H.I. No. 74: Black Mirror Season 3

"H.I. #74: Black Mirror Season 3" is the 74th episode of Hello Internet, released on November 30, 2016.
==Official Description==
Grey and Brady discuss: a twitter style guide, cryogenics, chess world championship, black tape on webcams, cybersecurity revisited, and Black Mirror Season 3.
==Show Notes==
I'm reluctantly telling you about a little trial I'm doing at the moment because I don't want to hurt your feelings or stir you up. Uh-huh. But I just thought you'd find it interesting. And I also want to find out how you do with these things as well. Hurt my feelings. Again, immediately concerns raised to maximum. What could be to be talking about? We are seven seconds into the podcast. And I'm sorry, because now, please bear in mind. I say this with love in my heart. All right. OK. But like sometimes you are not the easiest person to be friends with. Oh, OK. All right. And again, I say this with love in my heart. I think you're like a really nice guy and you're very generous and considerate. But you know that certain types of interactions and certain things about your personality confuse other humans and cause problems and tensions and things like that. Right. Like you know that, don't you? I know some of my interactions confuse a Brady. That's true. Yes. Yeah. All right. So anyway, so sometimes, and because of a lot of our interaction is like online, like through email or particularly through messaging and that, I mean, we joke this sometimes can compound the problem because there can be miscommunications because of lack of body language and nuance and just having the text there. Sometimes gets us both very confused. Uh-huh. That's OK. I live with it, you know, and I'm sure you live with it too. But I'm trying an experiment. OK. Because I think I've been compounding the problem unnecessarily. Oh, yeah. And what I am experimenting with is trying a new icon to represent you on my operating system because it would be no surprise to anyone that I use the CG pre-Gray icon that you, you know, you use everywhere. It just seems obvious that that's what I would use. So every time a message from you comes up, up pops the little black circle with a cog on it and the little flask. And to me, like that's you. But the problem with that is, and this has always been the way with your representation online. Not only is anonymous, it's kind of a little bit unfriendly because, you know, it's mechanical and scientific and it's very dark and very non-human. Is this unfriendly? I'm not sure I agree with you on that. OK. I won't call it unfriendly. But I definitely wouldn't call it friendly. I think it's very cool and it works really well for your YouTube channel and your Twitter and all those things. You know, I think it's a masterstroke on your behalf. But having that come up and look me in the face when I'm being frustrated by you in some communication, I think compounds the problem. OK. So what I have done in the last week is I've actually got, I've chosen a photo of you where you've got a big smile on your face and you look kind of goofy and we're messing around from some photo we took ages ago. With a bright colourful background and I've made that my icon on my phone for you. So every time I get a message from you, I've got a big goofy, CGB grey smile and get me out of my phone and I think it just diffuses the tone of whatever's going on all the time. I think it's been a masterstroke on my behalf. You think this has been effective? Yeah, I do. And I think we should think carefully about the photos and icons we're used to represent people on our phones as we go more and more down this path of interacting with people in this way. I think it can make a big difference. It obviously has in this case. What do you have for me when that message from me comes up? I have the picture of you. The one looks like it's professionally done from ages ago where you're holding a tiny puppy Audrey. That's the one that I have of you. You know that one. It's just taken by my wife with an iPhone in a kitchen. Well, it's very professional looking then. It's very well done. That is the photo that I have of you. That is also the photo of you that for some reason keeps replicating itself over and over in my iPhone library. It's like I can't even tweet how many times that happens. But it's like I've complained about this on Twitter. It's a virus. I know. I'm going to complain about it again. But for some reason, when I open my iPhone library, I'm going to say at least once a month, there are hundreds of copies of two images, one of which is this photograph of you, Brady holding Audrey. And the other is a Hitler meme from my Reddit video from like three years ago, where it's just a stupid picture of Hitler wearing high socks and looking like an idiot in shorts. It's like I have this Brady Hitler meme thing that just replicates over and over. And I am convinced that it's getting worse over time that when I open up my iPhone library, it's like five more every time because now it's like screens and screens that I have to scroll through to get rid of these hundreds and hundreds of photos. So I'm just realizing as I'm saying this out loud, while I do think it's a fantastic photograph of you. And I have been using it as my contact photo of you for a long time. I'm realizing maybe I too also have some negative associations with that particular image. And the quite literally thousands of times I have deleted it and it still will not go away. So maybe I should select a different photograph of you as well. That's going to be some metaphor for our professional relationship. I don't know what it is, but there's going to be something there. It's in there somewhere. Anyway, do you have like icons for everyone in your phone, like everyone who messages you or most people iconless or photo less? Or do you attach a person to pretty much everyone who contacts you? Yeah, I'll attach a picture. I mean, the main reason that you need the picture is that you don't accidentally send a message to the wrong person. Right? Like when I'm messaging with your wife and we're talking about you behind your back, and slagging you off, I don't want to accidentally send a message to you. So I have to make sure like there's a clear visual representation of who you're talking to. So that's why it's everybody has to have a photograph. It would be incredibly stressful if they were just the defaults person outline icons. That would be no good at all, no good. It's like initials sometimes. It's the initials of the person, isn't it? So I'd be like, B.H. That's right. Yeah. That's no good. You have to have a photograph. Do you circle them very often? Will you change the photo of your wife like once a month or something? Have you had the same one forever? OK. So my wife has been getting on my case about this. But I use a photograph of her that is at this point eight years old. She keeps wanting me to update to a more modern one and even just recently, like hopefully sent me a few well posed photographs. She's like, you know, these could be my contact photos. But I feel like, oh, no, but that's not you. That's the contact photo that I've been using of you for forever. Yeah. She's just like, now this is the digital representation of my wife. And even though she doesn't necessarily think it, I still think she looks exactly the same. I can't tell the difference. So I see no reason to change it. Changing those pictures is a big deal. I have some sympathy with you there. I don't change those things easily. Yeah. It's like once it's locked in, it becomes like this is not supposed to be a current photo of the person. Like this is just the shorthand representation of the person. But that's why I've had to change yours though. I've had to change yours because I'm doing psychological testing on myself. I'm saying whether using something a bit more personal and friendly will help defuse the frustration you sometimes inside in me. I think it's a good idea. And also maybe you too should send me some recommendations you might have of what I should use for your contact photo. I think maybe I do have to change my contact photo for you in the system as well because of the deletion associations. I'll go on a shoot. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Harry's. The holidays are fast approaching and Harry's knows that finding the perfect gift for some guys is near impossible. But with Harry's you can give a gift that is both thoughtful and practical. If you haven't heard of them before, Harry's was started by two best friends Jeff and Andy who were fed up with being overcharged for razors. So they started their own razor company to give people what they deserve. A great shave at a fair price. And this holiday, Harry's is offering a limited edition shaving set. A midnight blue chrome razor handle, which you can get engraved with initials, three of Harry's German engineered five blade cartridges that provide a close, comfortable shave, foaming gel that smells amazing. All for $30 on Harry's.com. And it comes in a beautifully designed gift box. All of Harry's products really do make fantastic gifts. They are just really well designed. They feel nice and they work great. And shaving is such a problem for so many guys. They're just used to using cheap razor blades and never really think about it very much. And so getting someone a Harry's gift, this Christmas, not only is it a nice object that you can give them, but you can also introduce them to an entire better life of shaving. The standard handles and shaving sets start at 10 bucks a month if you haven't tried Harry's already for yourself. Now for listeners of Hello Internet, you can get $5 off your order when you enter the code, H I at checkout with Harry's. So go to Harry's.com right now to get a great gift. They're offering free shipping until December 9th. So act now, go to their website, enter code, H I at checkout and get $5 off. Thanks so much to Harry's for supporting the show. So there are many things in life that cause me irritation that are my own fault. For example, the day that I stupidly on Hello Internet jokingly told people if they were not on a plane to send me a tweet, you deserve every one of those tweets. I will regret that forever. I hope so. I really do. And it was my fault. And as people go through in the center, the back catalog and send me those tweets, not realizing I was sort of joking around a bit, I copped that on the chin and most things I think in my fault, because generally I make a lot of mistakes. But one thing that was not my fault was the belief that continues to blossom. And I continue to complain about that people think we invented the term humble brag on Hello Internet. OK, can I just tell you something? Yeah, I just had this happen with my own parents yesterday. And it's like, this will never go away. And it was not our fault. We never jokingly claimed to make it up. We've talked about it a bit, but we've never said it was our thing ever. But people believe that. And now the worst possible thing that could happen seems to have happened. And that is some new game. I think it's some new Pokemon game or something that everyone's playing has a seen in it, like a cutscene in it that uses the term humble brag. And everyone who's playing this game is saying this, thinking at some cool for Hello Internet that our word has been now used in this game and is sending me screenshots of the game. I cannot tell you how many screenshots I have got from this game where this term humble beg comes up on the screen and people saying, this is amazing, Brady. You're amazing. And it was your fault, Tony, because you're the person who first mentioned the word on the podcast. Was it me? Did I bring it up? I can't remember. Yeah, I was grappling with the concept and you said, oh, it's a humble brag. As you'd seen the word before when it was caught in. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's what it is. And we talked about it from there. Gosh, that thing haunts me. And it's not my fault. The other stuff I can cop because it is my fault. Right, right. I feel like we were more serious back then. Modern current us might make some joke about owning a word. But now we even did a whole thing where we talked about the person who would invented the term. I think it couldn't have been more clear that we're just discussing a word. We didn't create this word. But yeah, that meme is totally out there and seems impossible to kill even with my own family. I've corrected the idea several times like it just keeps coming on back. Yeah, it's happened. My wife's done it. Thank God people don't think we invented the word flag. Oh, Brady, I was just watching the Olympics and they were flying a whole bunch of flags. You must be so proud. It'll never die, Brady. I might as well claim I invented at least get a bit of credit out of it. There you go. You heard it here, folks. Brady Harron, inventor of the Humphle Bragg. No, you can't do that because the guy who invented it I think passed away and was already tragic story. Well, then he's not here to contradict your claim. It's just going to be even more rock solid, buddy. No, it was not us. Gray invented it. No, totally Brady. Brady, he's the guy. He's so good with all those words. Remember people. Brady's really good with all the words. Yeah. Me, I'm rubbish. I couldn't coin anything even if I tried few jacking. Okay, Brady, I've come across a thing which I don't really understand what it is, but I'm going to show you. And this is something somebody puts on the Reddit, which is on the Wikipedia page for Brady. As in the word Brady, not me, just Brady in general, right? The word Brady. What can the word Brady refer to? Lady Brady's actual Brady's places called Brady's all of this stuff. Yeah. On there is an image for the Brady code of arms. Yes. Could you describe to me what the Brady code of arms is on the Wikipedia page? Since seeing the sun, I've investigated further and found all sorts of variations of this. And they are all quite similar. And it is kind of a black shield. And in the top left corner is the sun. And then in the bottom right corner is just a hand pointing at the sun. Just a finger just pointing at the sun. There's the sun. Now, when I first saw this, I assumed that someone was having a little fun at the Wikipedia's expense because I do know that our audience on occasion only when it's appropriate, sometimes screws around with Wikipedia and changes things to make them funny. And so I thought, like, oh, surely somebody has gone in and added in this Brady code of arms, which is a hand pointing at a thing which couldn't be more you. Because I'd do this in photos all the time. Yeah, you did this in the very last episode. But sure enough, when I went to click on the link, like it's from 2007, like it predates the podcast by a lot. I was totally confused by this. You do some searching. You find all sorts of ancient coats of arms for Brady and it's all variations of this finger pointing at the sun. So you've done much more deep research into this. You've found this going back. Well, if a quick Google image just search counts as deep research, then yes. I think that totally counts. Yes, it does. I think if you just Google image Brady code of arms, you've found a whole bunch of other ones. I find this just an amazing, miraculous coincidence that makes me smile. It is a nice coincidence. And I like that the thing that's been pointed at is like an astronomical object too and reflects my kind of space geekiness too. So it could only have been better if it was the moon. It could only have been better if it was the moon, but it still strikes me as just a remarkable coincidence. I just can't believe that this was actually a thing that pre-existed the podcast. And it was not internet shenanigans. Absolutely amazing. What's the great code of arms? I'm sure just in coincidence is sake, it'll turn out to be like a bunch of gears, right? That's what it'll be. Quick project revolution update. It's been a bit of a palava, but it looks like as we record, we're recording on a Sunday night, it looks like the albums will actually hit the post tomorrow. Oh, wow. But don't like hold me to that. There've been more problems than I would have expected. Put it this way, you could make an entire podcast of corporate compensation corner based on some of the problems I've been having getting these things sorted out. You better be careful making an off-handed comment like that. People will start asking for corporate compensation corner as it relates to project revolution. You can't mix your corners though. Oh, is that now? Is that not how that works? That would be confusing. Do they get all round and squishy if you mix too many of them together? Is that what happened? Yeah, they do think you have too many corners things start rounding off a bit. So I don't think we'll do that. But speaking of corners, you're up for a paper cut or two? Let's just give you one paper cut. I know you don't like multiple paper cuts. I've always got a lot on my list, but sure, Brady, why don't you give me a paper cut? My paper cut, as many of my paper cuts these days tend to do, relate to BBC Twitter streams. I don't like kicking the BBC. You know I used to work for them. I think it's a good organisation. Maybe it's just a reflection of the fact that I follow a lot of BBC on Twitter. So they have more opportunities to irritate me. They're a bigger target. I know just three word Twitter was back on shift this week, by the way. Oh, no. Yeah, but let's not go there. But the thing that they do, and I'll use the example that most irritated me, is they were tweeting something about Barrako Barma, something he'd done. I can't remember what it was. Let me just make something up. Barrako Barma has met with the French president. And what they said was meeting in Paris between French president and at Potos. They didn't call him by his name or say what he was. And they just used his Twitter handle. I find the informality a little bit grating from the news organisation. But worse, I find it a little bit ingratiating when they do that. Like they're almost hoping for like a retweet or... And because it's not like it's someone who... Like you're not going to know or like you're not going to go, Oh, I didn't know. I could follow the president of the United States on Twitter. Thank you for providing that useful service, BBC. It's just a little bit like chummy and a bit... It makes me feel squeamish saying the BBC referring to at Potos. Look at this photo of at Potos walking on the street. Because it's almost like a call out to him like because when you're at someone, the main reason you're at someone is so that they will see what you just tweeted. So it's almost like we want the president to see that we just tweeted about him. Like this is the BBC in the president of the United States. It's not me and Justin Bieber. Oh man. I like the idea of someone at the BBC is going on to their tweets and reply. And then flipping over to the verified tab and hitting refresh refresh refresh. I don't like did he see? Did he give us a like? Yeah. I think it's silliness. Don't do that BBC. They should very rarely be using the acts of people. I don't even like when the BBC Sports site does it, it'll go, you know, Oh, fabulous goal today by At Wayne Rooney. Like don't do that. See, I'm going to totally disagree with you, Brady. I think that they should do that. I think that that's exactly what they should be doing. And what I'm wondering is did the French president not have a Twitter account? Like is that why they said the French president and POTUS? I was just making that up. It was French. Yeah, I didn't even know what it was about. So it was like at French Presby and POTUS. I don't know, but also sometimes the Twitter handle doesn't always reflect who the person is. Like I guess most people know that POTUS means president of the United States, but not everyone would know that. And so sometimes with sport, it'll be, you know, fabulous goal today by at Johnny 371 because that's what some sports person has as their Twitter handle. And then you don't even know who the person is who scored the goal. And also you say they should do it. I mean, why should they do it to help sort of the interconnectivity of Twitter and build the platform? That's not what the BBC should be doing. I think that this is like the grammar of Twitter, right? The BBC being on Twitter in the first place means, well, you should be using the system like the way it is. To me, it's like for the longest time and even still it always bothers me how newspapers seem incredibly reluctant to actually link to a thing, right? Whenever they talk about it in their news articles, it's like if I ever find a news article about a thing and it says like, oh, they're talking about like here's this amazing thing that someone is making and they mentioned the website, right? But they don't link to it. And so it's like, God damn it. Like you know, you're on the internet, right guys? Like you link to a thing. And I always find that super frustrating. I agree with that, Gray. And I agree on Twitter also. There's like an etiquette. And if I'm mentioning you, I will use your app rather than just say, Gray, like I agree there's an etiquette. But I feel like there is a line somewhere of kind of a formality and people who should be a little bit above it. And I think once you've got the British broadcast incorporation and the president of the United States, I hold them to a slightly different standard. And there are times they should use ads and things like that. And I can even handle, you know, emojis and things like that. But this just feels wrong. It just felt juvenile calling him at potas. Yeah, it just felt a bit wrong to me, but I'll defer to your judgment. I'm just thinking like somewhere, almost certainly there has to be like a style guy that exists for the BBC Twitter account. Oh man, I'd love to get my hands on that. I'd rip that bad boy up and re-rather. Whoa. No three word tweets. No three word tweets. No use of the flames for someone is on fire. But I'm just thinking like a style guide must exist somewhere, right? Like this has to be a thing. And I think the problem you would run into with the style guide is trying to define an arbitrary line of seriousness over which you're not going to use the Twitter handles. And I think it's especially weird in a place like Twitter because you can easily end up with, you know, if the BBC had some rule like, oh, heads of state will always use their names and we won't use their Twitter handles. But that also just runs into the weird popularity thing on Twitter that like tons of heads of state who have pitiful numbers of Twitter followers. Right versus like actual celebrities who have like millions and bazillions of Twitter followers. And so it's like, I don't think there's any consistent way to come down on a ruling of when you should use a name versus a Twitter handle. I think if you're on Twitter, you should just use the Twitter handle. Like I think that's the medium. That's the way that this works. Well, I'll say two things to that. One is I actually feel like they're probably is not a very well adhered to style guide for the BBC and Twitter because I find them very inconsistent on this. And I know BBC, you know, I used to live by a BBC style guard. So I know about BBC style guards. And Twitter gives me the impression it's the Wild West and they haven't got their act together. And secondly, I don't know where that line is and you make a fair point, you know, where would you draw that line? But that line does exist because if for example, the Pope died tomorrow, heaven forbid, I can't see the BBC saying, oh my goodness, at pontifix has died. Like they wouldn't do that because that would feel really, really inappropriate. And that shows that there is a line. And therefore there can be a discussion about where that line is. That's me feels like there's something in there, which is like the office versus the person. I don't know. I feel like I'd have to think about that. But you're right. It would be weird if they're like at Pope awesome dead now. That would not seem like an appropriate way to do that. Yeah. So I feel like you've introduced a little crack here, but I still feel like I'm okay with it with the Twitter handles. I think I'm not okay with that. Just looking. I can't believe this. So I have the current president's Twitter profile open up on my page because I was like, I just went to the potas thing. And the president is using the thing that I can't stand, which is like the three-known description of yourself, which almost always starts with the thing that other people will care the least about and then ends with the thing that everybody cares the most about. So what is that? So the president's Twitter description right now says dad, husband, 44th president to the United States. Okay. That's a total humble. It drives me nuts when like some famous important person is like father, right? They put it as their first thing. Like, oh, come on, dude. Nobody's going to your Twitter profile because you're a father, right? They're going to you for the thing that you're known for. And it's extra funny to me that it's fallen into this pattern of so many people's Twitter buyers have like three nouns as the description. And it's like, and so does at potas. What would your speak, right? What would your three be like in that humble bregg genre? It would it be like, you know, human male YouTube superstar. Yeah, that's what I would do. This is why I don't have a Twitter description. It's fundamentally impossible to write a good one. So I just didn't. Oh, no. So I'm going to have to read you mine before this podcast goes out. Oh, yeah. No, let's look. Let's see what it is. What is pretty have doggy owner filmmaker something something. Yeah, that's yeah dog owner husband. How do you internet co host? Yeah, that's right. I don't know what mine says. You actually have a decent one. You have a decent one because it actually gets to the heart of what you are and why someone would be looking at your Twitter profile. So as of right now, it says video journalist and YouTube person. And then you have at number file at periodic videos at hello internet. Nice to see and other stuff. Location the mighty black stump. I think that's good. Like I think that's a perfectly good profile because it clarifies who you are. And there's like a little bit of a joke for people who would like that. Yeah, but I swear to God, I would throw up in my office right now if it actually started with like doggy owner husband's YouTube person. That would be the worst. Don't do that. I won't do that. So great. There's been probably two new stories this week that have caught my eye. And I wanted to discuss with you because both of them made me think of you for various reasons. I don't particularly want to talk about the new story, but there was a big new story in the UK over the last week or two. And it dealt with a 14 year old girl who was dying. I think she was dying of something like cancer. It was a terrible story. But she wanted to be cryogenically frozen after she died and you know, hoping that one day their cure would be found and she would be brought back to life. And there was a whole bit of controversy about it to do with her parents. We don't need to go into that. But what I did want to go into was just the whole issue of because it did it got people talking about cryonics again. And I read lots of articles and things around the place about what they do and how it works and how people can be frozen. And it did get me thinking that if someone said to me, Brady, there is one person who you are friends with who actually has paid for and is going to be cryogenically frozen after that person dies. Which one of your friends do you think it is without doubt my answer would be CGP Gray. Really? There's nobody else even think of top of that list there? No, because I don't know where you stand on this and I deliberately haven't asked you about where you stand on this. But I can imagine you are either vehemently opposed to it and think it's ridiculous or and I slightly lean this way. I think it tickles you and I think it's possible it's something you have not rode out doing. So where do you stand on the issue of cryonics in general? Tell me your story, Gray. Well, you're wrong in that I haven't signed up for cryonics. Yet if you're looking for a friend who's signed up and written a check, I am not on that list. However, if you're assembling a list of people who have seriously looked into it and found inadequate cryogenic solutions in the UK and thus were unable to pay for it, then I would also be on that list. Wow. So you're that serious about it? Yeah, I looked into this a little while ago. Oh, I feel good. I guess it's not the most amazing prediction that word was considering your interest. I think it's a fantastically accurate prediction, right? Score one in the Brady. You definitely win the same. So what you've like, you know, you've got a few brochures and looked at a few websites and priced it up, have you and didn't find the deal you were looking for yet? Well, no, it wasn't that I didn't find the deal that I was looking for. It's just that I'm going to say this was like probably at least three years ago now. So I haven't re researched it in a little while. Yeah. But at least at the time what I came across was that it seemed like America was way harder core into the cryonics industry. Probably because it has a larger number of slightly nutty, super wealthy people who are happy to fund it. Is my guess? I'm going to bet cryogenic sales are fantastic in a place like Silicon Valley. I'm basing that on nothing except just a guess. And so maybe that's why that industry exists more there. But it seemed like there were a serious number of services that you could really sign up for. And at least at the time when I looked into it in the UK, there was nothing that seemed adequate or trustworthy for what I was really looking for in a cryogenic service. Well, before we go into that, I mean, you are right. I'm America and Russia are the only place that have facilities that are doing it at the moment. Hmm, interesting. About 1600 people are signed on to do it in the future. I think only a couple of hundred or a few hundred people have actually frozen at the moment. You say you couldn't find what you were looking for. What are you looking for? Well, again, I'm trying to dig up vague memories of what it was at the time. Part of it was these things were shockingly costly. Some of them were just like, I cannot possibly afford this. Really? Because the one thing that struck me was that it was cheaper than I expected. Hmm, okay. Still expensive, like, you know, not something everyone can do. But I was surprised that it was a bit cheaper than I thought. Maybe prices have come down in the past couple of years, right? It's like genetic testing. Maybe the price keeps having every 18 months as time goes along and eventually everybody will get it done. Yeah. But whatever it was, it was too expensive at the time. But more than that, it was a question of time to freeze. Like, how fast can they theoretically get you frozen? Yeah. Because I feel like surely if this has any chance of working, that is the key factor. Right? How mushy do you get before they stick you in the freezer? Yeah. That has to be the thing. And so in America, there were a bunch of services that basically like their whole selling point was, we can get you frozen really fast after you're declared dead. Yeah. And it seemed like that was not the case in the UK, right? In the UK, it was like, oh, yeah, once you die, we'll stick you in a box on a freight ship across the ocean to get you to America. And then we'll freeze you like once the rats are finished thinking that's what it seemed like. Yeah. Didn't seem like a high probability of success with that. Yeah. I'm a little dismissive of it and skeptical about it. So this afternoon, I was reading a bit about it. And the more I read about it, it didn't start appealing to me. But the more I read about it, the more I thought, oh, this is totally going to appeal to Gray. And because you can kind of make it a justification for it quite easily, you could say, well, okay, maybe if the technology for cryogenically storing people now is flawed, because it is flawed. That doesn't matter. It just means it'll be a longer wait until the technology exists that can undo that flaw and get around the problem. Any problem can be fixed if we wait enough years. And then I started going off into all sorts of pastures, wages and all sorts of things about it. And it all becomes quite philosophical. And I started thinking, oh, I've stumbled into a CGP great video here. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, it would be a good video for you, actually. I'll do one on cryogenics and I'll speculate that'll be your favorite. You'll love that. So why doesn't it appeal to you, though? Like, what is it that you find resistant about the idea? Well, I don't think it will work. I think the technology is too crude. And if it did work and they were able to revive something in a thousand years' time, I don't think that thing would be me. And I think there would be no connection of consciousness. And it would be kind of a pointless thing. I mean, you may as well have frozen my shoe and brought that back to life. It's just a vessel that won't have me in it. So I'm pretty skeptical about the whole thing. And maybe all that money could be used for something better for family. And almost any cause would be a better use of the money. But I then do think, you know, what do I know about what we're going to know in a thousand years? And maybe having my frozen brain will make something possible that I just don't understand. This isn't the whole, all the Pascal's way, just stuff starts coming in, doesn't it say? You know, it's not for me, but I'm finding it harder and harder to dismiss people as complete nutcases for wanting to do it. Because who knows where we're going to be in a thousand years? And maybe just having someone's tonal in a thousand years will be enough to completely bring them back and they're conscious of everything for all we know. There's so much stuff we don't understand about people and consciousness and the brain. I'm sort of fascinated by a thing you just tossed out there. Now, I want to go back to this. When you said, let's imagine that they freeze you. You die and they freeze you. Yeah. In a thousand years, they wake you up. When you said that you think it might not be you, what do you mean by that? You're not going to pull the sleep card on me now, are you? No, but I'm curious by what you mean. Like, do you mean that the thing that wakes up won't be conscious or won't be alive? Or I'm not quite sure what you mean by that? I don't know. You're asking me to speculate as I think now, but I think if it has a consciousness it probably wouldn't be my consciousness. I don't think the two would be connected. I think there would be a catastrophic breakdown of whatever makes me me caused by a death, be the freezing process. And that is something far more catastrophic than falling asleep. I'm not bringing it to sleep. So you think it would be like a brand new person waking up. Is that what you mean? I don't know. I find it hard to believe it would be me. That's very interesting. Whether it's something with consciousness or not, I probably would. All I would be doing was be putting down, you know, a hundred thousand bucks or something so that something else could exist in a thousand years that's not me. And there'll be plenty of stuff to exist in a thousand years without something having to be made from the mush of my brain. Hmm. I just don't buy it. I'm just fascinated by that because I have had over the years conversations on cryogenics with people sometimes. I've never heard anybody have that worry that the thing that that would wake up wouldn't be them. I think that's really interesting. That's a really interesting different take on it that I find surprising. I just think the preservation of the brain is such a messy process at the moment and so much stuff goes wrong with it. And I just don't think it could still be me. That's interesting. I guess my take on it, the whole reason why I would be open to the idea and seriously looked at to it at one point is because I feel like, well, this is a total game of probabilities. I think anybody who's frozen now might have quite literally less than a one in a billion chance of ever being. Everything we seem to know about the way that the freezing process works, even putting aside how likely is it that an institution that is preserving these bodies is going to last for as long as necessary? There's so many questions around the possibility of it working. But the thing is, when you die and they burn your corpse or bury you in the ground, you have an absolutely 0% chance of coming back. So I feel like, well, you're not going to need that money after you're dead. And so why not spend some money on essentially like the grandest lottery ticket that is possible? Yeah. Why not roll those dice? Why just walk away from the table and say, I've had enough. Thanks. It was fun. Why not take one last roll of the dice with your dying hand? I feel like I can see that being worth doing. I hear your argument. I guess the question is, at what point do those odds become so small that you think a better use of your money would be instead of buying that lottery ticket to let someone you love now use the money for something? Yeah, they can use it for cryogenic services. That's they can use it for. Yeah. Yeah. I think the payoff of potentially having life in the future is shockingly high. It does become very, very Pascal's wagerie in a sense because you're talking about like infinite rewards and infinitesimal possibilities. Like I can totally see where this becomes a thing where you can just kind of come down on one side or the other. But I feel like the possibility of living again after death is worth rolling the dice even if it is incredibly unlikely. Well, let me ask you another more meaningful question if I dare. Why do you want more life? Because it's better than being dead. Yeah. That's like a hard question, right? Being dead doesn't seem very appealing. We've all done it before. We know what it's like and I don't feel like having another eternity of that. Well, we don't know what it's like. Do you know what it was like before you were born? I don't know what it was like before I was born. Of course you do. There was nothingness forever. That's what it was. You have no experience of anything. And so I feel like, well, of course, more life is better than more of that. That's why the cryogenic thing seems like it's worth rolling the dice and taking the risk. I'm okay. I also learned today that Walt Disney wasn't cryogenically stored. Oh, really? Is that just an urban legend? That's an urban legend. He was cremated. Oh, wow. See, cremation, the opposite of cryogenics. We want to make sure there's a 0% chance. We're going to take your body and we're going to put entropy to the max. That's going to need some real tech to bring him back. Yeah, that is beyond the pale. All information lost. It's just totally gone. No more Walt Disney. Sorry, everybody. Sorry, kids. Thank you to audible.com for supporting this episode of the podcast. As I record now, they've currently got an epic library of 180,000 or so audio books and spoken word audio products. And remember, you can get a 30-day trial at audible.com slash hello internet. Now, the most recent audiobook for me was one lots of people have been talking about. Ready Player One by Ernest Klein. For those of you who don't know what it's about, I'm not going to spoil it. In fact, I was so spoiler free. I went into this not even knowing if it was fiction or nonfiction. I listened to it on a holiday and I was so engrossed I was even finding excuses to listen a bit longer. Extending a walk, going to the gym, maybe having just one more drink by the pool? Actually, probably the drinks by the pool excuse was used a lot more than the gym. But you get the idea. This book's really addictive and worked really well in audio. I listened to the version narrated by Will Wheaton. And many of you will know there's a Steven Spielberg film on the way based on the book. So why not make sure you're across the original material before that comes out. Audible's a top service. They've got a really great app. There are no problems exchanging books if you end up with one you don't enjoy so much. And although I've not used it yet, I hear great things about the whisper sink for voice feature which lets you switch back and forth between reading the book on say Kindle or a Kindle app and listening to the audio book. All of that without losing your place. Where was I up to? Where was I up to in the audio book? Where was I up to on my Kindle? Oh, I can't remember. No problem anymore. And of course remember that 30 day free trial, the first time you sign up with Audible, go to audible.com slash hello internet to check it out. And thanks to them for supporting the podcast. So the other thing I've been following this week with great interest, actually more interest than I would have expected is the chess world championship. Oh really? Does this come onto your radar at all? No, I didn't know there was a chess world championship. Why would I know there's a chess world championship? Well, I know you don't mind chess and you used to play it a bit. So it made me think, you know, you know more about chess than me. I thought certainly playing on a terrible player. But I'm very interested in like the personalities and the stories of chess. Of course you are. You love yourself some personalities. I do. I don't care at all about the people playing chess, but I did play chess a long time ago. And I was very bad when I did play a long time ago. Well, this is the first time I've ever followed one as it happened. I've read a lot about historic ones. And I've really gotten into it like I've been watching like these sort of 45 minute hour long summaries of the games afterwards where they explain all the moves and what was going on. I've been really into it. For those who don't know, it's currently, well, as we're recording, it's currently going on. It probably will be over by the time people hear this. It's between the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlson from Sweden and the challenger Sergei Kerry-Akin from Russia. And by the way, Magnus Carlson is not from Sweden. He's from Norway. I just said that because I knew how much it would stir up all the Norwegian business. Okay. Well, there you go. I was looking for some trouble. I even went so far as to find out just a double check that Sweden was the country that would upset the most for me to say. Good. Good. This feels to me like a very Brady moment. It's the real core of your personality shining through. Because what I want to find out is how many people like pause the podcast. Right. A meeting. A message to me in those 10 seconds. That is totally a thing. People pause the podcast to immediately write out the tweet and then unpause it to hear the clarifying sentence a little later. This definitely happens. So you're going to enjoy some of those tweets. I'm very aware Magnus Carlson is from Norway. I actually know quite a lot about him. I'm mildly fascinated by him. So anyway, I've gotten so into it the other night when it was happening. They're playing in New York. I actually woke up and like started watching on Twitch like live commentary of like this six and a half hour game at one point. My wife woke up and like said, what on earth are you doing? Because I had it on my iPad and I said, I'm watching the chess tournament. And it was like during one of these 20 minute gaps between moves when they were just all talking and speculating about what might happen next. Oh my god. I wasn't even watching the game. I was watching like someone else's like computerized board of it because I wasn't watching the live feed of the actual game. Oh my god. I don't understand you at all Brady. That's amazing. I don't understand you at all. I've just gotten consumed by it. How do they fill 20 minute gaps between moves? Like what are they comment on? Well, they have two boards on the screen. The one I watch, they have two boards on the screen. The smaller board on one side is the current state of play. And on the left, they use it as like a bit of a sandbox. And they're like, well, he could move this one here, but then he'd move this one here and you just watch all the potential things that play out. And actually that brought up one of the points I wanted to make from watching one of my observations. It's because I've always been a little bit fascinated by these grandmasters of chess and a little bit in awe of them. But watching this has kind of taken that away a bit. And this will actually probably make you love them more. But it makes me love them less. It's made me realize how much they are just like pure computers. Like the people who are best at chess are just the people who can hold a lot of information in their brain. And compute lots of moves under time pressure. And like it's taken away some of the magic I always felt of like creative moments or just following like an instinct or something. And it's made me realize more and more that the people who are best at chess are people who have just got serious hardware up top. Sometimes Brady, I feel like I don't understand you at all. What on earth do you think chess grandmasters could possibly be except humans with brains bizarrely specialized for this one activity? Or like how could they be anything else? I don't know, I think because I read lots of nice literature about chess players. I kind of just conjured up something a little bit more magical in my head and a little bit more like creative and dashing and unpredictable. And like I'm not belittling the skill of being a good chess player and the amazingness of it. It's certainly beyond me. I'm my brain melts just watching it. But I've kind of lost something. What have I lost, Gray? Help me find the word. I don't know what you've lost except your own incorrect fantasy about what chess players are worth. That's the word I was looking for. Incorrect fantasy. I don't know what you're imagining, but you're thinking chess players are like poets or something. I don't understand what you were thinking. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe there was a little bit of that. I knew they were super smart. I could like see ahead and like had incredible memories and had computational power. But I think I saw a little bit more poetry in there somehow. And now I'm realizing that was an incorrect fantasy. Yeah, this to me falls into the thing. I've said it many different places in many different areas that the people who are best in the world at anything are total freaks because they have to be if you have anything that's remotely competitive. It's like the people who are best in the business world, like broken people, but they're broken in this useful way where they create businesses for the rest of us just constantly. Or if you look at athletes, like the people who are the best in the world are people who are total freaks because they have a combination of the perfect genetics and a kind of mental attitude that is very conducive to training that nobody could possibly endure. And so in chess where you have an activity that is just incredibly perfectly cerebral and computational, of course you should find the people in the world who are functionally human computers. That's what you should expect to find playing chess. Yeah, I guess that's what's taken away some of the magic though because if I'm watching a game of cricket or a football or something, there's not a little bar down the bottom that will say, well, the computer says that if he boils the next ball here, he will definitely win the game. Whereas chess, it's a bit like, well, the computer says, Carlson's next move should be this. And then 99 times out of 100, that's the move he will do. Right, right. So it's almost like, well, why am I even watching humans do this now? And it's not helped by the fact they're playing draw after draw after draw. Right. But they have been quite exciting draws. And don't get all upset chess fans. I have been appreciating the games. And sometimes they do a move that's not predicted by the computer and that's quite exciting. And I have really enjoyed it. Well, I'm glad you've enjoyed it. But it's to me, it's also like, well, these people aren't the best chess players in the world anyway. Anymore, computers are the best chess players in the world. So it's like, you're watching a bunch of inadequate computers playing a game. It's like, oh, there could be much better games being played by computers. But we just don't do that because people want to see a human do it. It's like, oh, you're not even watching the best in the world because the best in the world are not humans. That's what the chess tournament should actually be. Right. Is the best computers playing each other. Oh, go away. Go away. Well, like silliness in you know, I don't think that that silliness, I think that the chess thing exists because people want to see other people do it. But then it becomes not about like what's the best chess game that exists. It's more about like, I want to see monkeys playing chess. Oh, look at these monkeys that are freakishly like computers playing chess. This is what I'm actually watching. If you want to see the best chess game, watch two computers play each other. But nobody wants to do that because they want to watch monkeys play chess. Monkeys that are like computers. Is that really what you believe? You'd rather watch two computers than the two best humans? Well, I have no interest in watching either. I couldn't possibly imagine watching a chess game. If I said you have to watch one, you'd choose the computers. But you're, this is the different thing now, right? What about empathy? What about empathizing with the players and the stress that are under and the pressure? And like the ego's involved that knowing that one of them is going to be humiliated. And that's been the most interesting part of this. The body language, the storming out of press conferences, the big ego's been crushed. Yeah, but that's the different thing. Like that's, oh, we want to watch the monkeys play chess. That's what it is. Like monkeys want to watch a bunch of monkeys playing games. And I understand that. Like that's what sports is. That's what any of this stuff is. I think the chess one is extra funny because it's an area where unlike sports, at least for now until the Robocup catches up, humans are the best in the world at sports. So it's like you're watching both the humans and the best example of this thing possible. Whereas the chess one, it just strikes me as funny because it's like, well, it lays bear more clearly what's really happening is that the humans want to watch humans doing a thing. That's what's occurring. Yeah. Maybe that's partly what struck me. Maybe that's partly the emotion I was having. It's a funny thing though. When you say about the mechanicalness of it, because this is one of the reasons why I lost interest in chess at a certain point was because I recognized like, oh, once you get beyond the basics, like it very quickly becomes about just the sheer number of positions that you have seen that you are familiar with. And I feel like, oh, this game became less fun because of this. Because now I see like, oh, to get better, it's really like a game of incredible memorization. And it becomes like, yeah, I'm learning routines to go through these various things. And I've seen some stats on how long the openings are for chess games until you get to like a unique position that has never been seen. Like it's incredibly long. Is one of the reasons why I know Bobby Fisher was pushing his version of random chess, which I did play a few games of. And I thought, like, oh, I wish this had caught on because this actually gets the game I think much more towards what you would want, which is by randomizing with some rules the starting locations of all of the pieces. I think it knocks people out of the, you are an incredible computer that is just recalling a database of moves. And it gets the game much more into a, you have to be creative because the number of permutations here creates boards that no one has ever seen like an every single game. And I think that that would actually be much more interesting to play and much more interesting to watch play is a quasi-random setup of the board every time. So another thing I've realized, and this is like a naive realization, but it's just I found it quite cute in myself. And that is the importance of pawns in chess. Like when you're like dumb and young like me when I was playing as a kid, the pawns were almost these things you wanted to get off the board as soon as possible because they got in the way of all the powerful pieces, you know, blazing their way and doing all the cool things they could do. And like losing a pawn meant nothing to me. But these guys will fight to the death to protect a pawn. Porns are so important to them. It's so funny to me how Cavalier I always was, but oh, yeah, go on, take a few of my pawns, I don't care. It just means I can move my queen better. In all these end games, the pawns are just so important to the whole game. Yeah. Well, there's the quote, which is that the pawns are the soul of chess, which is definitely true, especially because of the funny attacking sideways thing, that the structures that you end up creating with the pawns really determine the flow of what's happening on the board. But I also think it's because at that high of a level, a pawn is the largest size mistake that you're possibly going to make. Right? Like the best players in the world are not going to do the kind of thing that, like me as a normal player would do of like, oops, I wasn't paying attention and I lost my rook. Right? Like that doesn't happen. Yeah, oh, I didn't even know you could take my rook. Well done. Didn't say that bishop over there. Yeah, that's exactly it. Like I remember, you know, I was a terrible player, but I remember playing against friends like intentionally hiding a bishop like on the corner of the board. So you just hope like someone doesn't know it's like, I don't think those sort of errors are happening at the grandmaster level. But so I think the only thing that ends up happening is a pawn level error. Yeah, I don't think Magnus Carlson's going to say, oh, I forgot that one could move diagonally. Yeah, exactly. Like that was nice. They're so tricky with their L-shaped moves. I always forget. Yeah, so like the biggest mistake that's ever going to happen is someone gets maneuvered into a position where they end up losing a pawn. And then that is actually quite dramatic at the grandmaster level. Yeah. And my last observation, maybe suggestion, and I know this is going to upset some people. But I don't know how I feel about it. I don't think people should resign in games of chess. I understand when they agree to a draw. But what happens in so many games is one of them resigns. And I can't even really see why they've lost. And then like the experts will say, well, this would have happened, and this would have happened, and of course this would have happened, and then there would be no choice. But this would have happened, and ultimately he would have been left in this position at which case he would have lost. I think they should play it out just for the spectators. And also there's something so dramatic about checkmate. But you never see checkmate in games of chess between grandmasters, because they both see it coming a mile off and resign before it happens. And I think we should get to see the death of the king. And also I think you should be made to go through it. If you lose, you should be made to play it out and lose your king. I find it a little bit disappointing. And I can see reasons for saving time and energy and that. But I think you shouldn't resign. I think they should play it out and we should get to see the checkmate. We should get to see the coup de gras. I mean, can you imagine in a baseball game, a better example might be a football game or something, in a football game and some team is down by 30 points. And there's 20, 30 seconds left. They still play to the buzzer. The other team doesn't just walk off and say, well, you've won and leave the field. Oh, we've got no hope now. We're never going to come back in that time. You're playing out. I would like to see these chess games played out. I'm just thinking of how at our Alabama football game, like what would be the feeling in the stadium if the opposing team just halfway through, just walked off, we're like, okay, we resign. Are you kidding me? We're here for a thing. Like to watch a thing. I'm totally with you. If resigning is a super common thing at the grandmaster level, I would feel really disappointed by that if I was a fan of the game. Oh, we don't watch grandmaster chess. You'd never see a checkmate. It's always a resignation. I have many reasons not to watch. Like what you want to see is I want to see someone's king dramatically knocked over. Right? That has to be the end of every chess game. Chick makes so exciting, but they just never do it. And I understand they see it coming and it's inevitable. But I still think I played out for us to see it happen. And B, you never know, mistakes get made. I'm with you. I'm with you on this one. Play it to the end people. Don't resign. Don't resign like a chicken. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. People should make begoc noises in the audience when someone resigns. Is there an audience? Can people like cheer? I don't understand. Are there people? Yeah, yeah. There's an audience. Yeah, he gets audiences. It was famous all the problems with the audience in the Bobby Fisher Spasky chess game at the century. Bobby Fisher always said they're making too much noise on one of them further away. And he was a real funny bean about the audience. So then they went and played in a back room for two or three games because he didn't want an audience. And they put a camera in this so the audience could watch out in the hole. And then eventually he agreed to come back out into the hole. Yeah, again, I'm sure Bobby Fisher was a super normal dude, right? Because he's the best person at chess in the world. I'm the picture of normalcy. But yeah, I like the idea of people begoccing at the person who resigns. You should play it until the end. And I agree with you. Like it is almost impossible to imagine that in the history of chess, no grandmaster has ever resigned a game that they would have won if they played through to the end. Right? Like that has to be the case that someone was wrong at some point. So I think they should play through to the end. Even if they play faster, they should still play through to the end without a doubt. Maybe you and I should play chess breathing. Oh God, that would not be good. No, we should do a game of random chess on the YouTube channel. And we let people comment on it. People could do running commentaries. Unless the random king and figuration starts with me already having you in checkmate. I don't fancy much answers, but. So Gray, I have started putting a small piece of black tape over my webcam. Oh, really? Why have you done that, Brady? Why have you done that? Well, obviously this is following up on our discussion about whether or not people can hack into web games. And I don't particularly think they can. And if they could, I don't think they'd particularly want to do it to me. And if they did do it to me, I'm not particularly worried about them watching me edit videos and look at my periodic table on the wall behind me. And also, I know that Matt Zuckerberg does it. And then I saw the boss of the FBI apparently also puts tape over his webcam on his computer as well. It's reaching a point now where I'm thinking, well, hang on. All these people who know stuff are doing it. Maybe I'm supposed to be doing it. What about you? Yeah, well, the quick answer to what you said there is for the moment, I haven't actually put anything over the cameras yet. But going back to that conversation we had where we were wildly speculating without really a lot of information about a thing. We're talking about computer security. It was one of those interesting conversations because often when you're talking on a podcast, I'm so aware of back in the editing, you realize in all of our conversations, like how often you have assumptions in your head that you're kind of not saying out loud and that security conversation was definitely filled with a ton of those. We ended up getting an enormous amount of feedback listing a ton of cases where like, yes, someone was able to hack into a person's camera or microphone. I'll link to that discussion in the show notes, but it's like terrifying, terrifying number of stories and examples of people being able to hack into devices. Now, one of the things that wasn't universally true but was very, very often the case in those stories was there was some level of user error, right? That the user had been tricked into installing a piece of software that they shouldn't, right? Or the user had done an action that had like opened the door for malware to get on the system, right? Clicking a link in an email, you know, loading up a website that they shouldn't all of this kind of stuff. So there's this problem of computer security that you can see on roll in that discussion, which is it is this balance of how much does the attacker care and how secure is your system. And I think at the end of that conversation in the Reddit, I came down to the conclusion in some sense of like, well, things are less secure than I thought. But still largely it's like demonstrations of cases where you can hack into someone's device. But if you can't trick the user and if they're using a secure platform, it still ends up being like near heroic amounts of effort that have to be done in order to be able to do this. And so like I saw examples of people saying like, oh, you can break into somebody's iPhone by installing a device that pretends to be the local cell phone network right when the person connects to it. And then you wait for them to install an app and you have ready and waiting like a fake version of the app that they're going to install through this fake. But I still think like under most normal circumstances, it seems like if the user is relatively savvy using a relatively secure system, the likelihood of this is not super high. But it's definitely it seems high or then I had first mentally examined it. But I still have a ton of links and things to go through and read in more detail that resulted from that conversation. So this is just us kind of talking out loud about that now. One of the things that I think is a bit of a strange thing to think about though is like, so you said you put tape over your computer. The computer you're sitting in front of right now. Is that the one that you've done it with? Yeah. But like have you done it with your iPads and with your phone? I haven't done it with those yet. No. This is the fact of taking the tape on and off all the time. This is part of the thing which is also a bit like, well, I have some devices that are relatively easy to secure in terms of like my office computer would be trivially simple to do this. I could actually totally break the microphone on my office computer and it would never even matter to me. I could just have the external microphone that I plug in and I could cover up the camera on that computer. But then well, that's the device that I'm in front of by far and away the least. The thing that's the hardest to secure is my phone, which is the thing that's with me all the time. It's like, am I going to have something over the microphone and over the cameras on my phone? That then becomes a super hassle and the more I think about this, it almost feels like there's no real way to win this game. Like the devices that are easy to secure are the ones you're probably using the least and the ones that are the hardest to secure are the ones that you're using the most. That says something about you too though. That's not true with me. I guess you're maybe you're a more common case, but I'm certainly in front of this computer a lot more than I'm on my phone on my iPad. If you broke into my camera on my iPad, and this you caught me watching Netflix last thing before I went to sleep, you wouldn't say much. And on my phone, what you just probably say inside my pocket. But presumably if someone's turning on the microphone in your phone, this is with you essentially all the time. I'd be shocked if you're saying that you're using your office computer more than your phone is with you. I don't think that's probably very likely. Yeah, you're probably right. Your phone is with you all the time and that becomes very hard to secure. If someone's in there and they're able to turn on the camera, it's like, well, they can turn on the microphone and they can turn on the location services and they can find out a bunch of other stuff. Like if you've been tricked into installing software that you shouldn't have installed. So I think I in the end, I'm going to just cover up the camera on the devices that are the easiest to do. But I'm not sure like I'm going to end up trying to do it on my iPads and my phone because I'm just not sure that like the risk reward profile there pays off in terms of the sheer hassle of it. But I will say like, man, that discussion thread on the Reddit, there's not something to read right before you go to bed. That is not a thing that's going to make you feel super secure. That's for sure. And speaking of things that make you feel insecure, there's a story that just caught my attention today, which in theory, I should be really angry about this and I should be really worked up and upset about this. Perhaps the equivalent level that I get upset about garbage, but I feel like this is a thing that is so big. It's almost like too big for me to react to. And it is the fact that in the UK, they're trying to pass this investigatory powers bill, which will require all of the internet service providers in the UK, all of the mobile phone carriers in the UK to record all of the websites, their individual users use for a year. And to turn them over to an enormous list of government agencies without even a warrant. This to me is, it is just incredible. At the time that we're recording, this looks like it's going to pass. It looks like it's actually going to get through. And I feel like this is unbelievable. This to me is so incredibly 1984 like I find it hard to even react to. It's like it's just so big. It's mind blowing. So just someone working for the food standards agency can say, oh, I want to see CGP grace browsing history for the last year and they can have it. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like an exaggeration, but that is literally what it is. There's this comical list of government agencies that can just request a specific person's browsing history over the past year. It's absolutely crazy. It's like the job seekers government department, which deals with tons and tons of people can just request it. Like, oh, somebody comes in and they're looking for help for a job. And a dude can just be like, oh, show me what this person has browsed on the internet for the last year. It's so incredibly invasive. I keep using this word. It's just like it's just unbelievable. It's just totally shocking to me that this is even really a thing. I just can't believe it. I totally can't believe it. I don't know what to say. I can't believe it. Oh, that's crazy. It's called the investigatory powers bill. Yeah. And like I'm looking at this list of things. It's like the food standard agency places that you would expect, right? The Ministry of Justice, but also like just the tax department is allowed to look at everything that you've browsed on the internet for the past year. My personal favorite on this list, which is like, how did this even end up here? The Welsh ambulance services is allowed to look up what you've been browsing on the internet for the past year. To me, this is like the surface of attack on this is just crazy. It's like, does anybody think that all of these various government agencies will be able to keep all of this data secure? It's totally bizarre. And I mean, talking about computer security, I feel like, well, I've been using a VPN for browsing Wi-Fi on foreign networks. But it looks like, well, I guess I'm just going to be routing everything I ever do on the internet through a VPN for the rest of my life in the United Kingdom to try to get around this. Like, it's absolutely crazy. And I can't believe that it looks like it's going to pass. They've picked a good time to sort of snake this through. Haven't they with so much other big political news happening all around the world? People are kind of sleepwalking through this one. Yeah. I think they really are. But go buy your VPNs people. And I to learn about those. Gray, can you give me a tutorial? Yeah, I'll set you up. It's just so invasive. What else is there to say? There's like a government looking over your shoulder and recording every website you go to. I can't believe it. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by fracture. Fracture is a photo decor company that turns your digital images into thoughtful gifts or keepsakes by printing them directly on to glass. Shipped complete with backing wall and anchor or stand there ready to display right out of the box. Just upload your digital photo and pick a size. It's that simple. I've ordered fractures myself and they look fantastic. They're super light and they make great gifts, which is what you might want to do with fracture. When thinking about the holidays and the people that you're getting gifts for, you might want to bring a special memory to life or decorate the home in which you live with someone with fantastic reminders of your life together. Fractures come with a 60 day happiness guarantee so you'll be sure to love your order and each fracture is handmade in Gainesville, Florida from US source materials in their carbon neutral factory. For more information and 10% off your first order visit fracture me dot com slash podcast. Don't forget to mention Hello Internet in their one survey question. It helps let fracture know that you came from this show. Once again go to fracture me dot com slash podcast mentioned that you came from Hello Internet in their survey and take care of a bunch of holiday shopping all in one place. Thank you very much to fracture for supporting the show. Black mirror. Black mirror. I feel a bit bad grade because obviously the homework we set, which I did we say I kind of thought it was implicit is that we were talking about the new series series three, which has been recently put on Netflix. But I saw some people sort of saying messages, oh, how much do I watch? I've just watched series one. Do I have to watch series two and three as well? Like no, we've already talked about episodes in series one. This is just series three. We were saying to watch. I'll try to pull it up for the show notes, but I know we have discussed in the past earlier episodes of black mirror. We were just setting season three, which does have six episodes in it. And if you're feeling bad that you watch those earlier episodes, don't because they're fantastic. And secondly, you can go listen to the old shows, which I will put in the show notes where we talk about some of those episodes. So we were just talking about season three, which we are going to do very shortly. So obviously, as usual, expect spoilers, expect spoilers for all of the seasons, because we might reference stuff. It's all going to happen. So pause the podcast now people go watch some episodes. If you haven't watched them already, it's a very good TV series. I think it's totally worth it. And now we're going to talk about some stuff. So there are six episodes in series three. I have watched five of them. I have not watched episode five, but I've watched one, two, three, four and six. How have you done? I broke it up into two sessions. I watched the first three episodes in one session. And the second three episodes in another. So I have seen all of them. It's an interesting thing. Like this was a longer season of black mirror than the other ones. I think the first season was like three episodes. The second season was four. And now this is six episodes. Well, it was kind of three three and then a Christmas special and then six. So season one was three and season two was three. But then they had this special Christmas one. It was a longer episode. And then we've got six down series. That's just a bit of head and smile. I think I was thinking about it. But maybe you are more technically correct. Yeah. Just sort of talking about it overall. I think it was kind of an interesting viewing experience because I think this this season cemented most clearly to me this feeling that black mirror is the twilight zone with technology. That that's what this TV show is. And I think that that comes with good things and bad things. So like I have watched all of the twilight zone episodes at various points in my life and gone through like twilight zone kicks were all cranked through a whole bunch of them. And whenever I do that, one of the things that I think is interesting is how when I think about the twilight zone, I am in my head remembering actually a relatively small subset of episodes that really stick with me. And when I rework my way through the twilight zone, I'm aware of all of the episodes that I just sort of forget about that don't stick with me for some reason. And this season of black mirror, I really felt that I watched a bunch of episodes. But I feel like there was really only one in this season that I feel like I'm going to come back to and think about a bunch. And the others, they were very good just like when I'm watching twilight zone, I think like, oh, these episodes are good. They're entertaining. And like the black mirror episodes are vastly better than most things on TV. But it did feel like a bunch of these episodes were just sort of episodes in this black mirror world to me. And I didn't feel like, oh, wow, I was super grabbed by every single thing that I saw. Those are sort of my general impressions of series three. What do you think, Brady? Yeah, I think of the five or the six I've watched. And I've stopped watching five at the start because it just wasn't grabbing me, but I will go back and watch it. Like anything, there were some sort of hits and misses. I thought there were probably more than one that stuck with me. There were a few of them had me thinking the next day, which is about as good a test as you can apply to these things. I liked them, you know, unsurprisingly, perhaps I'm not as excited as I was by like series one when it was new and interesting and something really different. You kind of know what to expect now. Kind of a quite a cynical look at the way technologies in portraying society. So there is a sort of saminess coming to it both in the mood and the content of the shows. But I still think it's good. I think it's a good use of your time. And I certainly recommend watching them. Oh, yeah, which was the one. Obviously everyone's going to want to know which the episode was that did something to well gets that in the moment. But I think you actually hit upon an excellent point there, which is there is a little bit of a saminess in that I found myself when watching these episodes this time, you sort of aware and waiting for the thing like the moment where like, oh, we're going to learn about what this world really is. Yeah. It's like a one trick pony. Yeah, well, I have mixed feelings about this because I feel like this is going to be like super overblown. But if you think about the matrix, which is I think was 1999 maybe a long time ago now, but I feel like the matrix set up like the modern story of the world of like this is a story about how the world is not what you really think it is. And particularly is related to technology. And I'm totally fine with this as a story archetype that is repeated over and over again. And I feel like that's particularly like a modern story archetype that like technology makes the world not as it truly seems. Yeah, I felt like season three leaned on that a bit too much with a number of the episodes. And so it's like episode two play test the San Juniperro episode as well like that leans on this idea of the world that you see is not really what it is. And episode five, the one that you were watching is a similar kind of thing of like, oh, what the people are seeing is not really what's occurring in the world. And so like while I don't mind that as a story type, I feel like in a six episode season for three of the episodes to turn on that exact same point was like a little bit too many. I felt a little bit like I know this I'm fine with this story, but not like three times in a row. Am I fine with this? I just had episode five sport for me, by the way, people say just so you know, let's say, I knew I was walking into the spoilers. I'm so sorry, we're here with us. I know you're with us. So you're in this point zone as well. I couldn't exactly pause the podcast and come watch it. I could. No, you couldn't. This is a hazard. But being fair, I think probably five is by far and away the least interesting one in the six episode season. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And also there is kind of the cynicism that goes through. I mean, I know it sort of defines the series. It's called Black Mirror. So of course there is this strong streak of cynicism through it and Charlie Brooker, who I really like all his work is such a cynical guy and that runs through it. If you watch them in a marathon, it does start to weigh heavily on you. You start thinking, come on man, like, you know, how bad can the world be? But you don't watch this series if you're not up for some of that. Yeah, exactly. No one's thinking, you know what I'd love? I'd love a fun carefree evening. Let me put on some of the old Black Mirror. Yeah. I need to real pick me up something light, something to make me smile. You know, it's like, that's not what Black Mirror is for. Yeah. But that being said, I do want to say like on the flip side. So like, this is my little bit of a criticism of series three. But on the flip side, like, there's so many things about the series that I absolutely love and top on that list is I just love the way technology is simply used and accepted in a lot of the episodes. Like, there's episode number three, which is shut up and dance, which has the characters being blackmailed by people on the internet into doing things. Yeah. I think like, that was a great episode where I was just so aware of they have characters who are just using technology like you would expect normal people in the world to use. Right. They're using GPS on their phone. They're using map tracking. There's a drone at one point and the drone is just used. Nobody feels any need to comment on it or explain what it is. Like, I'm often aware when I'm watching modern TV or movies that technology ends up falling into one of two things. It's either used as just magic that can solve any problem in a ridiculous way. Or I often feel that the writers are trying to like right around the existence of cell phones because cell phones solve so many plot problems in movies. Right. Like, the writers are trying to like get around this and so characters never just use phones in the way that a normal person would. It's one of the things that I absolutely loved about watching blackmail is it's like this is a show that understands and portrays technology just as people in the real world would use it. The characters in the show don't feel the need to comment on or explain to the audience what is going on. Like, they just assume that you're going to get it. And so I absolutely love that in the show. Like, something about that makes it feel super grounded and super real that the characters don't need to explain or comment on this stuff. And people use technology in a realistic way that isn't magic or isn't avoidance for plot reasons. The one episode that I think fell down a little bit in that respect perhaps was the final episode six with the robotic bees. Because I felt like the four episodes I'd watched before that felt like they weren't condescending and they were quite believable and they felt like they were made for like a young audience. And the sixth one felt like it was made like a Hollywood movie like it was how Hollywood would treat technology with robotic bees burrowing into brains and lots of hand wavy. Oh, he's hacked the system. Oh, we can't wait locked out. We're locked in and it was like it was kind of like black hat hackers who can do these amazing things. No one understands. I felt like that one dropped the ball in that respect. I still thought there were interesting things raised in the episode, interesting condundrums and it was thought provoking. But it was the one that felt like they sold out a bit and even the way they ended that one I feel that they sold out a little bit too. So that felt a bit like the black shape. That one stuck out not least because it was 90 minutes long. It was essentially like movie length. I'm not really sure that that needed to be the case. But when I was watching that one as the last one that I was watching I was really thinking this is very twilight zoni. But not in the good way in the way that some of the bad episodes are just like we're doing a silly thing right here we have robotic bees digging into people's brains in their pain centers and yeah I'm kind of with you on that one that that one just didn't quite land for me. And also what I kept thinking of was this show is obviously has super high production values. But those bees man that is some of the worst CGI I have seen in a long time. Oh that's hash that's hash was middle of the road. I've seen worse. I mean I have seen worse but not in something with as high production values as this. And it's just like it kept breaking me out of it every time that these bees were walking out like this CGI looks awful like it doesn't look like the bees are on the surface. It doesn't look like the bees are in the scene. It fell into that uncanny valley for me where it's like it's just two CGI it doesn't work. Yeah. And they were just in viewing the bees with powers that they couldn't have like surgical precision to find parts of human brains. And I had a few issues with that episode but it was okay to it was okay. It wasn't a waste of my time. This is the thing to say is like none of these episodes that I feel like I've wasted my time. Whereas I have seen plenty of movies where I feel like boy was that a waste of my life right. Like those are two hours just gone but I was just aware like felt like the wheels were coming off a little bit at a couple points here. But even in that last episode it had a good example of what I mean where the characters at a couple points use self driving cars. And I like that they felt no need to even point out that their self driving cars like it's just the characters use it really naturally. It's like everybody understands what's going on. And even if you miss it that the cars are self driving it doesn't matter because they're just getting the characters from one place to another. It's that kind of stuff that I like they don't feel the need to linger on or explain stuff. It's just like we all know what self driving cars are. We all understand how this works. And this is why the interior seating arrangement of this car is a little bit strange. But if you don't notice it doesn't matter and you can just keep moving right along. I don't 100% agree with you there. I think episode six was a little bit self conscious about the self driving cars. They referenced it a couple of times. You know the girl who doesn't drive and she says I'm going to wait for self driving cars to become a bit more mainstream. And then when they get in the self driving car with like the equivalent of the FBI guy they do comment on it and how this isn't even better one than they've seen before. So I think that episode was a bit self driving car self conscious. But I agree with your overall point about the series. It does integrate technology in a very believable way which is unusual. So everyone's dying to know great which is the episode that you haven't said you liked it. There's just one that you particularly want to talk about. What I says is that there's one that stuck with me. I feel like in each of the seasons there's an episode that stuck with me. In season one as I mentioned many times it's the 15 million merits which I think is probably still their best one to date. Which is the thing that I think about. Yep. All of the time season two which I sort of mentally including the Christmas episode like that Christmas episode still haunts me. Like I mean that word like that Christmas episode haunts me. It is now Christmas time in the UK. And I swear to God when I hear that Christmas song it sends literal shivers down my spine still right like it's just like I can't hear that song and not think about that episode. It's horrible. Thanks Charlie Brooker. I can't remember which song it was. It's the I wish it would be Christmas every day. I think maybe it stands out particularly for me because this is not an American Christmas song. It's just a totally foreign and bizarre Christmas song so it's like I was introduced to it in this nightmare scenario. And so that's why it's like when I hear it I just absolutely shudder. And so then for me in season three I think the standout episode by far is. Get ready for disappointment people. It's not the one you want. It's nose dive. That's the one that really stuck out to me and I thought was surprisingly was very very affecting. So the people who sort of can't remember the names or the numbers which episode was this one. So nose dive is the episode about people rating each other on their phones with five star or four star ratings. It's the episode with the woman who is going to the wedding to give the bridesmaid speech. That one to me just really felt like quintessential black mirror. The only thing about it just really landed for me. I loved the visual design like the way it looked that all of the characters are in this like happy pastel land. And they're all smiley and giving each other five star ratings. But it was able to just very very effectively like tap into my anxiety as I was watching that. And that one just really really landed for me quite strongly. You don't agree? Do you know what? I don't agree. I'll tell me. What are you thinking? Well that thing you point out that kind of pastel look of it and kind of the over the top friendliness that everyone has to each other was so exaggerated. I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief enough. And I know like Edward Sizzahans which is one of my favorite films is very much like this as well has this kind of very unrealistic suburbia where everyone's dressed in pastels and is really overly friendly to each other in a way that is parodying but it didn't quite work as well as it does in Edward Sizzahans. And for that reason I didn't get immersed in the episode as much. I never kind of sympathized or empathized with the main character because I never really saw her as a real person. When things start going wrong for her and her rating knows dives. I didn't really care about her very much because I didn't think of her as a real person anyway to start with. So the whole episode didn't grab me at that kind of visceral level where I was watching it and getting scared by it or thinking oh gosh this could happen to me or this is terrible for me it was more just an interesting commentary on social media and ratings and things like that. And in that respect I thought it was really good. It had really good observations. And it probably like you probably affected me maybe more than all the other episodes too but not in the right way not in that way more just in there. That's interesting way. I did like it I did think it was really good I did think it was really good it was so good that I actually told my wife afterwards that she must not watch it. Why? I don't know because I think she's a bit cynical about social media and doesn't like the way we play so much importance on all the ratings and that. That's what this was about and I think she would watch this and it would just infuriate her even more. I said to her I find it really interesting it's about this sort of future world where your social media ratings and likes and things are really important and everyone's really heavily judged on them. And she said what you mean like now. So I had a funny experience with watching this episode because one of the key plot points in the episode is how people's star ratings affects their real world ability to be able to get a discount on a nice home or like which cars can they rent or what towns can they go into. If you don't have a star rating above a certain level you're not able to access those resources and also this idea that the companies are wanting to provide rewards to highly star highly influential users within this social system. And it ended up just being weird because in the week immediately proceeding watching this episode I had two conversations with two totally unrelated people who work with companies whose whole job is to find influencers on social media and get them to use products like to explicitly like pay people to just where certain brands of shoes on their Instagram accounts. And the thing that was amazing to me is like okay I knew that this existed right obviously this is a thing that exists if you have millions of followers on Instagram you have value in promoting products to companies. But the thing that was baffling to me was these companies were going after what I would consider people very very low down on Instagram and Twitter totem polls like people with more followers than average but not like hundreds of thousands of followers. Their explicit strategy was we just want people to see popular people using our products. And so it ended up being like a weird thing that I had two separate conversations about like more or less the same phenomenon of sort of normal but well regarded people in a social network ending up getting like rewards and bonuses for their popularity and their high ratings. It just ended up feeling like boy this is like a little too weird and real to a conversation that I've just had with two different people at two different companies doing like exactly this. It was very strange. That's what's so scary about this episode I mean it's basically it shows us a society where what's happening now has just been made a little bit more formalized and overt. But this is already happening. I mean you see it and lots of things I mean around the same time I watch nose dive I had a similar experience where I was doing something with YouTube like filling out some form for some program or something you know to do with the bureaucracy behind the scenes and things you're asked to fill out is you know how many subscribers just your channel have how many views if you had what is your most viewed video. This is part of the process now I applied to do something one time I think it was like a social media event with NASA or something to go to an event which I couldn't end up going to. But filling out the application form was what's your Twitter handle how many Twitter followers do you have what's your YouTube channel how many YouTube subscribers do you have and it all felt very quantitative and not very qualitative. If it wasn't like you know what do you make videos about what are your ideas you know what do you want to say right it was just give us the data give us the numbers. That was clearly a big part in the decision process and so it's it's happening all the time already. Yeah and the other thing about that was just too real was a few months ago I can't remember the company's name. But there was a social media startup that was doing this exact thing that they wanted to be a place that could collect rankings just about individuals and where people could rate individuals and it ended up crashing and burning because there was a really big backlash of people pushing against it saying like they don't they don't want a website that's just ratings for people in general. And the site was was trying to pull together like what are all of your various accounts like let's try to form some kind of unique identifier of you that can then be rated by everybody. But I feel like yeah that one crashed and it didn't work but I feel like this is essentially inevitable like I will be pretty surprised if this doesn't eventually come about that there's some kind of centralized aggregate one to five star. So I think that's one of the reasons why this episode struck me because it's one of these cases where I was trying to figure out like a little bit of an inconsistency in my own mind about the star ratings because as I've mentioned before on this very podcast one of the things that I think Uber should do is make the star ratings of the customers more immediately apparent to the users of the system that I think this would actually encourage good behavior on the market. So I think that's a good behavior on behalf of not just the drivers but also the customers right and like have a little bit of a feedback loop to people who are total dicks right that maybe other people think you're a total dick too. But I was trying to think about like why am I okay with that in the Uber scenario but I really don't like the idea of this website where you can rate people on a one to five star rating. And I think the conclusion I've come to is I'm okay with ratings in like specific transactional circumstances. But I think the reason why I found this episode very anxiety inducing to watch is I don't think it makes sense and I don't think it's fair to have like an aggregate rating just for a person that's like them across all spectrums. How do they interact with people in public? How do they interact with people in private? How do they interact with people at their office? Like I don't think it's good to collapse all of those to a single dimension where I feel like I'm much more okay with how are you in an Uber car in a transactional environment. Then I feel very comfortable with star ratings and think they're good. I think that's the conclusion that I've come to about how do I think through when are these things okay and when are they not okay. That's fair enough. Yeah, that makes sense. The other reason why I think this episode hit me particularly hard not related to technology but my general feeling of how do big problems happen is that in my experience in life big problems are the results of a sum of small problems none of which individually would be an issue but all of which together form a real tragedy. That was the other reason like this episode just had the right hooks for my brain because this is my experience and this is how I think that like a series of small problems leads to a huge problem which is essentially how the entire episode unfolds and that's why like my anxiety just kept getting like ramped up and ramped up and ramped up as like as she keeps dropping her numbers a little bit and the more her numbers drop like the more that causes more problems. It's like I found that very hard to watch hard to the point at which after the episode was over it occurred to me to check my Apple watch heart rate data and sure enough like you can see the data of my heart rate increasing as a function of time as the episode goes on as I was just sitting there watching. So it's like this one struck me right in the heart. Did you recommend it to people like did you say to your wife or you should watch this one or friends on that or that. I actually ended up just watching this one twice because I felt like I was a little bit too involved in it the first time and so I watch it a second time actually with my wife just before recording this and I'll just say that black mirror is not a show from my wife when it was over her conclusion was just well that was horrible and like a conversation over like she wants to watch something else. There was no version in which I was ever going to make my wife sit through all of the episodes but I just happened to want to rewatch this one before you recorded and she happened to be in the room so it's like I'm going to put this on you can watch it if you want but I'm not sure this is for you and it was not for her not for her at all. So the one that lots of people seem to want to hear you talk about was the one called San Junipero I'm just basing this on my own social media feeds but seems to be the one that people are talking about the most. What did you think of that one? This is the one by the way where people who are either sick or dead are being uploaded to this beautiful, perfect life by the beach and can live there happily ever after their brain in a big hard drive somewhere. Yeah, the San Junipero episode I'm surprised to hear that this is the one people wanted me to talk about. I just presume that of course the one that struck me the most would also be the one that people are requesting the most. That was not the case. That was an episode where I did feel a little bit bored in the first half. It was a slow burn. They took too long to get where they needed to be. Yeah, and I feel like this episode should have been more aware of the fact that you know you're a black mirror episode right like there's no mystery here. Everyone's waiting for a thing. You know what when they first opened the scene and it's taking place in the 1980s. I thought for maybe a minute and 90 seconds. Like, oh, it'll be interesting to see if they actually do a black mirror episode that is set in the past. Like I was kind of wondering what could you do. Maybe there's an interesting story to do there. But it became like as soon as they started running through the music. It's like, oh, no, this is a cartoon version of the 1980s. Right. This is not supposed to be the actual 1980s. And so you're just immediately like, well, I'm watching a black mirror episode. Obviously this is some kind of simulation or something. Yeah. And I did feel like it took way too long to get to the behind the scenes. Like there isn't really any mystery here people when you keep jumping in time and it's always nighttime and everybody's referencing midnight. I just I felt like the first half of that episode didn't really work. I mean, the only bite in switch was always this about time travel. But that seems unlikely for a black mirror episode and sure enough, it wasn't about time travel. Yeah, it's funny. That shouldn't even cross my mind as a possibility. I was just like waiting for the thing. And then I felt the simulation reveal on that one was not particularly surprising by the time they get there because they took their sweet, sweet time to get there. So yeah, it was one of the two episodes where I noticed that like I took out my phone and did a couple things at one point. It's like, oh, that's not a good sign. But it's like I got distracted by myself for a little bit of it. I mean, again, it's good TV like I don't regret spending my time on it. But I'm a little bit surprised that this is the one that people seem to want to ask about because I'm not even really sure like what is it that people are wondering about. I mean, I have to say I thought the first half of it was a bit slow. I thought the second half was very compelling and was amongst the best part of the whole series for me. So why do you think that? I liked the sort of discussions that it raised and the thoughts that it made me think, would I want to do that? And what do you do if someone else you who you love hasn't gone into it and you know made a conscious decision not to be uploaded. And then she was like, well, I don't want to do it because my husband didn't and my daughter died. It raised a lot of like emotional issues that spoke to me. But also I just thought it was quite a compelling story and there was some nice little twists and turns towards the end. And I thought the final saying was very powerful with like the blinking lights of the servers just reminding us all that this is all happening in a server was a really nice ending. I think the reason people want to hear from you on it is because you know, you're so interested in things like consciousness and free will and stuff like that. I think they probably just wonder what you think of the technology. I think it goes without saying you'd love to be uploaded to one if you could. But I also think anyone who's listened to the show would probably expect my answer, which is that in the episode while the elderly and the sick are using this virtual town, sand you to pair to vacation in. And they're able to like experience this virtual world. While I think that is the case in the end when they die and when they're uploading themselves into the cloud, essentially to live in this thing forever. I come down on the side that I am not convinced that it is actually possible to transfer your consciousness into a computer. I think it will and it will inevitably be possible to transfer a copy that is indistinguishable from you. So when I'm watching that episode and you know, the show is showing like, oh, well, these two characters have uploaded themselves into the server and they get to live here forever. All I'm thinking is like, well, they're obviously dead and there's just these copies of them that are living on forever in the server. But it's not them. That would be like my actual take on what I think the technology would be. That's so not what I expect to hear from you. I feel like that's obviously what I would be thinking. I just would have thought you would have thought if you could get the right degree of complexity of the algorithm in the system that constitutes a Brady or a gray that would count as a consciousness. I thought you sort of thought consciousness was a sufficient level of complexity. So you've just got to have big enough servers with enough complexity to hit the tipping point for consciousness. This is again a different thing. I can fully believe that the copies are conscious and the copies think that they are the people who have lived their lives outside of the machine before being uploaded into the cloud. But that's a very different question from if I am imagining I am in a bed dying and something is being uploaded to the cloud from this machine that sits on my forehead and reads my brain waves or whatever. I still say that like my expectation is that my personal experience is I close my eyes and I die and it lights out forever. And on the server a thing wakes up and has the subjective experience that it has been just transferred into the machine and now gets to live forever. But I don't see any reason to expect that that would be me. It really does go back to like the transporter problem because it's the same issue of whatever you're uploading you could probably do it without having to have the person on the other end die. So I don't see any reason to think that it's anything except a perfect copy and not not an actual transfer of consciousness. I mean, this is a direct echo of what we were talking about with the cryogenic phrasing to where I said I thought the person in a thousand years probably wouldn't be me. I think it's really interesting to just taking the opposite opinion here like you think you could be uploaded into a computer and that it would be you. No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just surprised that you don't think that I have no particular opinion on it. I mean, they don't really address that technology in the episode. It could be possible that you can only be in one place at once. And when you're holidaying in San Junipero, you know, you're not also in yourself. And when you get uploaded out of your body, they take something, you know, they have to take something away. I don't know. Yeah, the episode doesn't really touch on it. Yeah, they're just they're kind of blowing past it. But I think in any kind of reasonable thinking of like what could this machine possibly be doing like or what is a machine that we could possibly build in the future. We've touched on consciousness so many times, but I really do have this. It's a gut feeling. It's not based on anything obviously, but I think that my subjective experience of being me is probably tied to my actual biological brain in a way that is not removable in a way that is copyable, but not removable, which is why I have a very hard time imagining like even if life spans get expanded like it's, you know, a thousand years in the future. I think I have a very hard time imagining that I would ever really want to upload myself into a machine because I feel like I'm pretty convinced that that would be my subjective death. Even if everybody else around me was like, oh, you let I you finally uploaded yourself into the cloud isn't this awesome right and like cloud me would be going, yeah, I don't know why I never did this before. What a fool I was right but like actual biological me would just be dead right dead dead dead. I'm not feeling about it. So got to keep the brain going occasionally I get these little glimpses of hope for your humanity occasionally, Gray, you make me happy. I don't understand what you mean by that. Why is this a glimpse? I don't know for hope for you because that's sort of half surprises me that that's your view. Like that you have that kind of attachment to your mortal coil. You place that importance on your on your mushy self makes me a little bit happy. I mean, I don't really freeze these things always so wrong and it's just strange way my attachment is to being alive right like my attachment is not to like oh this human body it's fantastic. No, it's a horrible pile of rotting meat that we drive around in and if I could upload myself into the cloud, I would well, I guess what I'm saying is I'm happy that your definition of life is so attached to your mushy self. Yeah, but it's not the way I would wanted to be if I could snap my fingers and change how come when you say something and I say, oh, that makes me happy that you think that you immediately will happen say, oh, well, if that makes very happy, I must have to rephrase it because no, the reason I have to rephrase it is because when you're happy, it's almost always based on some kind of bizarre misunderstanding of what I'm saying. No, I won't do it basically what I do is you say something that makes me happy until you've made me happy. But then I put it to you in another way that you didn't say it that won't you up. Right, you say it in a way that is wrong, right, which is why I feel the need to correct it. I want nothing more than a Brady to be happy, but you take my thoughts and re-express them in a way that I don't agree with. And so I feel compelled to correct you. That's what's occurring there. Just quickly, the two other episodes we haven't talked about really at all other than briefly, but I have watched so I'll ask you what you thought of them. Playtest, episode two, this sort of the video game, brain implant one. I thought that was quite cool. I thought it was a cool episode. That's the way I would use to describe it. I liked the style of it and the story. I thought it was cool. Yeah, I can give it a coolness. I can go along with that. I kind of like the setup of it. I did like that whoever was writing the script was clearly super into video games because that script was just packed full of little video game references. It really did feel like whoever's writing this knows their stuff. Would you kindly open the door? It's like, as a perfect line at that moment, which indicates that the person writing this knows what they're talking about. I did the kind of Nintendo style CEO of the company. I enjoyed watching it. The only thing was I'm just generally not a fan of the horror genre. Like this was a horror episode for the most part. Most of the time when I'm watching horror, I just feel bored or they're using jump scares to try to get a reaction out of you. I did think it was funny that this episode commented on the jump scares. He knows that he's waiting for jump scares. I did have a note which is jump scares are annoying even when you're playing with the idea of jump scares. It still doesn't change what it is because a jump scare is just like poking someone in a sensitive spot. If you're doing it ironically, you're still poking someone in a reflexive spot and they can't do anything about it. I thought it was fine. I did like that it was a bit of a different take on the like we can't necessarily trust the world around us. But it wasn't firmly for me partly because of the genre that it happened to be set in. Fair enough. And shut up and dance. The sort of the blackmail filming you on your webcam and getting the dirt on everyone and then making them do weird stuff. I felt a bit weird about this one. What did you think of it? Yeah, it was a bit of a strange episode. In a way, I felt like it was kind of believable and also ridiculous at the same time. What was kind of what I kept thinking of. I thought it was implausible. Yeah, I can see that. I felt like I was riding on the edge of the suspension of disbelief. And I think as the further the episode went along, the more my suspension was disbelieved. Is that how that works? Like the idea of blackmailing people and having them run errands and do stuff. It's like, okay, I can see this. But when the episode starts to turn into like, oh, we're having them run all of these errands and having them do things to self destruct themselves. It's like, okay, well, now I'm having a bit of a harder time going along with the plausibility of this. Like, this is a lot of effort to ruin a few people's lives. It became a bit like moral crusading. Like, you don't most think it's more likely the trolls would have them to rob a bank for the money rather than teach them some big life lesson. Yeah, that's where it started to get like, I can't believe the resources that are being put into this. And perhaps the note that rang most incorrect for me out of anything I've ever watched with a black mirror was at the end when they have the blackmailers send the characters a little troll face on their phone. That just clanged wrong for me because I have spent too much time on the internet to take that troll face seriously. And so when they're trying to use that as like the gut punch at the end of the episode like LOL it was all a joke. It's like, I can't take that seriously. This can't be like the, who look at us for having a serious ending to this episode. Yeah. So that didn't quite work super well for me. Yeah, there were a few things on that one that just didn't quite gel for me. So my favorites were definitely San Junipero playtest and nose dive. I haven't watched men against fire. But you tell me it's not that good and I didn't like the start of it. Well, I don't want to spoil anything for you. So we're well and truly in the spoiler zone. If you had to divide them into three to watch and three that you could give a pass to sit just for the fun of it. What would be your three favorites? Obviously, nose dive would be number one. Yeah. I think I would probably put San Junipero as number two maybe. And then I'll probably put, hated in the nation is number three as the next one to watch. That leaves playtest, the horror one, men against fire, which I think was probably the worst in the bunch of my opinion. And shut up and dance is the three that I would feel like you're not missing a lot if you skip that. Okay. Nose dive San Junipero hated the nation. That would be my top three from this season. Well done, black mirror. I don't know if they can milk the cow again, but they've done a right sofa. It's very interesting because I feel like I was looking at the episodes from season one. And in season one, you start out with the national anthem, which is just sort of a bizarre story that stands on its own. Same with 15 million merits, which is a thing that stands on its own. But then interestingly, it ends with the entire history of you, which is that episode about being able to record and play back everything in your life. But looking back on it, I think that the entire history of you episode is the episode that has laid out the black mirror universe in a sense. Yeah. Like this whole idea of a near future world, people have modern phones. We all have contact lenses in our eyes and augmented reality. And this universe that feels very real and very close. And I feel like season three, I feel like they may have used up that universe now. Right? Like season two revisited it in a number of locations, most notably in white Christmas. It's like boy, did they lean on that again in a fantastic way. But I think season three is like maybe we're done with this now. And if there is going to be another series, I would want to see probably more like standalone episodes. Like create a little world and go through it and talk about it and come back. I'm not quite sure there's a lot more to be done in this entire history of you universe that they set out a few years ago. They kind of penned in by their name, though, isn't it? Because the whole black mirror name is holding up this mirror to our current society. But with this black tinge, this dark thing. So to veer away from that and start creating new worlds and not do that, I guess the black mirror would just become a meaningless brand name. But you know, it should be a cool brand name. Yeah, it's a very cool brand. I've always taken it to be the phone surfaces. Like I've always thought that's what it's referring to. Like the like the iPad screens and the iPhone screens are the black mirror. Like that's always how I took it. Oh, really? I don't know why I sort of was like reflecting our society back to us, but in a darker tone. Well, this is why it's a fantastic brand name, right? Like you can read whatever you want into it. Yeah. Very enough. Cool. Black mirror season three. Still recommended. I feel like it sounded like we might be a little bit down on it, but still recommend it. Definitely TV worth your time. Glad I finally got around to it. And also super glad. And thank you to my audience that I was able to get to it essentially spoiler free, which is the way I prefer to watch these things. So very happy.
==Episode List==
==References==
Category:HelloInternetEpisode
__NOTOC__Category:ArticleCategory:ArticleCategory:ArticleCategory:ArticleCategory:ArticleGroup1