promethia_tenk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
promethia_tenk) wrote2018-11-18 05:02 pm
promethia_tenk) wrote2018-11-18 05:02 pm
Entry tags:
Kerblam!
I think this might be my favorite plot of the whole season so far?
In that it gave a nuanced sci-fi look into a very real looming social crisis. I was expecting a scathing take-down of Amazon's warehouse practices, which I would have been totally fine with and would have been in keeping with the themes of the season, but instead it went deeper to the issue of what happens when the robots take all of our jobs. Because Amazon and the like are just a prequel, a warm-up to what's going to happen.
If you've been on the internet in the last five years and somehow have never seen 'Humans Need Not Apply,' now would be an excellent time to do that:
Actually, I think the most chilling idea of the whole episode is that the human response to robots taking over the jobs that they are better suited to doing (read: most if not all of them) would be some kind of human affirmative action program for employment. Because fighting for the rights of humans to continue serving as inferiorly-performing and badly treated cogs in the system is exactly the kind of unimaginative, reactionary response that we would come up with as a society. I suppose we're meant to take it as read that the power and class structure of this world was so crippling that a society in which nobody actually needs to work was still bent to serve the few and neglect the many. Ok, admittedly that an extremely real possibility. But I'd have liked a line or two about how fifty years ago everybody thought universal basic income would be the solution and then it all went even more wrong. Or something the like. Tell me there are other people out there coming up with better solutions here, even if they can't get them enacted. I do know that Human Resource Lady's line at the end that they are going to make the company 50% human-powered came over more than a little tone deaf. Was she watching the rest of the episode? Am I meant to be left with this crushing sense that nothing has been solved? (Actually, the answer to that is probably yes, isn't it?)
I did like the Doctor's assertion that systems aren't good or evil, only our responses to them. Because, look, humans not having to do menial jobs (or any jobs) should be a good thing, if we approach it correctly. But we're currently doing absolutely nothing to try to make that the case.
It's rare for Doctor Who to really engage me on this level, but I liked it. I'll admit this issue is a bit of a personal fascination of mine.
Otherwise, then, the character stuff continues to be lacking, but weaponized bubble wrap is probably the most ingenious Doctor Who menace of all time.
In that it gave a nuanced sci-fi look into a very real looming social crisis. I was expecting a scathing take-down of Amazon's warehouse practices, which I would have been totally fine with and would have been in keeping with the themes of the season, but instead it went deeper to the issue of what happens when the robots take all of our jobs. Because Amazon and the like are just a prequel, a warm-up to what's going to happen.
If you've been on the internet in the last five years and somehow have never seen 'Humans Need Not Apply,' now would be an excellent time to do that:
Actually, I think the most chilling idea of the whole episode is that the human response to robots taking over the jobs that they are better suited to doing (read: most if not all of them) would be some kind of human affirmative action program for employment. Because fighting for the rights of humans to continue serving as inferiorly-performing and badly treated cogs in the system is exactly the kind of unimaginative, reactionary response that we would come up with as a society. I suppose we're meant to take it as read that the power and class structure of this world was so crippling that a society in which nobody actually needs to work was still bent to serve the few and neglect the many. Ok, admittedly that an extremely real possibility. But I'd have liked a line or two about how fifty years ago everybody thought universal basic income would be the solution and then it all went even more wrong. Or something the like. Tell me there are other people out there coming up with better solutions here, even if they can't get them enacted. I do know that Human Resource Lady's line at the end that they are going to make the company 50% human-powered came over more than a little tone deaf. Was she watching the rest of the episode? Am I meant to be left with this crushing sense that nothing has been solved? (Actually, the answer to that is probably yes, isn't it?)
I did like the Doctor's assertion that systems aren't good or evil, only our responses to them. Because, look, humans not having to do menial jobs (or any jobs) should be a good thing, if we approach it correctly. But we're currently doing absolutely nothing to try to make that the case.
It's rare for Doctor Who to really engage me on this level, but I liked it. I'll admit this issue is a bit of a personal fascination of mine.
Otherwise, then, the character stuff continues to be lacking, but weaponized bubble wrap is probably the most ingenious Doctor Who menace of all time.
no subject
I am v happy that it worked for you, but the whole 'There are no jobs' thing was... well, presumably only applicable to unskilled labour. I can't see a society not needing, say, lawyers and doctors and artists and engineers and all that jazz.
So all the episode says is that poor, under-educated people are forever trapped in crappy jobs. But hey, they should be grateful for them, because a robot might take it! Go capitalism!
Also, and this was something I thought of and then forgot, the Assessing Machine (that picked up the Doctor's two hearts) was also supposed to pick up on mental ability...
And it assigned the two most highly educated/intelligent people (Charlie & the Doctor) to Maintenance. I think there is something very wrong with that machine. (I was fully expecting Graham to be whisked off to Strategic Planning or something after the Doctor swapped places, but no.)
This episode was aggravating.
no subject
I wasn't really able to make it through the post. IDK, this is my fundamental problem with the Doctor Who morality play approach to social issues. Either it gets it right and it's all very obvious and unprovoking of any critical thought and everybody pats themselves on the back for having right opinions and watching a show that also has right opinions, OR something goes wrong and suddenly everybody is yelling and it just makes me very tired and not wanting to deal with fandom at all. (Also, ugh, the episode The Sunmakers that somebody is complaining about in that post is the one I'm on right now in watching Four. Dammit, that was my happy place! Not that it would have been a favorite episode anyway, but I'd have ignored it more readily.)
I am v happy that it worked for you, but the whole 'There are no jobs' thing was... well, presumably only applicable to unskilled labour. I can't see a society not needing, say, lawyers and doctors and artists and engineers and all that jazz.
Well, this is exactly the point of Humans Need Not Apply--that the areas we think are impervious to automation are almost certainly automatable, that this is a problem that is gong to face all of us, and it's not just an issue of training people who used to do manual labor up to be able to do more white-collar-style jobs that we will magically find for them . . . somewhere. Not that the episode explicitly suggests that doctors and musicians have been replaced as well, but as soon as they brought in the idea that there are laws saying humans have to be given 10% of even the jobs that are obviously more suited to robots it just tells me that that's exactly the kind of society they're facing. Mind you, even replacing just the jobs that are obviously suited to robots with robots is still a majority of the workforce. We don't have to talk about replacing doctors and lawyers before you throw all of society into crisis.
Possibly I'm just reading across the episode, but it's definitely ideas the episode is invoking.
And it assigned the two most highly educated/intelligent people (Charlie & the Doctor) to Maintenance. I think there is something very wrong with that machine. (I was fully expecting Graham to be whisked off to Strategic Planning or something after the Doctor swapped places, but no.)
I think someone pointed out in Nos' post that the system put the Doctor in maintenance so she'd find Charlie. If the Doctor hadn't swapped placed with Graham the episode would have been done in five minutes. Not sure why it put Charlie in maintenance, but in the Doctor's case it's rather clever.