This best sci-fi doesn’t predict the future, it helps you understand today.

Black Mirror remains excellent sci-fi

Edited: typo

Sci-fi is never really about the future. It's about what authors already see in the present, with some tech or lore added in ("ever since the [insert horrible event] we've had to deal with...") that highlights what is already happening even more.

The older episodes have definitely been "caught". Nosedive was always my favorite even tho when it came out I thought it was trying to showcase social media actualized, didn't think we would see an exact copy.

I would love to see an episode that is an analogy taken to the extreme about how having a family and/or aspiring towards a family life is extorted from us unless we work, similar to the one about the guys wife except I want the episode to really makes plain the "quintessential family life" as a reward for being a good worker. Then throw in some tech scifi stuff as metaphors in creative ways for fun. Maybe this has been done before, but I'm curious how black mirror could put together a story around this idea and what metaphors or even time period and level of technology they would consider using to take this idea to the extreme.

https://preview.redd.it/ka9ebcyenc1f1.jpeg?width=274&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12954303692688ffa00836c482ea4da708bedae8

They accurately predicted US presidential results

Common People is straight up Netflix telling us about their business model and expecting us to laugh.

I'm not sure if it's more appropriate to laugh or to cry.

For the sake of your mental health, I suggest you not read too much further about the current state of our technology.

By far and large my favourite series!

Welcome to the darkness, hope you enjoy your stay here. 🖤

enough about China's supposed "social credit system". it's been grossly, horrendously exaggerated.

Something seems oddly familiar about this

I just joined this sub - I’m an avid fan of the show but am new to the discussion here, and your post helped me realize another reason why I like the show so much.

I completely agree it’s helping us explore scenarios where advances in technology create opportunity for social change. Through narrative we see a storyline from one or several different angles that in real life we might’ve only considered from our own perspectives (and likely biased). Brené Brown says “it’s hard to hate people up close” and this is critical to rebuilding trust as a society. Otherwise we’re being torn apart.

One of the things I love/hate about BM is that while it is certainly social critique, it does not seem to me to set out to change any minds. Rather it presents societal flaws and human nature plainly, starkly, and says "well, here is human nature, and this is the worst case scenario we can think of when those flaws come to bear." That's why it's so, so dark to me. It seems as though the writers don't see these flaws as changeable at all.

These themes are brought up in a book by Jon Ronson titled "So You've Been Publicly Shamed". The reemergence of witch hunts through Internet mediums (Twitter, Facebook) is getting out of hand. This is really well told in Hated in the Nation, >!especially the ending where it gets turned around.!< It's so easy to jump on a band wagon of hate, sending anonymous messages to someone they'll never meet or face any consequences for their actions in shaming them. >!Well, unless they're the characters of HITN.!<

Jon Oliver did an episode about this as well, noting, amongst others, the case of "the worst aunt in America" who sued her nephew for breaking her wrist. It sounds bad, but the nephews family actually came up with the idea so she could get insurance coverage, she just had to name someone in the suit and it was her nephew. While explaining this, the chyron on the news channel still said "worst aunt in America." Outrage culture is definitely growing and ripe for satire/story lines as it often ruins ordinary people's lives disproportionately to the "crime" the shamed one committed.

Edit: spoiler tag

It's a very good point and explores what happens in the real world all the time.

So many instances you see journalists, politicians or celebrities commenting on someone being attacked by saying "they deserved it." because the person has said things that go against their agenda.

I am not as good with language and research as you are, but the creators of Black Mirror are indeed genius. I think that in our pursuit of righteous punishment, our lust for Justice turns into a lust for vengeance, making us the true villains.

I think every Black Mirror episode contains a specific question: What would happen, if we had advanced technology, capable of fulfilling our desires in a given scenario?

Thats what The creators have always done. What if we had the ability to copy and transfer human consciousness? What if we had the ability to review our memories? What if we could enter a hyperrealistic universe? All of these questions has Charlie Brooker answered with pros and cons. Sometimes in happy and delightful endings, and sometimes in horrible and disturbing endings.

Charlie Brooker has, with the above mentioned episodes, brought out the worst of human behaviour. That with the given technology, we would be using it to torture the wrongdoers to achieve "justice".

We would go so far, as to trap a criminal in a virtual space for eternity. This brings me to White Christmas, where our Protagonist is trapped in a virtual room for a thousand year per minute on christmas day. I have calculated that it is about 1.440.000 years he would be trapped in a single room. No sleep, no aging and no physical change. What would happen to a human mind, if it was stuck in a room for 1.440.000 years? That is torture, but it is seen as righteous punishment.

We shouldn't synpathize with them, for what they have done is wrong, but doing something as despicable as they do in Black Mirror, is worse. If we accept this sort of punishment, we are no better than the convicted. In Black museum a prisoner was executed, and then his consciousness was transfered to a cell, where he would be electricuted again and again, over and over again. People came to visit and electricute him, for they are every bit as sadistic as the murderer himself.

Their punishment is greater than what they had actually done. In White Christmas, he killed and old man in frustration and schock, which accidently lead to the death of his presummed daughter. As mentioned earlier, he was convicted of 1.440.000 years.

We are no better than the convicted. We should indeed try harder to measure the deserved amount of pain. All punishing activities should be decided by multiple people and of people with higher authority, since the horrible punishments has been commited by few individuals.

We were all born sadistic and evil. Only our beliefs and restrictions have held us back, untill one day, where technology is evolved enough to be used for our own personal gain.

It's pretty important to understand that life can be made up of elements of dystopias without actually being a dystopia.

Examples - dystopias require people live in societies. I am a person living in a society. Dystopian stories require a police force who can exercise brutality. We have police force who can exercise brutality. Dystopian societies require some form of governance that people disagree with. I disagree with some of my governance.

None of this shit means we live in a dystopia. It's a piece of logic that's easy to overlook because we are pattern recognizing creatures who jump to conclusions based on limited information.

It's a satire show 

1.	Trivializing Tragedy
•	Tourists taking selfies at Auschwitz or Chernobyl.
•	Influencers filming TikToks at funerals or disaster zones.
2.	Justice for Sale
•	Celebrities or billionaires avoiding jail for violent crimes.
•	Corporations settling mass negligence lawsuits with no admission of guilt.
3.	Healthcare as a Luxury
•	People relying on GoFundMe to pay for life-saving surgeries or insulin.
•	Cancer patients choosing between treatment and rent.
4.	Manufactured Reality
•	Deepfakes spreading faster than news corrections.
•	AI-generated influencers gaining more followers than real people.
5.	Exploitation as Entertainment
•	Reality shows where poor people compete for medical care or rent money.
•	True crime podcasts monetizing brutal murders while ignoring victims’ families.

These seem interesting! It'd be awesome if you wrote some short stories with these. I think you've got something.

You have some great ideas - which the writers now cannot use as you’ve published them.

Flatten the curve sounds great

Would watch tf out of Quiet Quitting.

Quiet Quitting sounds like 1MM ft. Cookies.

San Junipero/Hang the DJ. Places where virtually everybody can have a good time and be themselves.

A nosedive society would be the worst for me. All that superficial friendliness I hate it. I'd end up like that trucker lady.

I mean...San Junipero is clearly ideal. Other than that going with Be Right Back, with the assumption that the people I would resurrect (as such) would have been lifetime "heavy" online users.

I mean, would anyone not pick San Junipero? That one wasnt even a little dystopic

I'd be down to live in The Entire History of You, but sign me up for San Junipero anytime.

I don’t think i’d be able to stand the Nosedive society. The main theme of the episode was that there was literally no genuine happiness in that world. everything was synthetic for the sake of your rating. i’d also stay away from 15MM and obviously metalhead. i’m thinking a time around uss callister or san junipero, with a full immersive VR game.

I think Bandersnatch is one of those where you either feel it or you don’t. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how they didn’t really care for it at all, but for me it was extremely impactful. I think shows/movies that are so obscure and abstract like Bandersnatch will always end up being hit or miss. Neither one is right or wrong it just has to do with people having different perspectives through which they view the media that is being displayed in front of them.

I think maybe the social commentary might be how many people were a-ok with making a guy choose between burying his dad and chopping him up.

I think there is some commentary to be made, no one feels like the endings with the 2.5 or no game release endings are true endings. Stefan is obsessed with making a perfect game, but the viewer is too. We have the power to have Stefan take his pills and have a mediocre game, to have him not kill his dad or have his dad help him. Viewers don’t feel satisfied with these endings though and use technology to get more “satisfying” storylines. Stefan isn’t in control and we’re not really either, but we could consider the ending where Stefan takes his pills and has a 2/5 rating game. But no one stops there or considers it The End. Viewers keep saying they feel bad for ruining Stefan’s life, but these are the paths they’ve chosen because it feels right.

There’s also probably something to be said about the obsession with paths and finding every ending, even if it drives you a bit mad. JFD, Stefan, and Pearl fall to this, but all the viewers looking for an ending and mapping out all the paths fall into this too. The need to find every scenario and ending without ever knowing which is real or true and becoming obsessed feels Black Mirror-ish too.

I think because the viewer is a part of this episode, you have to consider their part in the episode when thinking about the social commentary? I will say that I felt the episode in general lacked substance and I wish there was more background and all paths felt as fleshed out or fitting as the 5/5 one did to me, which felt like the path the game was trying to convince you you needed to end on (imo).

The technology commentary felt like you can become obsessed with technology and the illusion of choice or alternate paths. The social commentary maybe falls short because... while everything I said above feels accurate, it’s hard to feel bad or culpable truly for Stefan when he’s not been fleshed out and I don’t care about him or feel any real sympathy or guilt. He’s a flat character for me and just feels like a means to an end. I almost wish there was a prequel episode to this that dived into all things more so you had more background/connection to Bandersnatch and made all the decisions seem more waited or scenes feel more AHA!

Shut Up and Dance probably isn't thr best example though, right?

It’s an amazing show that taps into how quickly the technology power we hold can break the wrong way on us. Our technology gives us nearly god-like powers that would have been unimaginable a few generations ago an we seem to be in the trust of another great acceleration, most likely the greatest acceleration. With all this power and speed and blurring of fantasy with reality, it’s hard to know how things will end.

It was the episode with the robot dogs that hunted people down for me. I love dogs but something about that makes me feel uneasy.

Even the title black mirror, is meant to be the black screen of a cell phine, its why its cracked 😬

I appreciate that you choose to not use any spaces between scentences, this makes me feel like you are an actual humane

One of the darker parts of this story was that even in the ads for RiverMind, or within any of the participants, we did not see a single male with the interface.

What was scary about this one was that, out all the episodes this season, I could see this one being a reality in the future. Our lives are becoming increasingly subscription based. The prices always go up. There's always a new "plan" to upgrade to. Always more and more advertisements piled on and forced on you. I remember when so many streaming platforms were ad free. I remember when social media used to be. Now you can't escape the ads and we all have numerous subscription plans to things.

Pairing it with the healthcare system was especially clever, because it makes it twice as relatable and impactful. Who hasn't struggled with today's healthcare system or had a family member who has?

I also agree with what you said about the Only Fans angle of increasing desperation to earn money and doing more extreme things. I've heard Only Fans "models" claim they felt pressured to do things they initially wouldn't because of competition and fear of boring their audience. That simply added another dark layer to it that Mike had to hurt himself or do more and more vile things just to earn the extra money they needed.

I will say, though, if the couple was struggling to scrape up an extra $300 a month they probably shouldn't have been trying for a baby, lol.

We’re already most of the way there. There are medical devices like insulin pumps and pacemakers that people with them need to live that run off of subscriptions. And if you don’t pay, the device shuts off.

Give neurolink a few years and they’ll start pumping ads directly into comatose people’s brains if their families want to be able to communicate with them.

It's happening here in the Philippines. Healthcare and education (especially in college) are very costly that some resort to do sex work just to provide for their families. While some hospitals tend to literally imprison patients who are unable to pay the bills. This episode particularly struck me because it felt really real.

also, her drying on her own terms instead of them just cutting it off for non payment was powerful too. this episode was heartbreaking, watching the light drain from both of them as the time went on.

You buy the medical device. You shouldn’t have to buy a subscription to keep the product you’ve already paid for functioning.

Imagine if your fully paid-off car wouldn’t run, despite being full of gas and perfectly maintained, because you didn’t pay your engine subscription this month. Now imagine the car is your body.