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This week, there was an interesting contrast in course material to Ishiguro’s Buried Giant. We watched an episode of Black Mirror that followed a couple and how they were affected by having a device that granted them perfect memory. Having a total-recall type memory is something that we dream about, however this episode highlighted the dark side of having infallible memory. Although the protagonist of the episode ended up finding out the truth about his wife’s affair, he ultimately had changed into an entirely different, violent person and ended up severely unhappy, thus leading him to gouge out his perfect memory device. Black Mirror is a show that often highlights what can go wrong with the exponential pace technology races at and its effects on human nature, and this episode definitely displayed all of that and more. Compared to Ishiguro’s Buried Giant where the characters have a very poor memory, both the episode and the story make me content to have a perfectly imperfect memory; not too perfect, not to forgettable. After reading through most of Buried Giant and watching the episode of Black Mirror, our imperfect memory is really what attributes a lot to human nature. Perhaps the main character of the Black Mirror episode could have lived a happier life had he not dug relentlessly into his memory archive, although he would have lived under the phrase “ignorance is bliss”.

In class this week, I thought it was interesting when we went over what makes an elevator pitch successful. In your analysis of my groups presentation, I found it very interesting that the quality of the pitch is less dependent on the content and more so on how it grabs the attention of the listener. As we were working to make the changes, it forced us to discover what was important in our actual poster. We deleted information that we thought wasn’t relevant to the audience and added, in its place, photos that serve as a visual representation.

In our new pitch, we intend to push the audiences attention towards the more prevalent photos in our poster. Instead of explaining boring factual information, we want to put the audience in real life situations so they can see the ethical consequences themselves. In this we hope, that although short, our pitch can better translate the meaning behind our research and the topics of this class.

After viewing the episode “The Entire History of You” of Black Mirror, I reflected on how memory keeps us focused on the past and not the present. In the episode, when Liam and Ffion are having sex, both individuals are viewing past sexual encounters through the grain implemented behind their ear. Once both of them climax in the real world, they stop viewing their respective recordings and begin living in the present once again. While the grain is an effect tool recall information and store happy moments, this device basically turns Liam insane with jealous and suspicion regarding Ffion and Jonas. This addition memory gained by the grain keeps Liam recounting past events and analyzing each individuals actions, drawing conclusions merely on facial reactions or simple gestures. In addition, memory can be skewed by the grain. Liam says to Ffion, “you’re a bitch, sometimes,” yet Ffion leaves out the sometimes and replays the memory. The grain ends up having destructive implications in Liam’s life: he lost his wife and child, realized his wife had cheated on him, and ended up manually removing his grain through an extremely painful method. The show seems to be a warning for what the future capacity for memory and storage can lead to. Do we want to know everything that we do and say, or is it sometimes better that we forget some details of a conversation or event? In the case of this episode, memory seemed to be the reason for the disaster that unfolded in Liam’s lap.

In addition, as Science Fiction serves as a predictor of future events, I reflected on what future technology will bring. Delany’s Web in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand resembles our modern-day internet, and some of the innovations predicted in Black Mirror have already been implemented in our society. In an episode titled “Hated in the Nation,” the modern world no longer has bees to pollinate the plants, so mechanical bees were engineered to replace the lost species. However, a hacker could manipulate these remote-control bees and use them for deadly purposes. In our current society, bees are dying at an alarming rate, and we will need to find some supplement in the future to replace these dying species. Thus, mechanical bees are not far from being a common occurrence in our everyday lives, and we must think of the ramifications and possible implications of this new technology. In addition, in the episode “White Christmas,” a man using a software called “Eye-Link” can have dating professionals help him pick up women by seeing through his eyes and guiding his moves. With the invention of new, updated cameras and first person point of view perspective cameras, the possibility for technology such as “Eye-Link” could soon be a possibility and seriously infringe on our individual privacy. These episodes of Black Mirror serve as a warning for the harmful and disastrous consequences that new technology can have on society, and we must proceed with caution in the development of innovations that could possible conflict with society’s privacy and best interests.

I just saw this document in my drafts and forgot to post it before.

Reflecting on Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, two main themes arouse throughout my reading that really resonated with me. First, the immergence of GI technology and the development of the Web to connect the 6000 galaxies in the novel. The Web compiles data on every individual in the galaxy: their personal preferences, personality type, and ideal sexual partners. This GI technology is a somewhat more advanced form of Asimov’s Multivac in “The Last Question” and “All the Troubles in the World.” Multivac compiled data on the citizens based on the questions they asked to the system, yet the Web is more complex and comprises data on individuals without them even giving out their personal information. Marq Dyeth and Rat Korga are ideal sexual partners without even knowing each other, and they were brought together based on the information generated by the Web. The Web emulates our modern day internet and the World Wide Web. Amazon uses our search history to gather information on our hobbies and interests, while Facebook provides information about and images of our friends and families. In addition, Twitter serves as a form of social media to express your everyday thoughts and feelings. Thus, the internet has become remarkably similar to the Web described in Delany’s novel, and we are providing this information via our online presence.

In addition, gender and sexual identity play a huge role in this novel. In some galaxies, there are multiple genders, and when Rat Korga arrives on Velm, he is exposed to a whole new world of sexuality. On Velm, homosexual and heterosexual encounters within one species and between species is accepted, and relationships are not exclusive on Velm. Partners are encouraged to branch out and experience new sexual relations to achieve fulfillment and satisfaction. In 1984, homosexual and transgender individuals were outcasts in contemporary society, and Delaney depicts a world where those ideas were not only accepted but were the norm. As a homosexual author himself, I believe Delany is making a call to push for more acceptance of homosexual individuals to welcome those ideas into society. His novel depicts an advanced society—more advanced than society at the time—where these ideals have arisen, and if science fiction is a prediction of the future, then Delany could be describing a future time period where homosexuality is finally a common occurrence.

In class on Tuesday, we watched an episode of Black mirror. In this episode, people were chipped with a memory device system that recorded everything that happens in your life, and stores it for future watching. The show focused on one couple who encountered problems that came about after the husband was able to rewatch the previous nights events and discover that his wife cheated on him. By the end of the episode, the couple gets divorced and you see the man miserably alone. He ends up cutting out his chip himself because he is haunted by the repeated memories of the events. This episode really got me thinking about how much our memory impacts our actions every day. Every time I am with friends, my reactions with them and how close I am with them is based off of my past experiences. Especially with friendships, sometime sour ability to forget and move on is what people need to heal. I think that if we had the ability to replay everything from our lives, we would be miserable and stuck in remembering the sad, embarrassing, or devastating events in our lives that we normally would be able to move on from. I think it would make our society hostile. This show made me realize that forgetting things or being able to move on is keen to our existence and happiness.