this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Technology

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69
Black Mirror’s pessimism porn won’t lead us to a better future | Louis Anslow (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Womble@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A new progressivism, one that embraces construction over obstruction, must find new allegories to think about technology and the future

Black Mirror fails to consistently explore the duality of technology and our reactions to it. It is a critical deficit. The show mimics the folly of Icarus and Daedalus – the original tech bros – and the hubris of Jurassic Park’s Dr Hammond. Missing are the lessons of the Prometheus myth, which shows fire as a boon for humanity, not doom, though its democratization angered benevolent gods. Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings. While Black Mirror explores how humans react to technology, it too often does so in service of a dystopian narrative, ignoring Isaac Asimov’s observation: that humans are prone to irrationally fear or resist technology.

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[–] realitista@lemm.ee 52 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Despite him being a tech bro and everything, I do think we need more shows like Star Trek these days to show us what a functional future with technology could look like. I think the only examples we see any more in popular culture are dystopian, and I think we are starting to believe that those are the only possible outcomes of the path we are on. Even Star Trek these days is pretty dark.

We need to again try to imagine a world in which the better half of humanity succeeds.

[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Hard to imagine when reality keeps showing otherwise.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 10 points 2 weeks ago

At the end of the day, the future is written by human beings, and unless we have a collective vision of where we are trying to go, the darker forces among us will take control and do as they wish with us.

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