"be right back" take 2

recently, when down in sd with friends and visiting other friends, i rewatched black mirror's "be right back" episode. my friends and i ended up arguing a bit about it, so i thought i'd write a post. as i started, i thought i'd see if i'd written a post about it before, and, me being me, it turns out that i had! that post is here.

it's interesting to see that i basically feel the same way as i did seven years ago. the only thing that's changed is that i now DO think it's disrespectful to "upgrade" your person, but i'm still not sure if it's ethically wrong to do so. i think that may depend on the consent of the original person, and probably your motives for doing so. giving something to someone they always wanted seems fine, giving them something they never cared about also seems fine. but giving them traits they never wanted, and would find insulting if changed, seems morally dubious. but i wonder sometimes if motives should affect morality as much as we want it to, but i dunno, so imma leave that part "blank."

anyway, back to now. my friends seem to think that this is terrible tech and should never be implemented because 1. people should move on and 2. relationships with real people are better than relationships with fake ones. another fear of theirs is that by 3. not moving on, one will disregard all real relationships and become a non-contributing member of society, which is bad.

i had a lot of issues with pretty much all aspects of this.

1. people should move on.
i already addressed this in my previous post so i'm not going to get into it again, but while i agree that people should move on, i don't think it's as necessary as my friends seem to think it is. i also don't think it's a moral imperative that people do move on, especially if not moving on doesn't really hurt anyone else.

2. relationships with real people are better than relationships with fake ones and
3. one will disregard all real relationships and become a non-contributing member of society, which is bad.
my friends seemed to stress that you can't have a real relationship with a non-sentient being, and especially not if you can control that being. the show seems to indicate that you can alter the personality of the android thing more to your liking, and less what the person would have really done/said/been. let's accept that premise. my friends seem to think that if you can now create a "perfect relationship," you will, and that that will negatively affect your relationship with others since, presumably, you won't have prefect relationships with others, so you'll cast aside all other real relationships and only up keep only the perfect one.

firstly. why are real relationships better than ones you create?
normally, reality matters. i'm thinking about celebrity stalkers here. but if this isn't even a real person, the relationship isn't really reciprocal, so you're not misinterpreting something to someone else's deficit.

second. would that many people want to create a "perfect relationship" if they could? let's say that yes, they do. but would that negatively affect your relationship and interactions with others? i don't really think it would. and if it did, would it so terribly affect your relationship with others that you would give up on all interactions with the real world? my friends seem to think so, but i really don't. i don't see that happening hardly ever. in the show, the main character seems ashamed of the android so she hides him away, but would people do that if this tech were mainstream? i can imagine going to a friend's house where her andriod husband is there and we all hang out as real humans do. he can't come to my place, sure (in the show, they have to remain within ~30m of their activation point), but i imagine she would have a normal life outside of her home. she still has to go to work, and grocery shop, and such. it's not like her whole life would revolve around this android. and if it did, it would no more or less a problem that if her whole home life revolved around a huma. also, many people have pets that are exclusively confined to the house and that doesn't seem to be an issue. in fact, you don't even have to feed or potty break an android, so maybe it'll less of an inconvenience than a housebound dog with no yard.

also, i don't think that being a contributing member of society is so important. we have a lot of people who don't particularity "contribute" to society but we're okay with them. (i'm thinking people in comas, people in prison for life, severely mentally or physically disabled people, the list goes on.) we don't complain about these people not giving back to society, and in fact, they may actually "take up" resources in ways that an android wouldn't.

actually, what does contributing to society mean anyway? having a job, volunteering, spending money which grows the economy and keeps people employed, being part of a community which enriches people's lives, creating something long lasting, making at least one person happy?

ultimately, i'm not saying that i'm for this kind of tech. i just don't think it's as bad as some others seem to think it is. i'm generally a "you do you, and i'll do me" person. if it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone else (feel free to hurt just yourself), then go right on ahead. i think A LOT about morality and i try to form my judgements based on morals, not just what feels right or wrong. i think that's why i'm a lot more accepting of things and people. ...which i think is good, lol.

"the entire history of you"

black mirror season 1, episode 3 - the entire history of you

if you could record everything, would you? there's a quotation that goes something like "memories aren't what happened. they're what you remember." that's really true. but anyway, if you could record everything then your memories would be the truth, right? lol, no, of course not.

there's a quotation from a map of the world, a novel by jane hamilton, that i used to think about a lot, but that i can't remember or find, but it was something about how the thoughts in my head are *mine* and how horrible it was that some people wanted to know them all. they're my private thoughts, and even though they may be about you, they're mine and mine alone. this was a bit of a thing with rip and me. i would think things, and he knew it, and he would ask and i would refuse to tell him, especially if they were silly non sequitur nothings, tho often times they were serious things too. anyway, it drove him (and me) nuts.

j's different. he can see me thinking things and when he asks and i say "nothing" he doesn't press. he waits for me to want to tell him. i appreciate that. tho it also means that i let a lot of things go. i see him too, thinking, and i often times won't even ask.

overthinking is poison. thankfully i don't do it very often. i'm generally able to stop thinking about what i don't want to think about. ...which is also bad because it makes procrastinating and not confronting the truth really easy, too easy. in other words, i wouldn't be liam (from black mirror). i could never be liam. but, at the same time, isn't it maybe better to be liam? he suspects something and it turns out that he was right: jonas meant more to fi than she admitted, she did cheat with him, and the child's paternity is unclear. the episode got to me because i felt like rip would totally identify with liam. he wouldn't break into jonas' house or anything crazy, but he would "make" me tell him stuff. but again, that's maybe not a bad thing. the truth may not always be pretty, but it is important. and you may not be entitled to my thoughts, but you most likely are to the truth, especially if it affects you.

"be right back"

do you watch black mirror? well, you fucking should. i watched two episodes a couple years ago. i loved the first episode and hated the second so i stopped. there's too much good tv to waste time on shows you don't love, you know? anyway, R convinced me to start watching again and damn am i glad i did.

season 2, episode 1 - be right back
my main question wasn't "would i?" (since i definitely wouldn't [and yes i am sure]) but "is it wrong?" is it so bad if you don't move on? you are still a functioning and productive member of society; you just have this... organic robot replica of your ex lover (or child, parent, best friend, whomever). that's creepy, sure, but is it wrong? i don't think so.

having a surrogate thing means you probably won't ever move on, but why do we need to move on anyway? i think it's because not doing so denies you the possibility of having something else, and hopefully, something better. unless that person is your parent. in which case, since you usually only get two anyway, why even bother moving on? and, like, so what if you deny yourself the opportunity to meet someone better? it's not like it's a guarantee you'll find someone and be happier. nothing is actually lost, you know?

something else I wondered was, like, is it disrespectful (for lack of a better word) to "improve" your person? bigger dick, kinder person, better cook, non-smoker, more athletic, less selfish, taller, cuter, smarter, blond, whatever you want because the list is literally endless. and would these upgrades / modifications be unethical? probably not either, since it's not a sentient being and they have no will. it's like upgrading a computer.

anyway, simple questions are usually easier to answer. so, would you?