Here are some notes our e-board put together after our watch-through of Arkangel on Black Mirror to help guide our group discussion. What are your thoughts on the ethics behind Arkangel?
-Sara won’t develop emotionally
--Won’t learn to grieve, and won't learn to healthfully cope with stressful moments
--Never learns how pain can affect people, so she can’t recognize when she’s hurting people
---This is mostly about emotional pain, but when she beats her mom up, that’s a physical representation of this
---Also, when she was trying drugs for the first time, trying to steal and open the supply Trick needed to sell could’ve gotten Trick in a lot of trouble from his suppliers/buyers
-Her mom was spying in therapy, which isn’t illegal at that age, but clearly displays her lack of respect for Sara’s privacy
--Cheating at hide-and-seek shows this too
-Could the injection mess with MRIs?
-How will Sara get through having her period (especially the first time), sex ed, history classes that look at violence, or even a stressful exam?
-How did Arkangel feed into the mother’s paranoia and need for control? Would she still have roofie-plan-b-ed her daughter is she wasn’t so used to having that control?
--At first, she didn’t even want the filtering effect, but she gave in.
-Are kids today over-monitored?
--Kids with helicopter parents go to college and experience freedom for the first time and generally fall off the deep end because they crave more of it and didn’t learn how/when to set limits. Sara experienced this to the extreme.
---Probably the biggest reason she’s involved with Trick, because he was able to show her that freedom.
--She’ll never learn to solve her own problems if her mom is always stepping in.
-The process of putting in a chip is generally invasive.
--It might not leave a scar or be painful, but it’s still an unnecessary procedure that stays with you forever.
-Arkangel could be hacked.
--Then Sara’s location is always available to the wrong people.
--They may know parts of her medical history.
--All the recordings saved are now in a stranger’s hands.
---Will lead to child porn.
-Hypotheticals
--How would the world change if the Arkangel became a standard procedure for children and parents?
--Crime rates could change since there now exists a video/audio log of every moment in your life that hypothetically anyone can access (Explored in The Entire History of You).
--How would you change the device to make it more beneficial? Can also relate to certain apps and such we currently have (such as Life360) and how they work to remain somewhat beneficial
---Removing the filter feature, the camera, the vitals, or the tracking chip
---Make it much less sensitive to stress spikes
---Giving the individual control over their Arkangel at a certain age instead of an external (ie a parent/guardian)
---Parents slowly lose access to certain features as the child gets older.
