Month: May 2017

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.