Monday, November 30, 2020
Reader's Diary #2150 - Bret Harte: Tennessee's Partner
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Reader's Diary #2149 - David Kyle Johnson (editor): Black Mirror and Philosophy
Of course, as fans of the Black Mirror TV show know, there's typically a lot of obviously intentionally provocative ideas about technology and society, so in that regard the philosophers writing for this book had a lot of their initial work done for them. Still, in the Blackwell series fashion, they explored the show more comprehensively and complexly, but in a conversational, usually amusing manner. Still, I doubt it would be of much interest of those who didn't see the show or the particular episodes discussed.
In this book we get the expected debates such a show would
inspire: should we be concerned with the direction technology is leading us in? Are our actions online and in the virtual world a reflection of our true selves and what are the ethics of such behaviours? Can technology help us gain real immortality? And so on. These are all handled expertly in the book and as an added bonus, it made me rethink certain episodes. For instance, I always felt that the very first episode, while good, was a weird way to start the series as I don't find it really representational of the series overall. The discussion in Black Mirror and Philosophy made be appreciate its positioning much more.