Neil Bozeman said in their “Entertainment to Death” that human beings will be destroyed by what they love. In his view, changes and innovations in science and technology will inhibit the depth of our thinking and make cultural content a vassal of entertainment. Like “Black Mirror” takes this “destruction” to the extreme. What we see are those individuals and people who have been directly or indirectly destroyed by daily technology.
“Black Mirror” has the potential of a science fiction film, but all its science fiction elements are closely related to our current lives. It doesn’t involve space and the universe far away from the life of the masses. It often starts with our commonly used social networks, and then extends the IoT ecosystem in the embryonic stage, depicting a normalized life that we can foresee, such as using mobile phones to rate others.
The future looks like a utopian world. Utopia is a beautiful new society conjectured by people, while dystopia is an objective expression of the utopian society, which must have its ugly side. So I think both future life and technology have both good and bad sides. Design is the same, everything has two sides. It’s as if the designed fruit knife was originally used to cut fruit, but some people used it as a murder tool. This has high ethical requirements for users. Human beings have the right to choose, we will continue to improve, and new things will come out every day. But humans are also moral humans. For example, human beings created nuclear weapons to enhance their combat effectiveness and deterrence, but now all countries in the world have generally given up nuclear weapons. This is because human beings have realized that they have mastered the ability to surpass their own desires and means, which will only bring more trouble.
Very interesting ! I agree with the idea that “Black Mirror” has the potential of a science fiction film, but all its science fiction elements are closely related to our current lives.
I definitely think it is interesting to consider the role of morality for both the users and the designers of tech. We must constantly be working to discover ways to build our products or services in ways that produce less potential negative consequences, however it is also partly the role of the user to decide what they will do with the technology at their fingertips.
I feel like a Utopia is something that can only exist in books! it’s so sad because a majority of people on earth would agree that everyone should have access to food in some way. Even though we all agree, it still doesn’t really happen. It’s in our maniacal pursuit of trying to get food to everyone that we forget to notice we were contributing to green-house gassses with industrial farming, water run-offs from global warming, and fires from massacering native tribes and forcing them out of their homes.
I think this is a hard topic, not only about design but also about morality and philosophy. I think that in the future, the whole system will not be changed because of a designed product. Rather, in continuous accumulation, when a certain quantity and quality are reached, it replaces the important position of the current system. Then this system will change, and human behavior will also change accordingly. After many years, a complete and stable system will be formed, and people will have new behaviors and concepts.