Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror"

Started by wilder, January 26, 2012, 09:15:01 PM

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Jeremy Blackman

Faves:

1. Hang the DJ
2. USS Callister
3. Black Museum
4. Crocodile
5. Metalhead
6. Arkangel (the only stinker, really)


SPOILERS

"Metalhead" was decent. This is actually the type of sci-fi story I've been asking for. Robot apocalypse is a very realistic possibility, so I appreciated how realistically it was rendered here. Those "dogs" basically already exist, you guys.

Wasn't sure what to think of "Black Museum" until the end. But I think it really came together. The souvenir of endless suffering is one of the most genius things Black Mirror has come up with.

I didn't even notice this until I saw it pointed out, but all 6 episodes have female leads.

Jeremy Blackman

CC: The Future Is Now


A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is "100 percent fatal"

Nectome will preserve your brain, but you have to be euthanized first.


https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/

The startup accelerator Y Combinator is known for supporting audacious companies in its popular three-month boot camp.

There's never been anything quite like Nectome, though.

Next week, at YC's "demo days," Nectome's cofounder, Robert McIntyre, is going to describe his technology for exquisitely preserving brains in microscopic detail using a high-tech embalming process. Then the MIT graduate will make his business pitch. As it says on his website: "What if we told you we could back up your mind?"

So yeah. Nectome is a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company. Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass. The idea is that someday in the future scientists will scan your bricked brain and turn it into a computer simulation. That way, someone a lot like you, though not exactly you, will smell the flowers again in a data server somewhere.

This story has a grisly twist, though. For Nectome's procedure to work, it's essential that the brain be fresh. The company says its plan is to connect people with terminal illnesses to a heart-lung machine in order to pump its mix of scientific embalming chemicals into the big carotid arteries in their necks while they are still alive (though under general anesthesia).

The company has consulted with lawyers familiar with California's two-year-old End of Life Option Act, which permits doctor-assisted suicide for terminal patients, and believes its service will be legal. The product is "100 percent fatal," says McIntyre. "That is why we are uniquely situated among the Y Combinator companies."

Brain uploading will be familiar to readers of Ray Kurzweil's books or other futurist literature. You may already be convinced that immortality as a computer program is definitely going to be a thing. Or you may think transhumanism, the umbrella term for such ideas, is just high-tech religion preying on people's fear of death.

Either way, you should pay attention to Nectome. The company has won a large federal grant and is collaborating with Edward Boyden, a top neuroscientist at MIT, and its technique just claimed an $80,000 science prize for preserving a pig's brain so well that every synapse inside it could be seen with an electron microscope.

McIntyre, a computer scientist, and his cofounder Michael McCanna have been following the tech entrepreneur's handbook with ghoulish alacrity. "The user experience will be identical to physician-assisted suicide," he says. "Product-market fit is people believing that it works."

Nectome's storage service is not yet for sale and may not be for several years. Also still lacking is evidence that memories can be found in dead tissue. But the company has found a way to test the market. Following the example of electric-vehicle maker Tesla, it is sizing up demand by inviting prospective customers to join a waiting list for a deposit of $10,000, fully refundable if you change your mind.

So far, 25 people have done so. One of them is Sam Altman, a 32-year-old investor who is one of the creators of the Y Combinator program. Altman tells MIT Technology Review he's pretty sure minds will be digitized in his lifetime. "I assume my brain will be uploaded to the cloud," he says.

Jeremy Blackman

Anyone else watch Bandersnatch? It's fun! I managed to get nearly all the endings. It's pretty intuitive how Netflix allows you to go back.

This was certainly one of the most meta things I've ever seen. And that was enjoyable. I think Black Mirror has more impact when you're a captive audience, though, with no control over whatever frightening developments are coming next.

©brad

I thought it was fun too! I can't say I fully understood everything (I was really stoned), but I look forward to revisiting it and playing with different paths/endings. Booker is proving himself to be a really great and perhaps underrated storyteller. The structural gymnastics that went into writing this is impressive, never mind the tech behind it.




Robyn

Bandersnatch SPOILERS:
The most difficult choice to me was taking the tab of acid or not. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but the dude was so convincing. Then he asked me to jump and I thought "well, that make a lot of sense in this context.", so I did. It mostly made me realize how bad I am at making decisions. Anyway, I got a 5 star rating in the end, so I won, right?

Robyn

I had only watched the first season before, and just finished the second one. So far this has one episode a season (The Entire History of You, Be Right Back) that is absolutely fantastic while the rest is pretty mediocre imo.