We, the Hivemind Examine Vince Gilligan's "Plur1bus"

[an0maly]

So Gilligan has circled back to X-Files stuff, but this thing is so far out on a narrative limb it's just incredible. This is science fiction hivemind stuff, which to me was never a really great genre of SF. There was Phase IV, a book and movie about ants forming a collective mind with ETI off Earth and dictating surrender terms to the human race. There's The Borg from the 80's Star Trek stuff. The best I have read are the ending of Clarke's Childhood's End, and the crazy-great Echopraxia, by Peter Watts.

Hive mind (27 books)

27 books based on 22 votes: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, To Marry Medusa by Theodore Sturgeon, A Fire Upon the ...

www.goodreads.com

This thing starts off like Sagan's Contact -- somewhat -- with a lot of humor, and then proposes creating --from ETI radio signal-- an RNA snip that is put into humans, and viola, hivemind. I'm sorry, what? I don't know if this is fantasy, which the series starts out making fun of in big ways, or an attempt at something more serious in science fiction. But, wow, he has certainly set up something weirder than most anything major television shows have come up with. Also, I have no idea how this could go and keep interest.

Explaining himself:

Vince Gilligan Has Never Made a Show Like Apple TV's 'Pluribus': "It's Got a Bigger Scope Than Anything I've Ever Done Before"

Vince Gilligan discusses the decade-long journey to making Apple TV's Pluribus and the challenges of bringing the unique concept to life.

collider.com

 

[Rock]

I have too much TV to watch. I just started Severance. I also need to watch the second season of Andor.

That said, Vince Gilligan obviously knows how to make a TV show.

 

[UNCatTech]

Ok, I'll be back tomorrow...

 

[an0maly]

So the situation of people following a religious leader is a different thing from people being in a hivemind, but this brilliant scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian struck me as hilariously akin to Carol's agonizing problem in Pluribus. There is zero possibility of convincing a hivemind that something is terribly wrong with being a hivemind, in this case as opposed to the individuals "it" once was before. The hivemind is always continuously making decisions to be in its happy place. Smile.

The other analogy I think of is conversations I have with Chat GPT in several forms, and I would wade into a discussion of philosophy or art, and it would get a factual detail way wrong or hallucinate something, I'd correct it, and it would blandly respond with something like, "Oh sure, you are correct. Thanks for that." Headslap moment, and you realize that no, you are not talking to anything close to a consciousness, but a sophisticated non-mind slave just combining all available answers worldwide into a mishmash answer.

It's hard for any of us to imagine the thoughts change of becoming part of a hivemind, but Carol's fear says she knows exactly what it means. If any one of us were enfolded into this our personal interests, all that we think important in any way, would be basically eliminated into the noise mishmash of the collective interests and thought of what is important. Carol's problem is she can't convince the other eleven people left like her that this loss is real. In a way she is dealing with people like Brian is above.

A point and some questions (please, anyone offer ideas).

The ETI who sent the signal are not active on Earth in any way. They set traps and we jumped in. When humanity collectively talks to Carol through the TV they admit they *{we, the hivemind of Earth humans}* don't know how the virus works, just what super-wonderful-happy stuff it has done.

1. Why does the ETI system for uniting humanity into a hivemind fail with 11 people?
2. Why does the system fail (worldwide) when Carol gets extremely angry with another person? Why do the others go into standing epileptic fit behavior at these times?
3. Why does the “system,” whatever it is, seek to please and fulfill every wish these 11 people have until it can “fix” their difference problem?
4. Given the success and complexity of what they have already accomplished, how could they possibly fail at all with these 11 people?
5. Why is that none of the other remaining normal humans care about what has happened to the human race?