Black Mirror: Be Right Back.

Honestly, I agree that this gave me the feeling of "the uncanny" because I felt it throughout the entire show. I think it might help to have a robot version of someone for certain things, but I also feel like it is wrong in many different ways. I feel like if all you have to do is pay money to basically bring someone who isn't going to age or anything back, then you're not allowing for the family and loved ones of the deceased to move on; thus, they'll be stuck in this weird place, unable to move on. I also feel like it is wrong because it becomes a burden on the people who have the robot. For example, the woman in the show felt like she couldn't have her friend over because she had a robot there which looked and acted almost exactly like her dead husband. This probably would have concerned everyone more than they already were. She also ended up having to keep him in the attic for basically the rest of her life as far as we know. And not only did it affect her, but it affected her daughter as well. The daughter now has to keep robot daddy a secret as well, which is a lot to ask of a child.

I would like to know your feelings on this as well.

Personal ID: Black Mirror

In the last two weeks we've watched episodes from Black Mirror. The first episode was called White Bear and it deals with punishment. To specify, the form of punishment represents the code of Hammurabi, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." It makes the punishment match the injury. The woman involved in the kidnapping and murder of a little girl had to endure suffering similar to what the little girl went through. The only thing is the woman's memory is erased everyday so that she has to experience the torment again. This raises the question, when will the punishment end and more importantly how can the woman learn her lesson if her memory is constantly being erased.

The next episode, Be Right Back, deals with something less disturbed. However, it can be a little creepy. When a woman's fiance dies, she can't handle the loss and resorts to using a program ,recommended by a friend at the funeral, that allows her to still talk to her lover through technology. Before long she becomes attached to the program and even springs for a synthetic version of her dead fiance. She was pleased with it because it reminded her of her fiance. However, this didn't last because the program didn't have spontaneous reactions like the original person. She had to constantly tell it what her fiance would usually do. In the end, she had to keep the program and it now lives in the attic of her home. This movie deals with the uncanny valley. The program became so much like the genuine that it was seemingly real. The program was creepy because it was supposedly a dead man brought back from the dead. I'm sure at one point the woman forgot that her lover was dead. This is how scary technology can be at times. What will happen once people start using fully robotic duplicates of themselves?

Personal Identity Week 1

Over the past couple of weeks we have discussed personal identity. Within those weeks we have seen movies that display these lessons in different ways. One example of this is the movie Catfish. In this movie, Ariel and Henry were filming a documentary about Nev. However, another story was starting to unfold when Nev starts interacting with a family from Ishpeming, Michigan. He starts sending pictures to a girl named Abby, who we thought was a talented painter. He then starts interacting with her mother Angela and older sister Megan. After months of talking to her, something happens during their Facebook chat that makes Nev suspicious. When Megan told Nev that she was a singer, Nev wanted hear her sing. Megan would send him songs that were supposedly recorded by her. However, when Nev looks up the songs on YouTube, he notices the songs sounded exactly the same, except the person singing it was Megan. This was the moment that made Nev wonder, "what else has she been lying to me about?" As the story unfolds, we find out that Megan wasn't even a real person. She was someone made up by Abby's mother, Angela. Throughout the movie, it is revealed that Angela has a community of made up Facebook accounts. The reason why is because she doesn't enjoys her real life in Michigan. In reality, she is constantly taking care of her husband's sons, while the husband doesn't really do anything. She isn't happy with the life she's living so she makes up a fake life on Facebook. However, after spending time with Nev, she realizes that she could still do what she loves which is painting. The movie ends with Angela pursuing her career and a scene of her husbanding talking about catfish.

The movie showed how one person is different from the other. Angela had different versions of herself displayed through Megan and even Abby. Abby was made up to be a painter, but it was really Angela, more specifically "Angela the Painter." Megan displayed Angela and how she sees herself on the inside. At least that's my view on it.

Our Public Identity

     After watching the Black Mirror story about Ash and his wife, and then Ash 2.0, we discussed in class the concept of our public identity. In the film, it was Ash's public identity that he formed online that was programmed into Ash 2.0. The company or whoever provided this service took all of that information and formed a person so to speak including the attitudes, feelings, and responses that were deduced from Ash's online profiles. In our society the idea of how we present who we are online is a pretty big deal, being as everyone can monitor the actions we post. This is something to keep in mind since today more and more employers judge applicants thoroughly by using our online identities.
     So is it really our "best" self we try and put online? I agree in that we tend to promote what we find best about ourselves online. Our best thoughts, moments, pictures, achievements, etc. The reason we do this may vary, but personally I see it as the over arching thought that we all care what others think of us. That may not be a popular opinion but it is the truth and in some instances it is important to keep in mind what others think of you. That is not to say base your actions on what people think, but just know that people are gong to observe your actions and form their own opinions. So in order to ensure that people form positive opinions is the reason we tend to show our "best" selves online.
    
     

A little Late: White Bear

The women who had watched and filmed the little girl being killed was put through some cruel and unusual punishment for her actions. It was literally taking the saying "an eye for an eye" and putting it into effect. She went through her punishment day after day, but not remembering anything that had happened the day before because they would erase her memory, so that she would experience fear as well, just like the little girl. If punishment is supposed to make you a better person, how was this if she could not even remember what she had done until the very end of each day? She was not able to grow from her punishment or even realize what she had done. Yes it allowed her to experience fear  but her punishment become an object of their pleasure. It became a show and a way to make money. This type of punishment could never work. I say just send the person to jail or whatever and allow God to handle their eternal punishment. In the end, they will get theirs and it will be worse than anything we could do to them on this earth.

Unnessesary Punishment in Black Mirror

To start off i would like to say that the movie kept my attention the whole way. I did not realize until the end that everything i had been seeing and questioning was false information. The director did a great job with that part of the movie. As for what the movie was centered around i did not feel a sense of attraction toward.

The main character of the story for me was not believable. If she had been a murdered and killed this little girl as was told in the movie, then she should at least have some set of skills that could prompt for survival. This was not the case and the whole movie she was just seen as a whiny cry-baby. This made if unbelievable for me. Even with the memory lose that had happened for multiple straight days, there would have still be some form of inherent skill set or thinking that would have lingered with her.

As for the punishment i found it interesting. There was no lesson learned. The point of punishment is to teach a lesson the person who is being punished. For people in the old days who would steal they would get their hand cut off. Back in that day people would eat with one hand and wipe their ass with the other. The punishment would be to cut off the hand that they eat with. This was a severe punishment but it definitely got the point across, don't steal. For the girl she never learned. The would punish her and take her memory of being punished. This is the equivalent of beating a dog because it woke up in the morning. Then you are nice the whole day only to beat it up when it wakes up the next day. There is no reasoning behind it other than you just want to show your dominance. I would like to know what others think of this.

Catfish, a week later. . .

            In class we watched the film, Catfish; although, there were many psychological themes throughout this film, there were also many philosophical themes as well. As we spoke in class, there were many things that appeared to be morally wrong and upsetting. One theme was the relationship between Angela and her husband, and if what she did constitutes as cheating. I believe cheating in any way or form is when an individual is unfaithful to their significant other. Since Angela was seeking happiness and pleasure elsewhere and lied to her husband as to why she was contacting this other male, I believe this was her being unfaithful to her husband. Lying to her husband not only breaks the trust between the two of them, but their communication was disrupted as well; a solid relationship is built on these two principles. Even though one could say Angela wasn’t in the right state of mind and she was caught up so deep in this false identity, she still was unfaithful to her husband.

            Another disturbing theme was the fact that Angela got her young daughter involved. It seemed like Angela had a pathological lying issue and would do whatever she could to keep this false identity alive. It’s really unfortunate to keep this false life going she had to use her 9 year old daughter and potentially get her harmed. It was not wise to let a complete stranger into her life and put her daughter in danger. It was asked in class after watching the movie if we felt like what the mother did was morally wrong? I would say yes, because not only did she do the things I mentioned above but she also manipulated and disregarded another’s feelings and emotions. I remember the question arose in class, “Do y’all feel bad for her, due to what she has to deal with?” Like many I said yes; then the next question was, “Does this change your mind if this is morally wrong?” Although she was dealt many hardships, just because we feel bad for all she has to go through; nonetheless what she did was wrong in my eyes.

In the recent class film, Catfish.  We saw how a 40 year old woman. Acted as a whole network of people to deceive a man.  In her experience she acted as her daughter, herself her imaginary daughter and sons. Angela explained at the end how she created the personas because she was unhappy with her life and Ellen of the personas were a part of her former self.Even though I do sympathize with Angela, I do not take pity on the fact she lied to everyone, and cheated not only on her husband,  but her entire family. I would imagine for it to be hurtful for my wife and mother to make up complete lies about me,  my step dad and brothers.  I would imagine her family to be a little ashamed and hurt by What Angela did.  Angela seemed as if she lied a lot and all the time. She even lied about having cancer for absolutely no apparent reason.
I Believe catfish was a wake up call for a lot of people.  The.message wasn't only to tell the truth, but come to terms with all the decisions you make and realize that each one significantly impacts your life. Angela quit dancing because she wanted to.  She made use of her free-will.  I believe that we as people have to take responsibility for our own actions.  Her life style was a hindrance however she knew the terms and conditions of it in the first place.

Black Mirror: White Bear

     This week in class, we watched a film about a girl, who was convicted of murder, being subjected to an endless form of punishment by having to relive the same day over and over again. When the film first started, I thought this was going to be a propaganda film about how the current techno –culture is turning people into passive observers in their everyday lives.  Essentially, when I saw the people recording the girl being chased by the crazy masked guy, I thought the director was trying to emphasize the fact that it has been increasingly common in recent years for people to pull out their phones and record what’s happening rather than helping the person who is in danger. While this may have not been the main point of the movie, it is important to consider that the people who went to this exhibit in this film were just an exaggerated form of the passive observers in our current society.

     If people continue to become desensitized and less involved in their surroundings, who is to say that we won’t all turn into those people who voluntarily went on the exhibit. Moreover, do you think that the form of punishment used in the movie is viable and, more importantly, ethically right? Personally, I do not feel that it is morally right, even though she was guilty. Even if they did leave her memories intact, I still believe that those involved are no better than the girl. Basically, the people who are recording her are just reenacting what she did when the murder took place, but they are not considered to be just as guilty just because it is just a reenactment. Lastly, since the tourists seemed to be enjoying watching her running for her life, while in her confession video she seemed remorseful, I think this makes them guiltier and less human than the girl convicted. That is just my opinion though. 

White Bear

In today’s class, we watched a very interesting and controversial film that would spark a very good debate. Because a woman participated in the kidnapping and murder of a little girl, she was basically tortured daily because of her immoral action. But instead of persecuting her like any other criminal, she was constantly reminded of her crime. While her fiancé killed the child, she recorded, so as “punishment” she was chased for hours while others recorded her instead of helping her. So basically it was like a game show, in my eyes. But the spectator’s actions struck me as that’s what people do daily. While someone is getting jumped or fighting, instead of getting help, the first thing people do is whip out their cell phones, record it, and upload it to social media outlets.

 Just recently, a brawl happened at White Station High School where a girl was getting jumped by another big group of girls and instead of students trying to break up the fight, they recorded and expressed commentary. In results, the student that was jumped had a cat-scan performed on her head because of the excessive punching and kicking. But those students also got suspended, which I think is a very easy punishment. But because everyone decided to record and egg the fight on, she could have lost her life in that fight.

But there are some positives to recording criminal events. Not too long ago, a police officer was filmed killing an unarmed black man while he was running away. If the act wasn’t caught on camera, there wouldn’t have been no criminal charges against the officer.

But does it still give people the right to stand and record while people are dying or almost losing their life? What would you do if you found a helpless male or female getting beat to death? Would you walk away because it has nothing to do with you? Would you record it? Or would you attempt to intervene and call for help?

Why should people take responsibility for their actions in society ? and Why should people bring morality into their actions ?  In today`s society many people look past many actions. For example, why do monopolies consistently exploit their workers? Today in class we discussed how CEO's of big businesses "express their strength" by paying their workers minimum wage. This wage makes it hard for the "weak" to even prosper. I would suggest that the exploitation of the weak doesn't make you strong.  You would not give a bully credit. For being strong for preying on the weak.  I believe the workforce is the same.  The exploitation of the worker is the "strong" preying on the weak.  But you know What is really important?  The weak that makes these CEOs strongi believe that the strong at dome point should acknowledge that it strength only comes from is exploited and oppressed workers. CHK-FIL-A would not be a prosperous business if they did not have workers to sell their food.  For this reason I believe minimum wage should be risen. I believe that people now days who are wealthy have not "worked for ALL their wealth. Some are born into the right ffamily. With this being saI'd I beliEve that people who are financially able should provide a living wage for It's workers.  WITHOUT the workers I truly believe no one would be RICH.

Catfish

In class this week, we watched and discussed the movie "Catfish." In the discussion, it was mentioned that probably the worst thing that Angela did was bring Abby into her crazy web of deception. This is true, but it also extended to Abby's friend seeing as she had some play in the painting lie. Abby's friend seemed to me that she knew about the lie, but she didn't remember whether or not she painted or not. This struck me as odd seeing that Angela had gone as far as to include Abby's friend in the lies.

I also firmly believe the Angela was cheating on her husband. Here is a link to the multiple definitions of "cheat" from dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cheat?s=t According to this, Angela definitely cheated. She influenced Niv and commited fraud in just about every way through facebook, the paintings, and phone calls/texts. Obviously, cheating is morally wrong.

How do you feel about Abby's friend being involved in Angela's lies as well? How do you feel about Angela cheating? Do you believe that she did cheat or do you believe that she just got caught up in it? If you believe that she cheated, why do you think she did it?