The new Neflix original series Altered Carbon starring Joel Kinnaman, James Purefoy and Martha Higareda, set in the futuristic Blade Runner like world, every human was born with a stack which acted as a memory chip for their conscious and memory, people could be ‘re - sleeved’ into another body after they physically died and continue living. Meths, who were the wealthiest population in the the global government Protectorate, made clones of themselves and could keep re - sleeving and avoid physical decay which made them practically immortal. The story began when Laurens Bancorft, one of the most wealthiest meths, re -sleeved Takashi Kovacs, an envoy, in order to hire him to investigate his own murder.
The show shares a similar idea with the Blade Runner franchise, ‘What it means to be human?’ In a world where people could digitalize their consciousness and live forever, where AI was capable of acting like human, one must ask the question what makes human human? Do human have a soul? And if we did, then would people still be people when they were re - sleeved digitally, and if not, then what made us human differ from AI? Poe, who was a hotel AI manger, played by Chris Conner was seen to be capable of human emotions such as joy, anger and sympathy, but yet he was an AI, so did it make him human? Technically no since as human as he was, he was still a computer program, however just like he said, “The most human thing I can do is to die for a right cause.” In the end, being a human is not if there is a physical body or is mother born, is whether we are capable of emotions, having the sense of righteous, the sense of just. Mr. Leung who was played by Trieu Tran, a hired killer working for Reilen Kawahara often used at the catch phrase, “Are you a believer?” Throughout the series, we would think he was religious and believed that human was born with a soul, however in a conversation between him and Kovacs he revealed that he wasn’t a believer of God, instead he believed in the Meths, who he referred to as ‘the living Gods’ since they were wealthy as they were powerful and most importantly they could live for eternity. That brings us to the original question of ‘what it means to be human?’, do our souls goto heaven or hell after death? Or rather if our minds were digitalized, then would us still be us or would it just be a copy of ourselves? Descartes’s once wrote, “I think therefore I am.”As human, if there is one thing we know for a fact is our very existence, we think and reflect ourselves, with new technologies being developed every day, we are starting to become digitalized. We can have technology to be an assistant to our lives but we must not let it manufactures it own interpretation of our lives, we can develop technologies, but not let it dictates us.
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Starting with the power hungry and ruthless couple Francis and Claire Underwood, the shows follows the couple’s quest for power and the presidency at any cause. House of Cards stands out due to its plot nature, instead of having a black and white good and bad show down, it creates a world where raw power and cunning wins every time. So in the end what’s the show is trying to tell us, what’s more behind the scenes and how it links the Eastern world. The show brings out a really strong message of appearance, everything is a about appearance. In the world of House of Cards, every character has both a public and private image of themselves, aesthetics plays a huge role in the show, arts and beauty are heavily featured, important decisions are usually made on a reflection of arts, for example Zoe and Frank confirmed their work play relationship in an art gallery and Frank and President Walker often discussed national matters while reflecting on the paintings in the White House, Claire’s image is heavily managed, her wardrobe is not only a frequent dialogue but also real life fashion all of which led to the question is there more to politics than pure spectacle? All of these surrounds the idea of theatrical politics, it’s a world of acting, from costumes to dialogue are carefully crafted, for instance when Frank first became president, he visited his father grave to seem ‘more human’ but soon revealed his true intentions and pissed on the gravestone. In the western society, politics is filled with catch phrase and slogan instead of real political arguments to keep the public entertaining, elections are no longer about policies rather it’s about the candidate, in other words appearance is politics. This is however not the case in most countries in the east, eastern politics focuses though also value appearance, there is no need for a theatre, in the less open minded eastern society, politicians’s ability to control their appearance is much more higher than those at the west where the press is mostly free. Furthermore, 5000 years of confucianism ideology shape the population into a relatively ignorant one, people are encouraged to take care of their won lives instead of raising questions, individualism is not as valued as it is at the west rather individuals are taught not to complain for the ‘greater good’. Therefore, politicians often take advantage of the ideology and are able to justify their wrong doing easily, such as the Secretary of Development of Hong Kong was found out to have an illegal basement in his house which could be sentenced for imprisonment but instead he simply used the excuse of being ‘too busy’ to take care of the scandal, although having some voices in the media, the public didn’t react much and simply accept the explanation. As seen upon, though appearance does matter in eastern politics, theatrical politics is not really needed due to traditional ideology. In the end, the theatre established by House of Cards is based on western political ideology which appearance matters the most, and despite entertaining, it is somewhat unnecessary in the eastern society since people are mostly obedient no matter what. The show brings out a really strong message of appearance, everything is a about appearance. In the world of House of Cards, every character has both a public and private image of themselves, aesthetics plays a huge role in the show, arts and beauty are heavily featured, important decisions are usually made on a reflection of arts, for example Zoe and Frank confirmed their work play relationship in an art gallery and Frank and President Walker often discussed national matters while reflecting on the paintings in the White House, Claire’s image is heavily managed, her wardrobe is not only a frequent dialogue but also real life fashion all of which led to the question is there more to politics than pure spectacle? All of these surrounds the idea of theatrical politics, it’s a world of acting, from costumes to dialogue are carefully crafted, for instance when Frank first became president, he visited his father grave to seem ‘more human’ but soon revealed his true intentions and pissed on the gravestone. In the western society, politics is filled with catch phrase and slogan instead of real political arguments to keep the public entertaining, elections are no longer about policies rather it’s about the candidate, in other words appearance is politics.
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