These two episodes of Black Mirror really shows us how society may become one day. A society where we can relive our lives in a different way like in San Junipero and one where we have devices that record everything we do. I think that if a place like San Junipero were to really exist, humans would lose most of their drive to live. Why would you spend so much time and work on a life that could be relived in a better world? While it may be a chance for people who had their lives taken from them, like Yorkie who was disabled for a majority of her life, San Junipero was a place where she lived to be the person she couldn’t be in real life. For someone like me, if I had a chance at life again, I wouldn’t take it, in all honesty. Haven’t I suffered enough in this one life time with dealing with people I don’t want to ever see again but in this second life time, I’m stuck with them forever. Theres also no guarantee that in relaity, this San Junipero would be like “heaven”, meaning whose to say that everyone there is actually a “normal” person.

While in the episode, a somewhat similar idea but in a different fashion, the Grain. The ability for a small piece of technology to be implanted in ones brain and record their lives until the end of time seems to create more problems than it benefits. On one hand, you can see the breakdown of relationships because the idea of trust is brought into play, but with evidence now. When Fi cheated on Liam, there was proof of that. It also breaks the relationship between friends because of the same issue, trust. In my opinion, technology like this has yet to be needed to this extent. Maybe there are some benefits like how the Grain and warn one against driving while intoxicated, as seen in the episode, but are there really times in life that one has to re-watch the events they experienced before? To me, the answer is no and in relaity kind of scary as well.

In “San Junipero,” two women named Kelly and Yorkie meet in a beachside town and form a special connection. As the episode unfolds, however, we learn this isn’t any simple tourist destination, but a virtual reality playground for the dead and terminally ill, where you’re assigned era-specific outfits and dope Barbie cars. As each creeps closer to death in the flesh, the two grapple with whether they should continue their relationship in the virtual world,  to “pass over” rather than “pass away.” In other words, they live in a future where they can choose to either disappear, or have a replica of their human consciousness uploaded to the all-powerful cloud, existing in a fantasy land forever.

I don’t think it’s possible, because  transferring our consciousness to a computer to be remotely feasible, not only would we need a computer capable of handling the computational load of our brains and of replicating the complicated web of neural connections, we’d also need a method for transferring the parts of our brains that make us who we are to a computer: our memories, our unique way of processing information, our personal quirks, all into a digital format. The things we don’t know about the brain vastly outnumber the things that we do know, making building an artificial brain a tough task.

I found both of these episodes of Black Mirror to be really interesting. In the episode titled “History of You” people in this society have a tiny grain implanted in the back of their ears. This grain records anything they hear, speak or see and they can access these memories anytime on a TV or their eye. I thought this was a really cool thing to have until Liam practically went insane after going through many redos. These grains could also be an invasion of privacy. Someone could force a person to play one of their memories on a video player. The grains are also similar to social media today. Anyone could see what you post on social media. A lot of times, social media users post their memories such as pictures or thoughts. Things that were posted in the past can be brought up and be damaging to a person’s life. In the episode, the grain destroyed the marriage of Liam and his wife.

The episode San Junipero is about a simulation that deceased or elderly get uploaded into a simulation where they could be in their younger bodies. In the beginning I didn’t think much of the episode. Later on in the episode, I learn that Torkie and Kelly are in a simulation and that they are actually really old. I thought this was a really interesting idea. A way for anyone to live forever, even after they die. Although this might sound nice, to never die, I feel like life could get boring. Personally, I don’t think I would want to be put into San Junipero. I feel like knowing that I am in a simulation, I would realize that there really isn’t a purpose in this simulation so what is the purpose of living.

I will concentrate on the episode San Junipero because I really enjoyed it and thought the technology and ideas behind it were fascinating. The episode starts out with Yorkie and Kelly meeting each other in a dance/game club. They were opposites in many ways but attracted to each other most likely for that exact reason. As the show progresses Yorkie can’t find Kelly and you quickly start to realize that there is something strange going on but it difficult to realize what.
Before long I finally realized that they are in a virtual world (probably took me longer than most). This was immediately a brain buster. I was confused on how they got there and if it was by choice or maybe because earth got over populated. The facts start rolling in during the scene where Kelly visits Yorkie at the nursing home. They are both old now and apparently back on Earth. Kelly finds out that Yorkie is a paraplegic and her time is limited. Yorkie has chosen to marry to be able to get consent to basically commit her time after death to San Junipero. We also learn that people alive can only visit for a limited time before having to come back to Earth.
My first thought was is this an option over Heaven? Like you can choose to live in a cloud-based reality that you know and have visited over taking the unknown route of life after death. Obviously, Yorkie had made her decision to commit to San Junipero, but we see later in the show that Kelly hasn’t quite been able to process the decision yet. This led to an emotional scene where Kelly shed light on her past and the conflicts she had. The end of the episode was weird when Kelly’s hard drive was being uploaded to the data bank. Makes you wonder if something like this is possible one day…

After watching the episode San Junipero and The entire history of you, I felt very nervous and uncomfortable. In these episodes, the technology seems like a disaster to me. For San Junipero, it is saying that we are capable of programming ourselves inside an imaginary world, where we can live forever. It sounds like a really good idea. However, as we know, every program has a limited memory, if everyone chooses to go to that imaginary world, that world will be overpopulated soon.  Also, what if people use that as a kind of weapon? Some people might “store” people they don’t like inside the world, that basically “kills” that person indirectly. Since if you are inside the program, you do not have conscious in the real world. On the other hand, San Junipero does portray a good relationship, even though I do not like the technology inside it. At the end, Kelly chooses to be pass over, so when she passes away, she can live with Yorkie afterlife. However, while in the story, Kelly states that she doesn’t want to be pass over, because she doesn’t want to live in a world without her daughter and her husband, but she still does it at the end. This makes me think that Kelly loves Yorkie a lot and Yorkie makes her know and accept that she loves women as well as men. It is a very good ending. Those two people finally accept themselves as a homosexual person and live as a homosexual person. I feel proud about them.

For the entire history of you, I have actually no positive feelings towards it (it’s a good episode don’t get me wrong) I can’t really accept the story or the technology inside it. I just can’t imagine a world where people can rewind their memories and store them permanently. While it might be a good thing for test takers or someone who is bad at memories, it is awful. People’s brain is designed in a way, so we can forget things- usually those unhappy events.  However, this technology stores every details, which means you can’t really get over when a really bad things happen on you. Just like in the story, Liam keeps thinking about his wife is having an affair with another man and he keeps focusing on that to a point that it is affecting his life or almost makes him a criminal because he threatens Jonas to delete his memory with Ffion. However, I do feel lucky for Liam that at the end he finally finds out the relationship between Ffion and Jonas, otherwise Ffion and Jonas might keep doing their things in the future. I feel both Ffion and Jonas are piece of garbage since they know doing so will destroy a family, they still do it. Poor Liam. Overall, I do not like this technology. It makes possible that people can read your memories at anytime. This is terrible, since we want to keep some of our memories as secret.  

Technology is a good way to boost the communication of people. Both technology in both episodes boost the relationship.  Because of the program, dead people or elderly people can communicate with each other. Because of the permanent memory, people are likely to have more topic to talk about while they are on a party since they can just recall their memory.  However, too much of that might cause troubles. Liam became crazy because of that program because he paid too much attention on everything and people in San Junipero basically is having sex with each other, they don’t really have a good relationship with each other.

I got a look at what life would look like if individuals were held to a rating framework. Individuals frequently run over via web-based networking media as though everything is perfect in their life and you regularly don’t see the genuine them. I trust internet based life likewise prompts less important in personal connections in an individual’s life. Personally I have had actual encounters with “friends” who are always posting up on how great of a life they have and how they are always happy, and going out to new places. However they are actually the complete opposite if you were to see them in person. They are sad deep down and feel this emptiness that they try to fill this void with making people believe that they are “perfect”. Social media is a scary place and I would not want to live a life trying to please everyone around me and never being genuinely happy. In Nosedive individuals are giving a rating somewhere in the range of 1 and 5 dependent on your appearance as well as communications. This clearly makes a few people need to live as they do via web-based networking media, so they seem to be great and get 5-star evaluations. Individuals with scores more than 4 are viewed positively and are even qualified for advantages that others aren’t. I was anxious while watching this episode and figured something like this could be conceivable later on. Individuals are progressively getting to be fixated on games and social media frameworks that they can see satisfying feedback  from. On the off chance, everything else is held to a rating why not people? The main issue is who might speak to themselves honestly. Everybody would act counterfeit day in and day out and uneasiness and dejection would almost certainly be through the roof. It was particularly intriguing when the primary character saw what her life could look like if her rating was sufficiently high and she had the capacity to get the condo she needed. It completely assumed control over her life and she wound up fixated on hitting the 5 star point.

In the Black Mirror episode entitled Nosedive we learn of an alternate society where individuals are rated off of every encounter they have with one another. People are allowed to rate you up to five stars and each rating contributes to your overall score. This, in turn, contributes to how people treat you, as higher rated individuals are prioritized and reap more benefits. In this episode, Lacie Pound is a people pleaser who has made her life revolved around trying to achieve a high rating. Currently, her eagerness to increase her rate is higher than usual because she has to move and the place she wants requires a rating above 4.5 for a 20% discount. She finds an opportunity where she can increase her score fast, by attending an old friend’s wedding where the guest list is filled with high ranking individuals. In the end, through many tribulations, her score ends up being lower than it’s ever been and she realizes the unimportance of the ranking system.

Watching this episode related so much to today’s society, where everyone does what they think will get the most likes or friends. The common saying “Do it for the gram,” exhibits how people will make careless decisions just to get a laugh from others. People’s perception of you has become more important to society than your own personal happiness. I even fall into this category as online I tend to be more careful with what I post, in fear of others judging me. Whether it be making sure I post pictures that are “Instagram worthy” or that do not show my imperfections. Watching this episode was in a way sad and made me feel empathy for the people who feel as though they need to liked by everyone in order to be happy with their self.