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Comment by m_mueller | Hacker News Reader

Black Mirror often takes little details that we add in software, like a rating system, and takes them to their extreme and logical conclusion. Its premises are mostly sci-fi, but as thought experiments on how what we do could lead to a severe dystopia, it is superbly engaging. I recommend watching no more than one episode per day - I've been thinking about its topics quite a lot recently.

At the least, it's refreshing to see updated versions of Huxley/Orwellian dystopias or even departures from them. And to have all of that in condensed 50min netflix episodes, so free for anyone who uses it already, with absolutely no padding to waste your time, is such a unique thing to have. I hope it spawns many more shows following this format, as sort of a counter movement to 24- or Lost-like continuity with tons of baggage.

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I've watched the first episode and had some existential questions pop up while on a walk today. Isn't that end-all rating system, like you mention, the final form of many companies like Facebook or Instagram? When the value generated on the platform grows beyond its platform to other important parts of society. I think this is only just starting to happen, like Air BnB's usage of Facebook profiles as host validation, or a social media marketer using the size of their instagram following etc. on a job application.

Apparently China plans to role out that kind of rating system by 2020, dubbed a "social credit score":

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

It's scary how relevant some of Black Mirror's themes actually are. This one in particular is so close, I wonder whether the show's creators used it as a template.

Edit: Apparently not, as this information is only publicly available since this September. Zeitgeist at work?

I've known about sesame since last year at least - it's getting more attention now but it was definitely public knowledge when this series would have been at the writing stage.

It's an idea from sci-fi - I can't remember who wrote what, but there was a society where citizens got more or fewer votes depending on their behaviour (edit: Alastair Reynolds? Banks? Feels like it was one of them.), and knew each other's scores, and Tom Disch's 334 is explicitly about scoring people, and one segment is dedicated to "Baz" desperately trying to get his score up by producing a piece of state-loving prose, before narrowly failing and being consigned to life as a faceless "g[ue|o]rilla" soldier - although in that the state scored you, not other people.

Don't forget Community!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/

and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765158/

Was the currency called whoopy?

[update]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie

I was thinking later, Cory Doctorow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_King...

"Down and out.." or, "Why is sucks to be an asshole in a reputation-based economy".

+1 upvote, would cautionary tale again.

PS - If you haven't read Rapture of the Nerds, check it out. It's a Doctorow character (downer of a dude) in a Stross world (craaazy tech).

Funny coincidence, I'm reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds right now (literally). It has exactly what you say. People whose votes are vindicated get their votes weighted accordingly. They end up lobbied to but can't outright still their votes or their weights would go down.

Yup, that's what I was thinking of!

Daemon by Daniel Suarez contains the idea that people have reputation. Everyone can rate everyone and know everyone's reputation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)

Note: The sequel goes into way more detail on how the proposed system would work; the first book is really how it (frequently violently) takes over.

Charlie Brooker, the author of Black Mirror has had quite a few prescient moments: A previous series had the UK Prime Minister having sex with a pig, a year later it turned out that David Cameron had done something obscene to a pig as part of a college initiation ceremony.

Brooker claimed he was spooked by this coincidence.

And, wonderfully, hashtags from Black Mirror actually started to trend on Twitter as the news broke.

Unless it's changed significantly recently, this "credit score" is only being used by Alibaba, and is more akin to a regular old karma system like that used on HN or reddit.

The article claims that Alibaba's solution is one of 8 private pilot schemes, and claims there are government planning documents for a much more comprehensive system.

There's also North Korea's "Songbun" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun although it seems more coarse-grained than a numeric score.

I have zero faith in rating systems. Absolutely useless 98% of the time. The only time they work is if there are thousands upon thousands of negative reviews with hardly any positives.

Money is absolutely useless by itself. It's our collective agreement that it has value that gives it value.

That's not quite true. Money has value because a lot of the demand for it is enforced by law (taxes and repayment of debts). Those act as a real anchor for its value beyond collective agreement.

... Because it is on average more convenient to follow the law than break it.

Laws and debts are collective agreements too.

I have not had a single bad experience with buying from eBay sellers with >99.8% feedback, but multiple bad experiences buying unusual items from <99% sellers that I couldn't find with better sellers. It's worked well for me.

Generally on ebay I assume you are buying a mass produced product. If you receive it in time and it's not broken then you're happy? How about more subjective things like Yelp reviews?

Edit: I don't buy on ebay however rating brigading has made reviews/ratings on amazon practically useless for products I've never used before.

Generally, I'm buying old camera equipment (25-60 years old). The condition of these items varies widely. The 99.8% sellers take every trouble to find every scratch / fleck of dust / etc. and photograph/document it. The <99% sellers take photos in more flattering light and don't mention things that wouldn't be grounds for a dispute. I only buy from a <99% seller if the item can't be found elsewhere.

For Yelp, I've found that a 4+ star restaurant with >100 reviews is almost always good, although I wouldn't say that I can detect a difference between 4-star and 5-star places.

Like here, on comments on HN?

Uber is exactly like that... or HN, where "positivity" is effectively enforced and swearing triggers immediate action from the comments police

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708612

The parent comment apparently started a nosedive...

sigh, do I really have to deal with the presence of such lowly rated comments? Can't we get an autoblock feature running here?

Some of the aspects portrayed in the episode "Nosedive" seem pretty far-fetched and probably are just that, at least for the duration.

But other aspects tangential to the rating system portrayed in the episode are already very much of interest to technology companies as potential future undertakings, with far-reaching consequences. Whether such undertakings have actually been green-lighted as live projects with lots of momentum, is unknown to the public at this time.

On December 29, 2015, Facebook has acquired a patent [1] "that would allow creditors to assess your creditworthiness based on the credit ratings of the people in your social network."

  Facebook applied for the patent in 2012 as part of a bundle of 
  patents it purchased from now-defunct social networking site 
  Friendster. The patent was first noticed by SmartUpLegal. This is 
  how the patent describes the invention:
  When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the 
  credit ratings of members of the individual’s social network who 
  are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the 
  average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum 
  credit score, the lender continues to process the loan 
  application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.

[1] Unites States Patent No. 9,224,213

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...

[2] Facebook’s new patent lets lenders reject a loan based on your friends’ credit scores—but don’t freak out

http://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-rejec...

Yes, Friendster was actually quite "forward-thinking", and I would argue, if had they not liquidated their IP to Facebook, and had been able to hang in there, their IP could probably crush any modern social media concern in operation today (i.e. made a killing in license fees).

Is Klout still a thing?

I was so nervous when I saw they were being done with Netflix and in a massive season of six episodes. I actually don't think there was a truly weak episode in the bunch. Literally my only complaint was the stupid little explanation taglines Netflix shoved in my face meaning I didn't get to go into most of them completely free of expectation.

Charlie Brooker man, what a guy.

Ah the taglines... I don't even look at them ;-)

by the second half of the season I'd trained myself not to look, but I was just reading without really meaning to when they came on screen. It really ruined some of the surprise in San Junepero (sp?)

Whats wrong with Netflix? They are one of the few publishers creating large amounts of content specifically for mature audiences. Their revenue model is not based on advertising so they are free to create quality content rather than content that will simply appeal to the most people.

Netflix bloat is what is sometimes wrong with Netflix. Scenes are sometimes a little bit too long in a lot of series. For example, unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's second season was weaker than the first because the original was made for TV but the second was made for Netflix. This led to the same number of jokes being placed in a longer block of time, and therefore a decrease in the #ofJokes/minute.

That is highly subjective. You are referring to a single show where the quality of writing that season may have suffered rather than anything related to the Netflix platform. Pulling at straws.

Sorry, to be clear I have no issue with netflix. However doubling the length of the season and any switch of sponsor carries some risk of deviation from the norm - which was very very high quality imo.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought netflix bad Channel4 good (i think it came from there).

None were weak, but some may have improved given more time to work on them.

The British way of writing for TV can be quite different from the american one; less concerned about narrative cohesion/logic/dramatic principles and more focused on taking the audience for a crazy ride (see also: Sherlock, Dr. Who).

In Black Mirror s3, the double-twist episode originally only had a single twist according to Charlie. It feels like they tacked on the second twist without adjusting the entire narrative to align with it.

TBH, I loved the tagline for the first episode: "...invited a swanky wedding. But the trip doesn't go as planned".

> Black Mirror often takes little details that we add in software, like a rating system, and takes them to their extreme and logical conclusion.

I can't tell if you're dismissing the logical conclusion as unlikely. The proliferation of ratings systems, from Facebook likes to Tinder swipes to Uber drivers who have to stay above 4.7 just to keep their job, tells me that we're a lot closer to that logical conclusion than you think. And it is far from logical, sane, healthy or kind!

you read that from the word 'extreme'? I don't think 'unlikely' follows at all from that classification. Of course this is subjective, but I'd argue looking at world history, what we deem 'extreme' has shown its face again and again - may actually even be humanity's natural (i.e. lower energy) state that we have to constantly push back against. From the perspective of a person or cabal in power, keeping everyone under control with the threat of extreme physical or psychological violence is probably easier, i.e. lower energy, than to allow a free society. What makes Black Mirror so scary is that it hints at us being on a trajectory to actually make such mass control effective and feasible, through technology.

> I recommend watching no more than one episode per day

In addition, I recommend avoiding watching an episode just before you go to sleep.

While I do that (it's the only time I have anyways), I also gotta mention that it did reduce some of my sleep, especially after White Christmas, that one really got to me.

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