Contour Essentials Group Review

   Today's group presentation given by Alison, Kayli, Tara, Brittany, and Lauren was very interesting and enlightening. I will have to say I knew people could collect/recycle trash and certain other things to create cool stuff, but I didn't know that it went out on such a large scale! Newspaper dresses, spoon lamps, sock teddy bears, and ect. All of it sounds just so radical! Honestly after their presentation today, I personally want to begin on a project such as one either talked about in their presentation or one just from on the internet.
   They spoke very audible and well. There was never a moment where I couldn't hear what any of them were saying. The background scheme for their slides weren't to flashy; they had a cool atmosphere to them and weren't really distracting. I thought the group did really well with their information gathering, as far as statistical facts. During the question part of the presentation, I thought they did very well with answering any of the asked questions. They had very detailed and easy to understand replies. Overall the group's presentation was great and I enjoyed it!

Grief Driven

     “Be Right Back” details the life of a woman whose husband tragically ended minutes into the episode. The woman was so engulfed in grief that she found a rather strange method of coping. Initially, she gets this program that texts almost like her husband did. This fueled her to upload all his files into the program so she would be able to further convinced it was like talking to her husband. The program I could virtually be on every piece of technology. She was often caught talking to the program through computer or phone. With the phone it resembled the same voice as the woman. She was offered relief because she felt a little closer to her husband, but she needed more. She invested a hefty amount of money into this “package”. Our later the product came to life. He looked almost like her husband! She became acquainted with the new package until she realized it wasn’t the same as her husband. He had certain habits or details that no one could easily copy. She soon had to rid herself of the product by locking it in the attic. The situation brought to light how far an induvial would go to deal with the pain and grief that they are experiencing. She went to the extreme by basically loving a robot so she couldn’t cope with her situation. If you think about it a lot of people do the same now. Some women can’t handle not being able to not be with a man so they go and buy “toys” that will help relieve them. You learn a valuable lesson in this show. "Grief is inevitable, however, don't allow it to dictate your life."

Man Vs Tech


In the espisode of Black Mirror, it shows how technology is ruling us. It shows how we are so connected to our phones. this century wouldn't know what to do without our phones.  Martha, Ash's her husband who was killed in a car accident. He was texting and driving. That's how most of car accident happened. This woman told her about this texting cite that can talk to the dead. Not literally talk to the dead. Then this program told her about a new this come out it was a robot. The weird thing is it looks like the person that pasted away. So this robot was made to look like Ash.

Close to Being Human?

In class last week we watched the Black Mirror episode called Be Right Back. In this episode, a young woman's husband lost his life in a car accident. She then was introduce to a program where she could "talk" to her dead husband through text and phone calls. This could be accomplished by downloading the app and uploading videos, pictures, and any other social media to the app.
After only a few days, the young lady decides to take her purchase up to the next stage, which was recreating her husband as a robot. This at first seemed to be a great idea because she was depressed and needed someone's affection, but it soon took a whole 360. She began to tell the robot that he wasn't enough; that it wasn't the same as her husband. It looked like him, talked like him, but didn't have the memories or life experiences the husband had.
This raises a question, what does it mean to be human? Is it just having life experiences and having those memories in tact. Because if so, like the robot in the show, it seemed pretty close to that. It was only lacking the memories and life experiences. If the robot had been made to just live it's own life, then maybe it would have been able to develop it's own personality and maybe even feelings towards certain things.

In class we watched a episode called "Be Right Back" this episode poses certain questions about cloning (such as whether or not one can truly clone a person). In the episode a woman named Martha loses her husband. Afterwards, she is informed of a program that would allow her to speak with a clone of her husband. The program does this by recording social media posts, text messages, and etc.  At first, she was reluctant but eventually she chooses to speak with him. As she continues to speak with him she chooses to get a clone of him. In the beginning, everything is great, but problems start to occur. Martha begins to notice the unsettling uncanniness of the clone. While the clone looks and talks like him, the clone lacks personality and emotion. As a result, the clone is unable to truly act like Martha's husband. The clone tries its best to provide a believable version of her husband but he is not able to make responses that are inline with the husbands personality. In this episode, it shows that it is impossible to produce a clone that shares the same memories, hopes, dreams, thoughts, & emotions a person.

We as humans are shown as being no different than the technology we use. We have become slaves to technology, living our lives on our phones and computers. Humans have become more and more like robots. We have become one with our social media filled world. It is both a blessing and a curse. This is because as we keep advancing our world each new innovation makes us more dependent on other technological advances for our everyday life. Our species has slowly become closer to being the robots that scientist try to create. The only real differences is that our emotions come from chemical reactions within the brain, we have to eat, and when we die our bodies decay. However in our daily livelihood we have imprisoned ourselves to routine and all sources of media.

Technology is lonely

How do we separate ourselves from technology? What makes us different from being robots? Humans have emotions, free will, senses etc. We are unique. It's not the one thing, but a combination of things that make us what we are. We are social creatures that thrive when surrounded by others. With todays technological advances, we can always stay connected and up to date on the lives of others. It's amazing and keeps us in contact with loved ones. But does it?

This week we watched an episode of Black Mirror called Be Right Back. A woman loses her partner, who happened to be very active on social media. She was shown a program that can help you talk somewhat to the person you've lost based on their previous social media activity. She eventually puts this program into an identical robot of her late partner. It becomes an obsession almost and a way to try and hold on to the man she loved. She becomes frustrated though because this robot can't behave like her partner would have. At the end she doesn't get rid of the robot but keeps him in the attic.

The idea that really stuck out for me in this episode is that social media does not connect us to people, it doesn't make us feel better. It isolates us and distracts us from what is going on in our lives. Everyday people are walking around with their eyes locked on their smart phones. I have been in situations where a group will be in the same room texting rather than looking up and saying something. Many of us scroll aimlessly through feeds to procrastinate on tasks at hand. Some try to boast a lavish lifestyle. And for what? To make yourself feel better by showing the world how lucky and happy you are? If you were happy would you need to do that? We can message people and post on their walls, but the human interaction is lost this way. We just read words and emojis. We don't get to see the facial expression or hear voice tones or have touch and sounds. We are essentially communicating with robots. And we act like robots by messaging and posting.

The lady in the episode was not able to really feel comforted by the robot because it's just not real contact. We isolate ourselves from the world around us because we have become robots, programed to like, share, tweet and snap.  This online interaction is almost uncanny. It's like you're being social, but never being fully satisfied, and then continue on social media to try and connect with someone. This life is lonely. We need personal interactions, we need those emotions and contact. If we don't have that we may as well be robots.

This article I think in a simple way sums up the kinds of isolation social media can cause.

http://www.activebeat.com/your-health/women/5-ways-social-media-contributes-to-social-isolation/

Man vs Technology: Are They One In The Same

In the episode of Black Mirror ,"Be Right Back", we was shown how technology is becoming an extension of ourselves. This is shown through the character, Martha. Martha's husband, Ash, was killed in a car accident; to cope with the loss, her friend, Sara, told her about and signed her up for a program that allowed for Martha to communicate with "Ash" even after he died. This "Ash" was different, he wasn't the Ash that died but the mixture of all his emails. These emails created a false Ash that can replicate what the original Ash would respond to a given situation. Martha was skeptical about the program at first but eventually she started to see "Ash" as her deceased husband. During the middle of the episode she dropped her phone at the doctor, therefore shutting down "Ash" and she broke down and quickly went home to fix her phone.
Her connection to the synthetic Ash and the incident at the doctor's caused her to take drastic measures to keep "Ash" around. She bought a synthetic body for "Ash" and proceeded to grow closer to this Ash. She eventually reached the point in which is called "the uncanny valley" where she knew that "Ash" wasn't her husband and she started to become upset due to "Ash" not showing all the qualities of her husband. She eventually attempted to get "Ash" to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff near where they lived; when "Ash" was going to do so she became enraged as she believed her husband would have pleaded for life instead of so calmly accepting death. This caused for "Ash" to plead for his life as she wanted. The episode cut to several years in the future were Martha and her daughter live in their home with "Ash" in the attic.
This showed that even with Martha knowing that 'Ash" is not truly Ash, she could not come to let "Ash" go. This showed me even if we know that something looks human and acts human but we clearly know that it isn't human, that we will dealt with the fact that something isn't human if it will allow us to have the person around. By doing so, we are in turn becoming more technological in nature and we are allowing technology to become more human. I believe this to be so because if us as a species are willing to have something replace a deceased human for the simple fact of that person being "able" to be around again, we abandon the humanity in us by abandoning our bonds to the original person and replacing those bonds with something that can never be the person that you remembered. I feels this also paved the way for technology to advance and to grow to the point that it becomes truly "human-like" to the point where no one can tell the difference.

What makes us different from who we are on a screen?

A Reflection on BRB.


The black mirror episode titled "BRB" had some very disturbing and unsettling depictions of what technology can develop into. In the episode, the woman looses her husband, but is quick to fill his space with a software that mimics who he is by looking at his social media. She then orders a robot version of her formal partner, and things begin to go downhill from there. It leads us to the question of "What makes us different from how we prevent ourselves on social media?"

The most obvious answer to this question is that you only present the best part of yourself. Most people do not post their hardships on social media unless it is for support of attention. When something truly bad happens in life, you turn to human connections, not digital ones. But lately in our society this trend has been shifting. More and more people turn social media to update the world on everything in their life. I assume that is why it was so easy for her partner to be recreated by a software. The distinction between who we are and who we are online begins to blur into the same person. We saw this first hand in this episode.

But regardless of how easily he was replicated, there were still parts of him that were not perfect. Though they were eerily similar, the robot was not perfect. This is were the concept of the Uncanny Valley comes into play. When the robot failed to be a perfect representation, it was very unsettling. The truth is, robots can never fully replicate who we are as people. There are so many minuet events in someone's life that make them who they are. A robot cannot learn everything that someone experiences. It isn't able to replicate the emotions, the experiences, and lessons that someone learns. This episode of black mirror depicts that.

Clones vs The Real Thing

In the episode of Black Mirror that we watched in class, we saw that Martha lost her husband in a car accident. She was approached by a friend that told her about a way to communicate with her dead husband. She dismisses the thought at first, but as the show progresses she decides to try it. When she activates the clone of her dead husband , she discovers that his thoughts and emotions are not of her husband. That brings up the question of cloning. Can a person be cloned and have the same purpose and future? No, that is not the case. The clone in the show looked exactly like the husband, but it possessed no thoughts or emotions. It was like a baby . It has to learn as it goes. The experiences were not cloned. Toward the end of the show Martha realized that she would rather have the real thing. She did not want to teach the clone how to do things and love her the way her husband did.

It is the Life in Your Years that Counts

The Black Mirror episode Be Right Back, represents one of the many scary scenarios our society could possibly be a part of in the future…hopefully never. I found many issues with the artificial Ash. It is entirely contradictory to everything that being a human means, and not just because he was essentially a robot. I think one of the things that makes being a human so special, and yet most of the time can be very annoying, is our inventory of countless emotions. It sounds wonderful to be able to take away suffering and loneliness, as Martha would agree, but to a certain extent I think we need to appreciate those states of being for what they are as a part of life. Times of grief, in Martha’s case the loss of a loved one, teach us to appreciate the little things, value the time we have in our lives, and to make the most of every moment. This level of technology is made to try and discount that notion entirely.

After activating the fake Ash, Martha soon realized there was a certain depth to him that was lacking. The software knew most of the real Ash’s behavioral patterns and phrases, but it was missing the out of routine sprits of passion, anger, and all other emotions that give humans soul and vitality.  To try and recreate a person, especially when there is no hope of them being able to adapt to the changes life entails, is completely against nature. This episode also goes to show just how “in-over-our-heads” humans can be, especially when it comes to denial and acceptance.

Technology and the Internet Can Be One's Own Downfall

     "Be Right Back" was Black Mirror's Season 2 premiere episode. It debuted with a protagonist named Martha losing her husband in a car accident. Martha has a hard time grieving with her husband's, Ash, death especially after finding out that she was pregnant with his baby. She didn't find out about the pregnancy till after his death so she never got the chance to tell him about their child, which crushed her more inside. At Ash's funeral Martha's friend had introduced and encouraged Martha to try an online computer software that would allow Martha to talk to "Ash", but of course Martha was not into it she even yelled at her friend Sarah to stop the foolishness she was speaking. I felt it was just not the right time for Sarah to bring it up and I felt it was highly disrespectful to speak of this service while Martha was still trying to grieve at the funeral. But, once Martha found out she was pregnant with his baby she felt she had no choice because she did not want to go through the pregnancy alone. I also felt she had a guilty consciousness and wanted to get the fact that she was pregnant off of her chest to him and she felt the online communication software was the only way.
     The online communication software works by taking all of a person's online statuses and sent emails and data via internet and using them to incorporate their personality and thought process to try to act and say things that they would say. So Martha gave the system the passwords to all his personal accounts and the system started to speak to her as if it was Ash. It would talk like Ash and make the same corny jokes that the real Ash would. Through the system she was able to tell Ash that she was pregnant and even allowed him to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Evidently it worked so good that she decided to get the Ash Robot. Being with the Ash Robot was like a surreal feeling for Martha. It's like she knew it wasn't him, yet at the same time it looked like him and she could hold him and be affectionate with him once again. Eventually the thought of knowing it wasn't really Ash dawned upon her so much that she kicked him out and tried to find everything that the Robot did wrong and criticize it.
     The irony of this episode is how when Ash was still alive Martha would be speaking to him and it's like he would always be focused on his phone and not really paying attention to her. In the opening scene when Ash was sitting in his car on the phone not worried about his wife out in the rain, I felt that was a bit strange and I think it foreshadowed his death and the fact that the only way Martha would be able to communicate with him and get his attention was via the internet various technological devices.

Unnatural Humanly Connections to the Inhuman

In my humble opinion, I believe that the purpose of ‘Be Right Back’ is to show its viewers that our society is entirely too dependent on technology. From the start of the episode, Ash is shown on his phone almost the whole time he is on camera. During his last scene (as a man), he is shown to be interacting with his phone as he backs out of the driveway. Following his departure, it is revealed that Ash found his way to an early ending. With this occurrence of misfortune, a negative connection between humans and their interactions with technology was presented early in the episode.

As the episode progresses, technology is shown in an evolutionary manner. After Ash’s death, his girlfriend, Martha, becomes desperate and finds a way to email ‘Ash’. She finds a computer program that collects all of Ash’s social media posts, text messages, emails, etc. and uses that information to generate responses that mimic the way Ash would say them. The more Martha interacts with this program, the more dependent she becomes to it. In fact, during one scene she drops her phone while communicating with ‘Ash’ and reacts in a terrified manner thinking she may have killed ‘Ash’ again. The program reassures her that it is okay, and it then suggests that she try out this new method of communicating with ‘Ash’.

Martha decides to take this next step, and she orders the upgrade for her Ash mimicking program. Later she receives her package, which contains artificial human parts and the ingredients needed to turn the prosthetic parts into a functioning robot. She assembles her new ‘Ash’ and becomes shocked at how much the robot resembles her deceased boyfriend. Though at first cautious, she eventually develops a weak connection to the artificial life. (It seems, though, that her connection with the messaging program was much strong than that with the robot.)

Martha ends up engaging with the robot sexually shortly later, and it seems to her that she’s gotten her old Ash back. Shortly after, however, she notices more and more how inhuman the new Ash is and her feelings of being attached to “Ash 2.0” soon subside. The dependence she once felt towards the technological version of her boyfriend are turned into feelings of regret. She eventually gets too creeped out and she failingly tries to get rid of the robot. Her feeling that a part of Ash is actually in the robot prevents her removal of the artificial being, and she ends up being stuck with it. Her dependence on technology left her in an unnatural and undesirable predicament. 

BRB

In “Be right back” the viewer witnesses the story of a couple who's physical relationship is quickly torn apart by what can be assumed as a car accident. The death of the man in the relationship (who goes by the name of Ash) leaves a sizeable gap in Martha’s (his girlfriend) life. Just based off of what I inferred from what was given in the film, it seemed the two did almost everything together. With his passing away being so abrupt, Martha needed a way to seamlessly close the gap to keep living her once balanced life and it needed to happen quickly.

In my opinion, Martha had at least two options to choose from to get through her grieving. One she could've just opened up to the friends and family around her to build a stronger relationship during a struggling point in her life. Or the option she decided to pursue, which was communicating to an artificial form of Ash that created responses based on his online identity. Both options could successfully fill the gap that Martha was facing in her life but they both had potential

personal conflicts or issues for Martha . For example being closer with her friends and family would be great for moral support and strength, but she still wouldn't be able to get the same type of support or satisfaction she would receive from Ash. And being with the artificial form of Ash was good for filling time but because he lacked qualities that made him a rational human being such as rationality and moral qualities such as empathy.

With the right balance of both (excluding the whole robot thing) I feel like both options could've worked hand in hand. With the right amount of support from her family and friends, she could've eventually weaned herself away from the Ash replacement.

Be Right Back rumination

    Be right back is an interesting and questionable episode. She is a serious introvert that lacked some social skills. Ash was her anchor to keep her active. Ash and Martha were so seclude in each other  life that with ashes death, Martha became a shell of her former self. She tried to block everyone out until she learns that she was pregnant. The start of the questionable actions starts when ash’s sister gives his name to a website that lets some talk to a computer generated person of your deceased  loved one. A person should not be forced to talk to someone or thing when they are grieving. A person's grief can lead them to do some questionable things even things that are so out of character. Fear of what has happened and what will happen, drove her to the computer-generated version of ash. She became dependent on a computer generated version of ash because it was her only anchor to reality, especially with her baby on the way. She isolated herself from the outside because she wanted to stay in the safe world she created around herself. Her grasp on reality was so warped that their was no room for other people in it except for her baby and the artificially created ash. She even tried to push her mother away enough so she would not catch on to the questionable actions. Her fear, love and introvertedness hides how uneasy she really is because of the uncanny valley of ash. From time to time, her uneasiness slips past the mask of fear, love, and introvertedness and she realizes how bad and wrong  her situation was but then it goes away. She has the chance to return to a normal life when they were at the cliff side, but she fears being alone which is why she ignores the uncanny valley and puts him in the attic and locks away ash..

Be Right Back Reflection

In class we watched the episode "Be Right Back" from the Netflix series, Black Mirror. In this episode a widow named Martha did whatever it took to communicate with her dead lover. She went as far as to ordering a fake robot that looked exactly like her lover. My main question was, would you consider person A, which was Ash, and person B, which was the robot, the same person? In my opinion I think that they both were the same person because the robot had all of the guy's words and thoughts. For example, the scene where Martha asked the robot to punched her, he denied saying that Ash would not do something like that. This episode also revealed a lot about technology. We realized that we are so attached to technology that we fail to acknowledge that there are real people around us. Our phone is the number one piece of technology that is taking over our lives. We do most things via our phones. If something happens to our phone, we feel like the world is ending because we can't live without it. This can be confirmed when Martha drops her phone and it cracks. The phone is the only piece of technology that has her  connected to her love one who recently passed away. I hadn't thought of this until now, maybe the episode was also trying to say that technology is a way for us to ease our pain or end our misery. In real life, people use technology such as computers to ease their pain of having to write an essay by hand, or it eases our pain of having to listen to other people by turning the music up to full volume. This is only a thought... What do you guys think???

The Black Mirror episode titled, "Be Right Back" had to have been the craziest one I have watched yet. The episode starts out with Martha losing the love of her life. As most people are when they lose a loved one, Martha was in a grieving state. Martha's friend signs her up for something that would help her in a sense, but ultimately as we see later in the episode it is just down right creepy and should not be allowed to go that far. Martha results to using technology to help her talk with something that sounds exactly like Ash and acts like he would. Well after talking with this robot through the phone for a while, Martha is told that she can take it a step farther by getting presumably a robot of Ash. The robot looks exactly like the real Ash did. The robot Ash and Martha have many arguments and she finds things harder because the robot does not always react to things as the real Ash would. Now both of these things that she uses to help her with the loss of Ash is very crazy and unreal. In real life this would be like someone losing someone special in their life and then getting a robot who looks and acts like the person they lost. The robot side of this can be linked to the uncanny valley and how we can use technology and make robots that look and act exactly like a person would. All of this is very deceiving from the episode to real life. I do not think we as humans should be allowed to use technology to do make robots who look and act like humans due to the fact that it can be misleading and do way more harm than good. Which can be seen in this episode of Black Mirror in the end all the robot does is cause harm to Martha because she never moves on from Ash and they always had fights and arguments.

The Uncanny Valley and "Be Right Back"

The episode titled, Be Right Back of black mirror was the most unsettling one I’ve seen yet. In the episode, Martha loses the love of her life and ends up trying to substitute him with technology that mimics him. It personally made me uncomfortable the entire tire way through. I have more questions than answers on the morality of this whole situation, so in an attempt to settle my own mind, I’ll answer the questions I have.

1.       Is this ethical?  I can’t say that replicating another person is ethical and this episode is a prime example. Beyond ethical I don’t think that replacing Ash with a robot was helpful to Martha’s mental health. In the end she ended up doing many things that even she said the real Ash would never approve of. In her refusal to move on she dishonored the memory of Ash by putting his robot replica in the same attic his mother used to hide her memories of death in. Ash said he hated that his mother had put away memories of his father and brother in that attic, and Martha did the same thing. That had to create some internal conflicts for her. Without sounding asinine, she should have just tried to move forward.

2.        Should this kind of technology be available? I think this would have the same consequence for many people. While I can say this would be kind of cool for a history museum or something of the like, I can’t agree with the forming of this. There are things that technology should not be able to do. I wouldn’t be comfortable with technology not only entering the Uncanny Valley but “Moving in, building a house and starting a family” like Kayla said before. People shouldn’t mess with the unnatural like this. It’s asking for trouble. People are an irreplaceable commodity. No matter how much someone knows about a person, they can never exactly replicate them. Everyone is original

3.       Will I continue to watch Black Mirror? I think Professor Curtis chose the perfect show. This whole series makes me reflect on the current situations in society and I’ll most likely finish the series after I’m done with our final project.

Let's Be Real...

This week our video was called, "Be Right Back." Let me begin by saying...woah... The film was primarily focused on a grieving woman who found comfort within the technological world of artificial intelligence, similarly to asking Siri to help you mourn your dead cat. It's weird... and downright creepy. Being a psychology major, I find a strong amount of empathy within my soul for this poor woman; I could not imagine losing my significant other so early on in life. Part of me understands her level of distress and can sympathize with her need to reconnect after such a sudden loss. But as most humans do, we take something seemingly "okay" and always seem to have to kick it up and notch and pump the whole system with steroids. This film baffled me the most because of her very apparent cognitive dissonance throughout. She constantly battled with Robot Ash being too much like her deceased loved one and not enough like him. The particular instance when she orders him to jump off the cliff then proceeds to yell at him because obviously Human Ash would never willing jump off a cliff for fun, bewildered my mind the most because she seemed completely ignorant to the fact that Robot Ash simply did whatever she, his administrator, told him to do. Again, I fully acknowledge that grief is a horrible, life-consuming emotion to wrestle with, but that does not change the facts of the story. She knew he was conforming, adapting, to whatever she asked of him; yet, she still refused to accept the hard truth that Robot Ash could never be Human Ash and she HAD to LET HIM GO. Which brings me back to the human steroid problem. We, as humans, never seem to be able to get enough. We always want more. More purpose, more love, more life, more time. Is it not why we strive to create AI and go beyond our limitations whether physical or mental or emotional? We seem so bent on pushing ourselves beyond our breaking point, beyond the glass ceiling, beyond the final frontier. For what? To become infatuated with another difficult, maybe impossible task. As a species too easily consumed, I find the most powerful lesson to be learned from this film is the ability to let go. To realize that the death and the very fact that life will eventually end is what gives our everyday, mundane tasks their beauty and purpose. To remember that there is more to this life than we realize because we spend too much time with our heads in the clouds.

Injustice Justice

                                            "Injustice Justice"

                 White bear is the name of the episode in a Netflix series called “Black Mirrors”. The story begins with a disoriented woman, Victoria, in a chair. The woman has multiple “clues” as to what happened to her such as the as scars on her wrist, pills on the floor, and a picture of a little girl. The audience is forced to believe that the woman possibly tried to kill herself and that something happened to her daughter. The show goes on to show people acting like zombie but instead of eating your brains, they’re recording you. They became that way because of a signal that was broadcasted that triggered something in their brain. This makes them become mindless individuals that can only filmed and recorded. We’re later told that it was all not real. None of it. The truth was that Victoria and her fiancé kidnapped a little girl and killed her. Victoria did not partake in the action of killing her but she recorded it. The community felt as if they deserved justice for what was done to the girl. So every day they stage the day. She goes the day trying to figure out who she is, why is she being chased, why are people recording, the evil truth, and being forcefully shocked to sleep while people stage a scene that will leave you wondering. They call themselves White Bear Justice Park but is it really justice. Victoria loses all her memories besides the constant glitches in her brain where she sees the images of the little girl. Is that justice? The line between right and wrong lays thin.She is constantly going through hell while people stand of the sidelines recording just like today’s society. Often times when something happens the first thing a person does is pull out their phone to record. When a fight breaks out no one tries to break it up. You’ll most likely hear someone yell “WORLDSTARRRR” as someone gets stomped or jabbed. The person could be bleeding to death but no one stops to help. No one says “Hey, maybe this is wrong.” They disregard right from wrong just as the people did that recorded the helpless woman in White Bear.

Fake, But Truthful

   Waldo may have been a fictional character, but he hit some major truths during his swearing filled encounters with the real world. He shined some light on how some, if not all politicians have some type of behind the scenes motive for running for certain positions. Like the one lady who was just running to get some experience under her belt for something totally different; running was a "Stepping Stone" for her. Also, the man that eventually took over Waldo hit a major point when he said that the young generation and others would vote for Waldo because of the fact that he wasn't real, but more real than the people who were actually running. What he meant by this is that Waldo may have been an animation, but at least he was being honest about his motives and about how he felt, unlike the other running candidates.

"White Bear": The Symbol of Injustice

On  Black Mirror's season 2 episode 2 called "White Bear", a woman wakes up distraught and completely disoriented. The first thing she sees is images of a little girl whom she does not know, but through constant flashbacks that play in her head she can only believe the little girl to be her daughter and another picture of her and an unknown man whom she assumes to be her significant other. She then notices an unusual white symbol on the television screen which she does not know the meaning of. To the viewer she appears to be disoriented due to an apparent suicide attempt. She does not know anything about who she is so she starts to ask her neighbors who all just pull out their phones and record her instead of trying to help her out. This goes on throughout the episode, the people just follow and record her instead of trying to actually help her out with her situation which I felt was odd.Within the first five minutes of the episode when I saw the phones recording I knew it was for a television show, I just didn't know the purpose of the show for which it was for. My first thought was that it was a survival game show in which she had to put the pieces of her life back together to know who she was. It turns out they were recording her as punishment for her role in the death of a little girl. She watched and filmed as her fiancé tortured and burned a little girl to death. The fiancé ended up committing suicide so society feel justice wasn't served and so each day they torture Victoria by frying her brain to erase her memory and chasing her with weapons and recording her like she is some sort of freak show.
       I feel this is a representation of how social media has made society today. In today's society people would rather pull out their phones and record someone being hurt rather than actually trying to help them out. There are many instances in which young children are being beaten and instead of helping to stop the abuse people decide it is a good idea to record. It is like people are programmed to record the next big trending video to share with their friends rather than live in the moment. Another instance is concerts; nowadays when people attend concerts they always have their phones out to record rather than actually enjoy concerts for themselves.
       "White Bear" can also be a portrayal of American justice systems. There are many Americans who are sent away to prison for years for a nonviolent crime such as marijuana possession. Then there are those Americans who can rape a woman and only get 6 months because of their status and wealth. There are unarmed, black, African American males that are gunned down almost daily and their killers are found not guilty which is like saying their life was worthless.

Would you break a person for money?

I exist in the measure that I exist for others, for after all to be is to love.
-Emmanuel Mounier

This week we watched an episode of Black Mirror called 'White Bear'. Throughout the episode I found the concept very interesting. It made me think of situations in todays world. But then at the end of it, I found it quite disturbing. To summarise, a girl wakes up in a room with amnesia. She starts walking around the house trying to remember who she is and where she is. She finds a picture of a girl and gets small flashbacks seeing that girls face. She decides to leave the house. There are people around her filming her but not talking to her or responding to her pleas. She gets chased by people in masks trying to kill her. A lady tries to help her. They go to a place called white bear station. It turns out that it was all a set up. She is in an almost theatrical play like situation, being punished because her and her former significant other kidnapped and murdered the girl in the photo. She didn't actually kill her but recorded it all. The situation is set up perfectly to punish her for her crime as a lot of similarities are created. At the end they erase her mind and the day begins again the same way. We can see from a calendar marked that this has been happening for a while.

Take a minute to really think about this. Over and over, day after day this woman is being psychologically tortured, for the amusement of others, and for the park to gain money. She claims that she was completely brain washed be her ex to commit the crime which can sound ridiculous to some but can be very real to someone else with a mental illness. Can this be considered justice? Or just malicious acts? We have to question if she learns any lesson. It would be near impossible because her mind is constantly erased. This is a terrible punishment but she forgets it each time. Therefore I think it is fair to say that this is just a money making torture scheme. To knowingly stand by and accept that someone is being tortured day in and day out is truly horrifying. If you take it upon yourself then to partake in the event you are in essence committing a crime against your humanity. Then we look at prison systems.

http://reverbpress.com/justice/want-prisons-punish-rehabilitate/
This link to an article summarises the issues in the prison systems in the US. As it is pointed out, rehabilitation programs are the first thing to go in budget cuts. As long as money is being made, the welfare of the people in those prisons is forgotten. And with rules like the three strike law, a lot of them are stuck in prison for years for such minuscule things. This just leads to flaws within the justice system. We act like we don't know the real situations in the prisons, but this is just a bystanders cop out. We know. Many just don't care enough to change it.

Sometimes it can be forgotten that those locked away are actual human beings. Not animals. Some yes have committed terrible crimes, but a lot also were in the wrong place at the wrong time or stole a loaf of bread because they were starving. They deserve programs to help them readjust into society when they get out. Many argue that breaking the law makes you a criminal regardless and you need to be punished. Lets think of how many college students for example drink under age. That is breaking the law, so would you say the same for that? Yes, some crimes are far worse, but I believe people(excluding the very serious crimes committed eg rape, murder etc) can change and be rehabilitated and benefit society.

Justice vs Revenge

In the "White Bear" episode of Black Mirror , we see this young woman who is struggling to remember who she is and how she got into this crazy situation. As the show progresses, the viewer thinks that she at one time had one big happy family. We see her with a daughter and a fiancé. As the girl is fighting for survival she sees people recording everything thing that is happening. She is trying to get help, but no one will help her. At the end of the episode there is a plot twist ! This entire scenario is a set up. Her real identity is told to her. She was a an accomplice in a murder because she recorded the murder of the girl her and the fiancé kidnapped. For her punishment they created this park where people could come and be apart of the entire set up of taunting her. Justice is the fair punishment of crime. Revenge is to inflict harm on someone for an injury or harm done to oneself or another. In this episode I believe that they intended to get revenge by frying her brain and reliving this same situation every day. She is not getting fair treatment nor is she learning from the mistake she performed. They are just trying to get her back for what she did. So the name of the park , White Bear Justice Park ,  is a contradiction of what they were really trying to do. So therefore I say that even though she was wrong, that does not give us the right to play God in the midst of certain situations.

Hope

On Wednesday we watched a film called White Bear, which portrayed a young woman being tortured by an indifferent, revenge-seeking society. She underwent enormous amounts of psychological and emotional trauma throughout the episode as we watched her endure an endless array of horrific encounters. This particular episode of Black Mirror seemed to touch on our modern justice system, ultimately leaving the audience with the ever-lingering question, famously posed by Plato: What is justice?

This question of justice fades into two smaller subgroups within our justice system: prison and capital punishment. Undoubtedly these are both excruciatingly tricky subjects. Much like one's views on abortion, people present straw-man arguments to diminish the credibility, even the humanity, of the opposing sides' beliefs or claims. For example, those who are for capital punishment see it as taking the life of someone who has taken the lives of many more, many times through horribly cruel and inhumane methods; those who oppose may claim that we do not have the right to simply kill them, despite their crimes we cannot play God. Similarly with prison, some see it as locking people in a useless box; others as keeping dangerous men and women off the streets. Where does it end?

White Bear is, in some ways, brilliant because it makes one truly consider both the meaning and possible application of such a disturbing film. In my opinion, there seems to be an underlying cry for change in our system that must first being with the human heart. People's desperate cries for blood when someone they love is hurt or killed can at many times be unjustified and unprecedented. Too often we forget the human being standing before us (which the victim of the film begs the audience to remember her humanity). There are many dangerous people on the streets, who have thankfully been put into prison; but in order for definite, real change to take place within our justice system, the people must recognize more fully the humanity of themselves, the victims, and the perpetrators.

White Bear:Just a Memory?

 When someone commits a crime, whether he or she is guilty or not depends on the conscience of the person and the maturity that he or she has, When a minor commits a crime, the charges are usually put on the parents because minors aren't mature enough to make their own decisions.

 In the film "White Bear", Victoria wakes up to a television and unaware of who she is or what she has done. In other words, she has no memory. Like a minor, Victoria shouldn't be held responsible for her actions since her memory has been completely wiped. Just like a minor, she isn't conscious of who she is or what her actions may cause, Instead of having tortured her, she should have been placed in a rehabilitation facility to recover her mental state and memory. If she ever was to recover, she would then face the consequences of her actions since she is conscious once again and knows what she's doing.

 What may we all consider to be maturity? Some believe paying the bills, raising a family, and following the law. These three traits are more applicable to an adult rather than a teenager. Adults, in general, behave accordingly to the law and take on responsibilities that minor's necessarily don't have to unless they find themselves in situations where they must do so.Therefore, Minors aren't held as responsible as adults for their actions.

Justice Park


In the episode of  Black Mirror there was a middle age black woman named Victoria. Her and her husband kidnap a little girl. She recorded the whole murder. She was really mentally dismantles and very physically injured. She came out the house looking for someone to help her. They where all recorded her on there smartphone. She kept noticing a signal on a TV that kept replaying in her mind. At the end of the episode she was actually a suspect in a murder of a 6 year young girl that her husband killed.

The Unlikely Candidates

How Is Waldo Similar to Trump?

In Black Mirror episode we watched, there was this animated bear named Waldo. At the beginning all he did was make jokes and say inappropriate  things just to get views and ratings. As the show progresses he becomes more in tune with the political realm of society. As Jamie, the human behind Waldo, moves deeper into the political aspect he realizes he does not want any part of that lifestyle. Therefore he is replaced by someone else that is willing to continue the journey. This episode had similarities to the election that just took place. Donald Trump was the Waldo of this election. Donald, like Waldo, gave the unappreciated and frustrated American a voice. He said things they thought but would never say. When Trump first publicly announced his presidential candidacy everyone thought it was a joke and he would never make it that far. Well, Trump is now our Presidential-Elect. That was a shock to the world. How'd he do it? He had no political background and had no real plans. He claimed that the polls are rigged and the election is also. He fed off the anger of the unappreciated society. This helped him, as it did Waldo, in the election. People saw him as more of a person instead of a politician. Politicians tend to take on the role of their position. They don't communicate to the public in the manner of person to person , but as superior almost. Waldo and Trump were threats to the entire democracy that was set up. Therefore people leaned toward them. Also they both are just the face. People were helping them. People were there to get them through what they did not understand. The help of others plus their ability to get those frustrated on their side is the reason why they won and were successful in the end game against more qualified individuals.

White Bear Reflection

In an episode of Black Mirror titles "White Bear," viewers watch the psychological torture of a woman who has absolutely no clue what is happening to her. Furthermore, the woman has no clue who she is, only vague flashbacks of a story that she is manipulated to believe. At the end of the episode, we discover that woman was an accomplice to the kidnapping and murder of a young girl. The whole episode and the events that occur to her are part of Justice Park for the girl who was murdered. The main characters act out the same story line everyday. The people who are mindlessly videoing her are visitors to the park who have paid to watch a girl tortured in the name of revenge.

There are so many things wrong with this episode. I find myself coming back to the old adage; "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Yes, our main character was the accomplice to the murder of a child. She was holding a camera while her boyfriend lit a girl in a sleeping bag on fire. What she did was wrong, but we have no clue what events could have brought her to that point in her life. If her boyfriend was abusive, then she may not have been strong enough to escape his control. The whole point to White Bear Justice Park is that the general public who participated in searching for the young girl did not feel justified. They wanted our main character and her boyfriend to suffer the same pain that the young girl did. Her boyfriend committed suicide while in prison so the public sought out revenge in the woman.

While the concept of her punishment is brilliant in its own way (because it forces her to experience the wrong that she committed against the girl who was murdered), it is not justified to happen everyday. At the end of each day her memory is wiped leaving her no recollection of what she did or how she got there. So in that sense, the public is torturing her. She is not "learning a lesson" like it was originally intended. The lesson she learns is taken away from her at the end of each day. That's why the punishment she is assigned is not justified.

White Bear Profit Park

       This week, my Theories of Human Nature class watched another episode of Black Mirror. This episode was entitled "White Bear". This episode was centered around the theme of justice. A woman wakes up in a room, bound to a chair, with no memory of where she is or who she is. The woman finds a picture of a girl who she assumes is her daughter. She ventures outside to find herself being filmed by silent by standers. Shortly after her venture, she is chased by a masked gunman. Even when she cries for help, the people continue to stand by and film her without helping her. She then meets a woman who helps her escape from the gunman. Throughout the day, her life is threatened and every time she thinks she is about to die, she cries out for help and the people don't do anything. They just stand there and film. Eventually, the two women reach the White Bear Transmitter which turned everybody into these by-standing zombies. After the main character "shoots the gun" at one of her attackers, it is revealed that the whole day was just a theatrical performance. Actually, the main character, Victoria, was convicted of murder after filming her fiance' murdering and burning a six year old girl(the girl that she thought was her daughter.) After a shaming parade, her memory is erased and the day starts all over again.

    This episode, to me, explores and exposes, two major ideas, or problems, in today's modern society. The first is the brainwash or technology and social media. People in today's society tend to stand by and watch when someone needs help. For example, with cyber bullying, social media users tend to make the situation worse by not saying anything or even screen-shotting and sharing it. Just like  in White Bear, the people just stood around and filmed people in peril. It also showed how the people were entertained by this horrible situation. It relates to how social media beef and fights go viral because we are entertained by other people's agony. For example, when the two men got shot, the by standers rushed to get a footage of it. Even though they knew it was fictional, it still shows this hidden message.

   Another issue that this episode highlights is our unjust justice system and flawed correctional system. I believe that both White Bear Justice Park and the American Prison system started off with the good intentions to actually reform and correct offenders. However, when money got involved, it turned into a profit and exploitation monster. Instead of helping society, it hurt society. In both real life and television, the criminals are treated like animals. First off, the name "White Bear Justice Park" sounds like some kind of exhibit or zoo or national park of wildlife. The criminal, Victoria, is hunted and played with like an animal. When the spectators come to participate they tell them to "Take pictures but don't get too close or she will attack."  and to "Enjoy themselves" just like a tour guide would tell tourists on a safari. In our prison systems, our criminals are also treated like animals. They are underfed, abused, exploited, and shown off as exhibits to perspective business partners and the entire public. Victoria and American criminals are both stripped of their basic human rights. "White Bear" shows that the justice system punishes for the heck of it instead of punishing to teach a lesson and reform.
 

Hypocrisy of White Bear Justice Park

After watching this horrifyingly degrading Black Mirror episode, I found it scary that anyone would come up with an idea as such. There were many details that were left open-ended to the viewer, as discussed in class. These questions included: Did she really commit the crime, or was it all for show? How long had she been there, and for how much longer? What was the time period and mental status of society? Despite these inquires, I was still able to form an opinion about what was happening to Victoria. Torture is wrong, and no one should ever have the authority to inflict harm on another human being. If Victoria and her fiancé actually did murder the girl, then yes, they should have been imprisoned. The kind of prison Victoria was in however had no effect on her in the long run.

The idea of the justice park completely collapsed on itself under the ignorant people who ran it. By wiping Victoria’s mind clean after each dehumanizing day she goes through, she has no recollection of any of her crimes, or what the audience does to her. This renders each day of Victoria’s life, and the purpose of the park pointless. The audience and actors become Victoria before the initial mind wipe. They are no longer the innocent ones, but she is. They are doing to her exactly what they condemn her for, which is the main contradictory point. They are just as bad as she was. If Victoria woke up, in contrast, with knowledge of what she had done, being tortured would at least have some context. I think the people who torture her are using her as an opportunity to get anger out, or blame her for their own losses.

The treatment of all people when it comes to justice should be the same. If for some reason in the society depicted this punishment is the normal for all criminals, that is a different story, but we will never know, and I still think it is wrong. It is probably a safe bet that everyone in the audience would surely change their minds about the system if they were in Victoria’s shoes. Instead, focusing on teaching criminals a different way of life, mindset, and moral values should be the goal. In fact, everyone could use a little simplicity, support, and reform here and there I’d say!