Hacker Cinema
Upload
2020 · TV series · 4 seasons
Created by Greg Daniels
ComedyScience FictionFantasyDrama
In 2033, people who are near death can be “uploaded” into virtual reality hotels run by 6 tech firms. Cash-strapped Nora lives in Brooklyn and works customer service for the luxurious “Lakeview” digital afterlife. When L.A. party-boy/coder Nathan’s self-driving car crashes, his high-maintenance girlfriend uploads him permanently into Nora’s VR world.
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10 comments on Hacker News
It’s funny that Horizon is named after Horizon in the Amazon Prime TV series “Upload”. Good TV series btw.
The Permutation City reference is irrelevant to San Junipero. I never made the claim that the entities in the simulation were not sentient. I made the claim that they aren't "you." These are very different things.
I haven't seen the newer seasons. But looking at the synopsis on wiki (Beyond the Sea?), this is a very different scenario. Permutation City might be a better one to look at for what I'm getting at. Remember in that story that you are essentially making a copy of yourself and putting it into that universe. That entity is not you, but it is sentient, conscious, and it's own thing. But you aren't in that simulation with it unless you virtually go in (and in their scenario you need to deal with the time differential).
San Junipero is a corporation promising you life after death. The same way Amazon Prime's Upload does. But San Junipero in Black Mirror itself made no claim, and the writers place a lot of not so subtle hints as to the idea that it isn't. Not only by nature of being a Black Mirror episode, but I suggest you look closer at the soundtrack of the episode and how its used in context.
Not to mention that Black Mirror's entire agenda is near-Sci-Fi horror.
The episode is specifically about getting trapped in nostalgia, a non-existent past. Yes, love is found in this pursuit, but so it death. All the music in the show is about living in a box and forgetting about the real world. Other characters talk about forgetting they're in the simulation and they talk about how they live in a graveyard. There's that hole conversation with Greg about how the timelimit exists so people don't kill themselves to permanently leave the world behind and "live" in San Junipero forever.
And I'd expect of all people HN people (computer people) would understand that uploading into a simulated reality is not the same as you entering that reality. Remember, once "you" are data, you can be copied. Then who is the real you. If you can be uploaded without being killed in the process then certainly that entity is not "you," but rather a different entity who has all your memories and is not able to distinguish itself from you. But you are still experiencing your experiences and not their experiences, so you are different entities. It is just an AI double. The promise of an afterlife is no different than the promises of old. A story to help you move on, to help you find comfort in the end. But this story is just more tangible for those who are left. San Junipero is not much different from many of the other stories who approach this topic. Even the happier Upload is quite dystopian between the lines of being a rom-com. It is that happiness that is the dystopia itself, the lure of false promises. The poisoned desert so sweet and tempting it is impossible to not take a bite.
I'd recommend watching Upload after this, based on this exact concept just not as good as the video, still pretty realistic.
S1M0̸NE (2002) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_(2002_film) Frankenstein.
Her (2013) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film) She's too smart for you anyway.
Upload (2020, 2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upload_(TV_series) She buys in game credits for his existence.
Faust / The Little Mermaid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust#Cinematic_adaptations
"Final cut, Suit!" - Billy Walsh, Entourage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_Entourage_characters#Billy_Walsh
Final cut privilege: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_cut_privilege :
> typically reluctant
> Most people are not nerds like us and prefer to interact with people in person.
People are also glued to phones. Children are making TikTok videos. My point is that people do interact online. The issue with VR is fidelity. It just doesn’t live up to what people imagined yet. Compare what we have to TV series like “Upload” from Amazon.
The TV show Upload [1] has a group of people dubbed the "Ludds" (i.e. Luddites) that refuse to be party to the turn that the technological revolution has taken and stick to traditional ways of doing things. I strongly believe if that were to happen in our world today, much of Silicon Valley would be "Ludds", while a mass of non-tech people would happily welcome our new technological overlords.
[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7826376/
The first episode of the Amazon Prime comedy "Upload" has a humorous/shocking scene of this.
These days where everyone is emotionally high. Deliberately avoiding anything that reflects today's state of affairs: 1. Amazon: The Boys, The Feed, Upload, Catastrophe, The Widow, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, The Newsroom, Homecoming 2. NBC: Zoey's Playlist <--GREAT to unwind emotionally. 3. CDW: The 100 4. ABC: The 4400 5. Netflix: Mars (only 1 season, 2nd season looks and feels like current gov state of affairs whereby the 1st season was more Mars adventure)
So much crap going on, just trying to avoid anything that reflects today's idiot run gov/policy makers. But admittedly, slowly finding it hard to avoid since every show plot always seems to come full circle to why things gets F*d up in the first place. Netflix' Mars is a perfect example where 2nd season they brought in more gov/policy/corp injustice and made it unwatchable.
If you really need to get away...mentally, found Zoey's Playlist quite touching... like sobbed in every episode it was so emotionally releasing. I was forced watch bc my wife won the night's remote control.
Bottomline: repeating what I've said above, just avoid anything that has gov/policy/corruption/corp.
Also I shouldn't have said "nobody else has tackled that idea", I am sure it has come up somewhere else. I am just thinking of recent examples like Black Mirror or the new Upload show on Amazon, that IMO miss opportunities to fully explore the implications of simulated minds. Stuff like that would be very difficult to film though...