"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.

july 2023 donation

this month i donated to PBS. why? because it's pbs!!! i recently thought about them because the throughline pbs sesame street episode rerun. sesame street was a pretty big part of my childhood, i think like for many kids

the one

I just finished watching "The One" on Netflix. I won't spoil anything, but the premise is that you can submit your DNA to a company and they'll "match" you to your "one," assuming they're in the database too, of course. when you meet your "match" it'll be like nothing you've experienced before. like you kind of already know them from somewhere, and they'll be irresistible to you, you both to each other, even if you don't know you're matched. 

an interesting "side effect" is that they are a lot divorces after current spouses take the test anyway and get matched to people who they're not currently married to. I can totally see this happening, lol. the british govt gets really antsy about the rising divorce rate (the show is set in London), but the founder of the company says that eventually marriages will be on the rise, and there won't be divorces at all anymore since everyone will be matched. supposedly, if you're already happy with your spouse, you won't submit your DNA.

an interesting side story is that a happily married woman submits her husband's DNA. he gets matched to another lady. she looks up the woman, befriends her by going to her yoga classes, and generally acts a crazy person. it comes a head when the husband (who knows nothing of this) goes thru the wife's phone and unwittingly invites his wife's new yoga friend to a surprise birthday party he's throwing for his wife. the matches meet at the party, have a connection, but don't know exactly why. eventually the wife tells her husband who this woman is. he ends up telling his match why their connection is so strong. blah blah blah. he eventually chooses his wife and the heartbroken match plans to move far away. but before she does, she asks the wife why she didn't submit her own dna rather than her husbands? the wife says that she loves her husband and she's secure enough with that.

I think the psychology is really interesting cause the science is obviously crazy. this actually happens several times in the show, but people obviously have a choice in who they decide to be with, regardless of their connection with someone else. worth mentioning that in the show you can also, albeit very rarely, be matched to more than one person (usually your match's sibling, or someone they share a lot of DNA with. [I did immediately think of identical twins when they were introducing the science, altho did you know that even identical twins don't have identical DNA?]) 

one more interesting tidbit is that, well, being matched to someone doesn't mean you'll be happy. there's a reference to this: this one promising young woman gets matched to a druggie repeat bad criminal guy. like, that does happen. people fall in love all the time with people who are "bad" for them. but again, you always have a choice. loving someone doesn't mean you have to be with them. and this is further demonstrated in that people are getting matched to others around the world. but like, what if neither of you can (or wants to) leave where you are? 

anyway, it's a howcatchem series of only 8 episodes, kind of dumb, but I did definitely enjoy it.

4x

taken from theskimm on Oct 8th:

A new report shows that LGBTQ+ diversity on TV is at an all-time high. Last year, the advocacy group GLAAD called on the TV industry to do better when incorporating LGBTQ+ diversity. And called for 10% representation on screen by 2020. Yesterday, it released a report saying the industry delivered with 10.2%.
The study also shows that LGBTQ+ women characters outnumbered LGBTQ+ men on broadcast TV for the first time ever... There was also an increase in the number of transgender characters. But GLAAD doesn't want to stop there.
It's challenging the TV world to get to 20% by 2025. And that within the next two years, all platforms should make sure at least half of the LGBTQ+ characters in shows are people of color.

I'm definitely not against representation, but how much representation is "fair"? a gallup poll in 2017 "concluded that 4.5% of adult Americans identified as LGBT." so at 20%, GLAAD wants a major over representation of a minority group, which seems kind of uncool.

of course, 20% is still very small compared to 80%, but with any over representation you're in a sense discrimination against the other. I don't care if there are fewer straight characters on tv, but what if we were to request the same representation of other minorities?

asians make up about 6% of the general population of america; should we ask for 1 in 4 of characters in media to be asian? that may not be a problem, but hispanics make up 16.7%, so 4 times that would be nearly 67%. we're out of percentages if we add all up all the non-whites in america and multiplied that by four, so there would be negative caucasians on tv.

"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?

got milk?

have you seen this milk commercial? it's my most favorite commercial in YEARS!

halloween

it goes without saying that i have a huge problem with unnecessarily slutty halloween costumes. there's a pretty funny tumblr called "fuck no sexist halloween costumes" that has side by side comparisons of some costume ideas.

but i'm actually blogging about the video clip from abc's "what would you do?" if you're too busy/lazy to watch the 7+min clip, you can see the gif summary here.

rip and i talked about something similar, which i blogged about. i'm not going to go into detail about how i feel and why (since my opinions haven't changed), but i wouldn't have too big of a problem if my kids wanted to cross dress for halloween. i myself did it in high school for god's sake.

parents first

kate gosselin has been "freaking out" and doesn't know how to support her droves of kids now that her tv show has been cancelled.  in other news, she recently bought a new car. it's an audi coupe. she probably didn't pay the $40k base price since she's a "celebity" but... let's face it, even if she wanted a car that could only fit one child, she could've gotten a much cheaper, tho still somewhat sporty mazda mx-5 for nearly half the list price.

also in celebrity gossip, ella nolan from "the bachelor" and more recently "the bachelor pad" recently underwent five plastic surgeries: nose job, boob job, lipo in three places (article). what makes this story 'interesting' is that while on the show, she kept saying that she needed to win the $250k prize money for her son. at every moment she would remind people that she wanted to buy a house for her son. "i'm doing this all for my son." "this money means more to me than anyone knows." yet, even though she didn't win the money, she went and spent probably upwards for $20k on plastic surgery. i get that $20k isn't enough for a house, but that's still a lot of money she could've put towards that house, or a condo.

(btw, did you catch kate and her "droves of kids" in a post about her car? haha!)

sex vs "violence"

anti-porn groups boycott new nbc show "the playboy club"

"I can say without hesitation that every episode of "Law & Order: SVU" is more "adult" than the pilot of "The Playboy Club." And KSL has aired almost 300 episodes of that show."

this is a crazy bad analogy. in all those crime shows, the bad guy is punished. but "the playboy club" will glorify porn. the behaviors being rewarded on "law & order" are honesty (in cops), tenacity (in detectives), courage (in victims), perseverance (in law enforcers)... you get my point.

"the playboy club" will show... what? probably lots of married men having dubious relations with pretty young women who take off their clothes for money. and what will the moral be? as a man you should work hard so you can afford these women whose only job it is to satisfy you sexually. and a woman's aspirations should probably be to get lucky enough to be born beautiful so you can take off your clothes for money from men who want to sleep with, but not respect (or love, talk to, marry) you. well, no, that's probably too harsh. i'm sure the occasional bunny will have real goals. like, using playboy as a stepping stone to bigger and better things: fame as a singer / dancer / performer / sex object. ...

yeah, i can't believe they let "law & order" on tv.

i hate derek shephard

i hate derek shepherd from grey's anatomy. i disliked him from the beginning actually. he was just so damn pushy with meredith. it got kind of hard to watch him trying to talk her into a relationship with him.   and then we find out he's been married the whole damn time!

the worst thing was seeing how pathetic meredith became after that! SHE'S THE VICTIM TOO! i don't understand why she and addison both let derek control them. addison cheating doesn't give you to right to cheat on her. it's marriage; not tit for feaking tat. and why the hell, after derek decides to "do the right thing" and give the marriage another try, is meredith still begging him to choose her? and is this really "the right thing" anyway? yes, you are married, but you can't stand even the sight of her; so does this sound like a marriage that can be saved? especially since everyone knows, including your wife since you never let her forget it, that you're actually in love with someone else? and at every turn, he guilt trips his wife and gives puppy dog eyes to the woman he put through this whole terrible situation. addison cheated with mark but at least everyone knew she was married. so are you really any better than her?

fast forward. meredith and derek get together. and she makes a halfhearted attempted to kill herself and wouldn't you know it, but derek bails on her. yet he still claims her loves her?

and then they're together again, ish. except that now she also has mcvet. and derek is basically unwilling to fight for her. but when did he ever EVER fight for her? except for at the very beginning when he was trying to force her to date him? you know, when he was still married. but meredith still loves him!!

fast forward again to now, and now they are married and she's done this horrible thing which is still completely understandable because it was for the wife of her mentor, who happens to be the love her now dead mother's life. i mean, come on! clearly she shouldn't have done it, but you can certainly sympathize with her (though of course derek can't, or is it won't?). and so now derek is going to leave her, again.

what the fuck is wrong with derek shephard? he is the most selfish person ever! he thinks he's all loveable and kind and honorable, but he's really just a selfish man who loves the chase, bails when people need him the most, and has a whacked out moral system that he forces everyone else to abide by.

and still meredith loves him!


if it weren't for the fact that i only watch one other show (castle, which, btw, is freaking amazing, tho castle has become super-sherlock who is never ever wrong), i would've given up on grey's years ago. damn i wish pushing daisies was never cancelled...

wind and fire

‘My mother always used to say absence is to love what the wind is to fire. When it's a small fire the wind kills it, but when it's a real fire it intensifies it.' - Diane von Furstenberg (as said on The City)

greys = b&w only

i was looking thru abc.com the other day for new episodes when i saw this picture:

notice anything strange? in case you didn't, sandra oh (aka christina yang) is missing. and i'm pretty sure she still on the show. she's supposed to be the main character's best friend, actually. and yet, the one asain person on the show is mysteriously missing from their promo picture. wtf?!

and is it my imagination or is this show getting less and less diverse? lookit all the white people they added recently (one white surgeon, one white intern, and one white scrub nurse). course, callie is hispanic (thank god), but her character is portrayed as kind of crazy. and btw, now everyone who's in a relationship, is in one wit a person of their same race. callie and george broke up because he slept wit another woman (who's white). christina and burke broke up, burke got fired, and now christina is appt is no longer on the show. oh, and the two other black doctors are having major marraige issues. one got divorced and the other will probably be getting one too. now, i'm not saying that all the white people are happy on this show. but they, at least, seem to be getting some (...altho the show really does portray white people as slutty. but you kno wat? i'd rather be slutty and on the show than fired).

Tags: grey's anatomy, tv, racism, racist

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sex and the city - "the chicken dance"

His hello was the end of her ends.

Her laugh was their first step down the aisle.

His hand would be hers to hold forever.

His forever was as simple as her smile.

He said she was what was missing.

She said she instantly knew.

She was a question to be answered.

And his answer was “I do.”

 

-Carrie at the wedding (season 2, episode 7)