1. Excellent article, Parker.

  2. Autumn Grayson says:

    Sounds very interesting.

    The parallel you made with social media and Meet In The Middle’s scenario made me think of AI as well. Some day AI will get to the place where someone could go online and think they’re arguing with a person…but that person is actually just an artificial intelligence. Even if that exact scenario doesn’t play out, AI will still offer that situation of wondering whether we are talking to/interacting with something that’s real. Heck, it’ll even get to the point where we can’t entirely trust video recordings since AI will greatly improve the quality of deep fakes. Voice synthesization has already made a lot of progress.

    I like a variety of stories, with some presenting a solution and others utilizing a more negative nihilism to make a point or illustrates something but leaves the conclusion more open ended. (A story that follows hopeful nihilism might actually present solutions though. Maybe.) Both types of stories do seem to have their place and use. Then again…I dunno, some of the nihilistic looking stories actually might have solutions built in as well, they may just be harder to spot since the solutions might be implied a lot more vaguely.

    Have you seen Black Mirror? I haven’t seen that show, or Twilight Zone, but it sounds like they’re similar in concept. If you have seen Black Mirror, what’s your opinion of it?

    • Thanks so much for responding. I LOVE Black Mirror. The only episode I didn’t watch was the first one and that was because it had bestiality in it and whereas I’m pretty wide in my tastes, I do have to draw the line SOMEWHERE. Black Mirror’s focus though is on the material. Nothing supernatural. At least from the last time I’ve seen it I should say.
      The show often depicting the dark side of AI, which is a Western construct. As you mentioned, AI is getting very good at deep fakes and don’t think the videos coming closer to the election aren’t going to be made up of deep fakes.
      My favorite episode is the play off Star Trek they did. It was brilliant. I mean absolutely brilliant. Dark and gritty but still carried that moral code to it. You made a point that I hadn’t considered when you said that some nihilistic stories may have solutions and even morals built into them. I am going to simmer on that for a moment because then i have to wonder if there is a moral code embedded at all, then can it be nihilistic? That has me thinking and I thank you for giving me the thought.

      • Autumn Grayson says:

        Sounds like Black Mirror is pretty cool, then 🙂 I like the idea of having some shows in this style that focus more on the supernatural (Twilight Zone, I guess) and some that focus more on the natural with Black Mirror. Some day I’ll probably see these. For now I guess I’m somewhat experiencing them vicariously through your articles until I get around to the actual shows XD.

        And cool 🙂 From what I’ve gathered from nihilism (or at least hopeful nihilism) there can be a moral code, it’s just human, society, individual, etc based, rather than there being a moral code passed onto us by God or embedded in the universe or whatever. So one angle you might enjoy considering is what people look to as far as their source goes, and how that influences outlook, behavior, society, etc. And then I guess a nihilistic story might not be moral in and of itself, but portray chars that have moral beliefs/codes they want to follow. So I guess there’s a lot of fun in and outs to it.

  3. Keturah Barchers says:

    I love how you broke this down. I enjoy the old Twilight Zone and haven’t picked up the new one (ok, I didn’t know it existed), but now I’m going to be watching it, new and old, and thinking about it as you do. Thanks!

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