Black Mirror: “San Junipero” and “The Entire History of You”

These Black Mirror episodes share the common theme that technology will be our downfall or something else. In “The Entire History of You” we see how technology backfires. You literally able to relieve your most moments. Black Mirror is using sort of a scare tactic to get us to wake up and realize that all this technology will be our undoing. Each episode is faced with different characters and different issues.

I believe that the technology portrayed in “San Junipero” can be best described by the social construction of technology. This theory goes on to explain that social structures (created by humans) go on to shape the development of technology, rather than the other way around. I think this perfectly describes “San Junipero” because humans feared death and the unknown after life, so they developed a technology that helped them escape the inevitability of death.

Whereas, the “Entire History of You” episode has got several communication concepts that are depicted in the movie, this notion clearly help us to understand and interpret what we see in the media. The episode is an alternative reality depicting that most people have “grains”. This grains record everything they see, do, speak, hear and see. This allows them to play back every memory that they have. Communication concepts portrayed in the episode, makes us clearly comprehend the entire plot.

Obtaining technology that allows you to record and re-evaluate your memories and experiences would be rather unique and intriguing but could string along with its consequences and dangers. Your secrets would never really be safe.  Relationship fights would end up consisting of both partners replaying memories to catch the other in a lie or to visually bring up past fights. Inevitably, it would lead to an obsession. People wouldn’t want to live in the moment because of the off chance that something bad could happen. They’d rather relive happy memories where they’re guaranteed to be content. With that, this small little chip holds your entire life, everything you’ve ever done. That’s kind of scary. What happens if it becomes removed? The government seizes it.? What if it’s hackable? If someone else can hack into your chip and essentially download all your memories, what happens then? The opportunities that arise that they can do with it are endless. No secret would ever be safe.

Weekly Response#8

Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 6: San Junipero and Black Mirror Season1:Episode3: The Entire History of You was related to the relationship between humans and technology. It focusses primarily on how technology has become the central part of the human- life and what potential harmful impact can it cause due to the over-use of those high-tech products. I believe that through those technologies we have access to all world’s information and people’s profile at any time which sounds like an amazing accomplishment but in reality, the world is growing further apart because though peoples are connected together by the social media, there is no bond between them. In my personal experience, I used to have many close friends in my home country with whom I used to spend most of the time hanging together, exploring new places, sharing our difficulties and helping each other in every situation. But once I shifted to the US for higher education, I felt like though we are connected through social media and video communication app, the friendship we used to have before is gradually degrading. This shows how the relationship changes when we are connected online instead of in-person. In the Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” and “The Entire History of You”, a small device attached to head stored all the past memories and we could rewind and analyze every past event. In such an environment, it is very difficult to live a real life because even a single mistake can ruin a whole life. People are faking their natural behavior and are paying attention to every detail. This technology had negatively impacted everyone’s life and Liam was one of them. At the end, he realized that he was happier when he had not used such technology and was living his present, so he finally decides to remove the chip from his head.

Gabriel Almonte 

Watching this episode was very weird. I felt the guy who was currently in the relationship with the girl was being very overprotective. The girl did start acting weird when her partner came around, but the situation would make anyone uncomfortable, nobody wants to be in a room with an old partner and their current partner as well. Getting drunk then driving to the other man’s house to attack him verbally and physically was uncalled for. He then forces the old partner to delete all memory of his current wife. I believe a memory system like this where you can go back to every moment you’ve witnessed would be hard to forget things that you regret happened. It also effected how the current partner was able to discover things that he didn’t notice when it happened because he got to rewind and focus on all aspects of it. I connected this to my personal experience with relationships because with everything being recorded when people are out people get caught stepping out of their relationship a lot. With all this video and picture evidence today many need evidence to believe anything, with something like what the people in the show had it would be extremely difficult for people to trust anyone. I had mixed feelings on this episode because I feel the husband should’ve reacted much differently in the situation, he was acting erratic once they got home and was taking mental notes once he got to the get together. He then attacks the man his wife cheated on him with which he didn’t deserve, he wasn’t in a relationship with him. Although I don’t agree with his actions, I do think he should know the truth about what his partner was doing. Honesty is important in a relationship and she wasn’t being honest and the memory system they had implemented behind their ears helped him find the truth.  

My experience viewing these episodes gave me some understanding of what the future could resemble. How we can live in a virtual world after death with simply our recollections. They likewise made me consider how our protection is attacked totally and everybody can approach our introspection and recollections. This can be risky when in the hands of somebody that can-do damage. These episodes likewise helped me to remember individual experience that I had in the pass that I might want to recall in detail as I assume a foggy memory of it. This additionally helped me to remember how in the event that you need you may almost certainly share every one of your contemplations through web based life and that can be risky in light of the fact that imagine a scenario in which you show recordings that can make other individuals uncover. There are positives and negatives to the innovation that was appeared in the shows. They can either be utilized for good or detestable and that is all up to the client. This likewise makes me think how these innovations are being controlled and how the administration can utilize this innovation to keep an eye on others. On the off chance that these innovations at any point do turn into a reality it can change how we get things done in our way of life. Connections will change in the way that nobody will confide in you without seeing the video to demonstrate it. This isn’t something that somebody needs to occur. We ought to have the capacity to confide in our companions and friends and family without taking a gander at recordings of them appearing entire everyday life.

The Black Mirror episodes “San Junipero” and “The Entire History of You” were both a mind-bending experience. San Junipero was based around an alternate world where people have a choice of their end of life experience. When you have reached your final days you get to experience what it is like being youthful again in a place called San Junipero. Such is achieved when a device is attached to your head that brings your mental state to a false world. In the end, you get to choose to spend the rest of eternity here or move on to the afterworld. San Junipero reminded me of how we as humans try to escape the terrors of reality and live in a temporarily euphoric world. There are various ways we try to achieve this, whether it be how some people use drugs and alcohol or others go into depressive phases where they sleep excessively. We get so caught up in this alternate reality we do not want to go back actuality, this is where it becomes toxic. “The Entire History of You” depicted a society where you can implant a chip in your neck that stores all of your memory. This allows you to relive every moment you have seen, it also permits you to delete certain memories and through the technological advances analyze other conversations you have seen. While watching “The Entire History of You” I related it to the human infatuation with nostalgia. As humans, we are shaped by all the experiences we have made and constantly relive those moments in our head. Our bad habits including focusing on all the good memories we have with bad people and forgetting or neglecting the bad ones. A society like the one present in this episode would only lead to a community of people who could not move on from the past. Also, because people can always have the chance of rewatching your own memories and we lose that privacy, we would become cautious and lose the genuineness of conversations with people.

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.