more of an illusion of control. If a teenager wants to hide something, then, most likely, he will be able to bypass parental traps.

With the Archangel system, it is impossible to hide from overprotection. A special chip is implanted into the child, and the program allows parents to find out at any second what their child is seeing now. And most importantly, the system blocks everything that children are better off not encountering: violence, pornography, or an aggressive dog behind a fence in a neighboring house. The child simply does not see unwanted objects: even a cut on his own hand turns into blurry pixels.

The daughter of the main character was a member of the "Archangel" in early childhood, but even disconnecting from the system did not save the family from conflicts. "Black mirror" for an hour shows all parental fears and the simplest way not to bring the situation to a critical one: you just need to trust your children.

3. Memories are better not to stir up

Episode "Crocodile"

The accidental downed cyclist, whom a couple of lovers decided to throw into the water, backfired many years later. A woman who is successful in her career and family life cannot cope with the pressure from the past and begins to get involved in a dangerous game, where each new step brings to the collapse of everything that was built after an accident and hiding evidence.

And, of course, where without the technologies of the future. Insurance companies have created a device that can reproduce a person's memories on a screen. And with his help, another, less tragic story was masterfully intertwined with the first.

A cold episode in the style of "Fargo" leaves us no choice: crime can penetrate any life. But still, you should be careful and not give in to emotions in dramatic moments. A funnel of bloody events sucks into itself. Better not to approach her.

4. Ideal relationships are created only by you

Episode "Hang the DJ"

Dating sites and Tinder have long been a part of our life. In "Black Mirror", the system for finding a wife or husband was made as absurd as possible.

Imagine that you live in an ideal city where your only goal is to find a partner for life. But it is not you who choose, but the program, which also decides how long your relationship with this or that person will last. First, a few fleeting dates for a day, then a few weeks, years, and then the system will find you a partner for life. The guarantee of the success of family happiness is 98.8%, and once you have arrived in the town, please be so kind as to completely obey the system.

But history shows why this program fails. Still, people know better with whom they feel truly happy. "Black Mirror" teaches you not to trust numerous services and relationship experts who promise to find the perfect partner.

5. With technology, it's better not to get involved in war

Episode "Metalist" (Metalhead)

The episode, directed by David Slade, does not offer the clear morality that other Black Mirror episodes do. We were not even shown a human flaw that would succumb to deconstruction in a familiar and harsh manner. We have only consequences before us.

Humanity plunged into a black and white post-apocalypse. And even for the usual benefits, you have to fight with robots who calmly deal with people.

Of course, the heroine of the episode is an example of courage and resistance to the last. But it seems that the authors of the series are trying to convey something else: let's not bring the world to a state where creepy robots begin to set the rules of the game. Otherwise, the battle for the likes will turn into a battle for food and medicine.

6. Black Mirror shouldn't be taken too seriously

Episode "Black Museum"

A self-deprecating episode that shows our relationship with the satirist Charlie Brooker. A curious girl in a museum of forbidden technologies is shown various exhibits: a device with which you can feel the pain of another person, or a technology that allows you to instill in your consciousness the mind of an already dead relative.

Despite the dramatic ending (it becomes clear why the girl came to the desert to the obsessed museum owner), the episode is filled with humor and plays with the viewer, who is used to experiencing a philosophical parable. But in this case, the typical fan of the series was laughed at, electrocuted and immersed in the body of a plush monkey, leaving him waiting for new episodes of "Black Mirror".

It's not as serious as it seems to us. And we need to be sympathetic to the emergence of new technologies, not foreshadowing the apocalypse in the release of gadgets that seem to us to be simulators of real life.

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