Black Mirror episode:

To put the episode of black mirror we watched in class into a word: frightening. The reason I felt that this episode was so frightening was due to the fact that it seems all too possible for the future. We already are photographing and videotaping so much of our lives because of iPhones and GoPros and all these other camera and methods of recording and posting things on social media. Our lives are so publicized and its possible that one day every part of our life is recorded. Snapchat just came out with ‘spectacles’ and it records what you see—essentially what happens in black mirror. Without the benefit of choosing what we do and do not want to remember our lives would be drastically different- and black mirror shows us that that is not for the better. If we let our world get to that level of crazy just because that business is monopolizing everything than we are doomed. I watched a 60 minutes clip (I highly recommend it) about “brain hacking” , it featured a guy who quit working at google because he noticed that apps and web browsers are coding social media and websites to function so that we will stay on the app/website for longer- they do this by using notifications that trigger our dopamine. Very interesting stuff– basically said that this is a race to the bottom of our brain stem and it’s making us our most primitive selves: depressed, insecure, and anxious.

With the semester coming to a close, this is just a short reflection on the class.

What in the world was this class supposed to teach me besides how to pull a paper out of a very vague prompt?!

I felt that separately the topics were very interesting but there seemed to me that any crossover was forced.

Also, I would have been very grateful if we talked about what we were supposed to have read for that day.

As I finished the Buried Giant I had some very mixed feelings about the ending. My Grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease about a year and a half ago and we have seen him deteriorate rather quickly. As I was reading this novel I could not help but think of him and how he can’t remember the most important memories of his past. He often asks who my Grandmother is and who is own kids are. You can see the look of frustration in his face when he walks into a room full of friends and family and cannot place one name to a face.

At the end of the novel Axle and Beatrice regain their memories and they rediscover all of the horrible things that happens and what led to the mist in the first place. They remember their son’s death, Beatrice’s affair and Axle terrible attack on the Saxons. With this comes up all of the tension and anxiety that the mist helped alleviate. As I read this I wondered what would happen if my own Grandfather was able to get him memory back. I wondered how he would look upon the last year and a half and if he would feel guilty. It has been such a strain on my Grandmother and the whole family is just watching hopelessly as he decline. I could see him feeling some sort of regret and guilt because he was always the one to take care of the family, not the other way around. I also wonder if he would start doing thing any differently. If he saw what life was like without a memory, would that trigger him to do things differently if his memory was regain? All of these questions ran through my head as a read this book and it made me sad but also hopeful as to what could happen if one could regain all the memories that they had lost.

In the reading of The Buried Giant, I have only one real question and maybe it was answered but Does crossing to the island mean dying?

The boatman is one of the most ambiguous characters. At first he seems like a passing character but he, or at least a version of him, shows up at the very end.

The image of the boatman is a very common theme when looking at the death myths in culture. Greeks believed that there was a ferryman across the river Styx. It is in many hymns about “crossing Jordan” in the African Christian Spirituals.

Another reason that I think that the going to the island means dying is that we find out that Beatrice and Axl’s son is dead but at the very end she believes that they might catch a glimpse of him on the island.

We often create new technology just because we can not necessarily because there is a need for it. This course has made me look deeper into technology that seems to be inevitable.

On one hand some of these technologies can be unnerving. It’s almost easier to just to sit back and let technology develop unhindered but it gets to a point where it threatens our existence and challenges what it means to be human. We aren’t completely sure how the brain works yet but still we keep trying to create technology to give ourselves the perfect memory. Integrating humans with AI would further complicated our definition of human.

On the other hand these technologies could mean a more connected and equal world. People often disagree or are offended by someone else’s way of life because they can’t understand that person’s life experiences. If people were able to access all the available information at any given time like in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand then we might see our society become more understanding of other ideas and lifestyles.

Technology will continue to develop no matter what but we can still decide what kinds of technology we allow to come into existence. If we are careful we could bring people together and create a better future but if we don’t have discussions about the potential faults we may find ourselves in a world where we serve no purpose.