Comment by verall

9 days ago

> In a society where people can play back and re-live prior memories, it would not suddenly come up that one can relive experiences with past lovers.

I am not much of a TV watcher so this is the only episode of black mirror I've seen but this really got me - for a show that got so much hype - this is the first couple to have jealousy issues around this technology? Really?? And he has to cut it out of his head with a double edged razor? Really??? People want to forget things all of the time.

It's TV and the other shows I watch are mostly because they're terrible, so it was better than those, but it definitely felt like, cmon guys, we can do better.

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verall

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throw310822  9 days ago

My take was that it was not about jealousy or wanting to forget, but about the obsession for an objective truth. The main character was rewatching his memories looking for the objective truth of what had happened, only to discover that all his memories were, in fact, a lie (because his wife was lying to him all the time).

  • opello  9 days ago

    I agree with this take, aside from a plot nuance about all his memories, there was one base factual lie (paternity) that propagated through his memories. I also occasionally rewatch that episode to try to convince myself that the Willow Grain would not be a panacea for so many of the worlds ills that it would outweigh any shame-motivated reason to dislike it.

    Put another way, easy and on-demand access to objective truth seems to present a resolution to so many stupid arguments that it just has to net out as a positive where people quit dying on rhetorically silly hills.

    As you correctly identify the weakness is when you want access to the objective truth of another. They need not be inclined to share it and this presents a social issue, as opposed to a technical or factual issue.