Adam Amster

The premise seemed mysterious and engaging at first but left too much to be desired. The idea of having multiple copies of oneself is interesting, but I think the show only scratched the surface. The idea explored in the show was mostly people who weren't able to work due to personal issues (Mark) so they undergo the severance procedure. I just don't find that very compelling. The show came close to some interesting ideas but didn't explore them enough. Such as the endless hallways. This reminded me of pathways of the brain, and maybe the "virtual" severed floor is like one big brain achieving some goal. But the show didn't explore this in detail. The show did many things very well though. The set design of the severed floor was great. The UI of the data refinement program was like from the early era of computers and was very creative. The period from the cars also was consistently 80's-90's. The lighting in the MDR office was awesome when they had a music party. The flashing red lights when Helly tried to quit was awesome. The board was surreal, never seeing or really hearing them. The design of Helly's talk in the outside world. The stark contrast of the outside snowy world with the cookie cutter blue houses where Mark lives. The show at least in the first season left too many unanswered questions such as what motivated Cobel and Milchek to so zealously carry out their roles as overseers of the severance program. And what was Cobel trying to achieve by monitoring Mark and his family in real life. Why was Cobel so concerned when she found out Mark engaged in the overtime. Spoiler: it seems their goal was to show that even a married couple will be unaware they were married when severed. Why go through all the effort and secrecy?

This might be the worst movie I have ever seen. At first I was intrigued about what the backstory of Hutch was. Then I realized he just likes to fight. The violence in this movie is gruesome and over the top. This movie is almost purely violent. There is no interesting message or ideas. What little plot there is is poorly executed and hard to follow. As others mentioned the "boring guy who has special fighting powers" trope has been done before. I felt nothing for the characters. I wish I could get my hour and a half back.

An entertaining film told from the first person. I felt the frustration and confusion alongside Paul as he experienced one crazy incident after another. The first person perspective was very well executed. Wish there was more substance to the movie, but overall it was fun

My take on the movie is that it is about the cycle of life -- birth and death. We find ourselves in life in which all people were born and all will die and we are "stuck" in this cycle. There is not one human who diverges from this cycle. When a baby "appears" it watches and learns from the parents. At some point the parent is "released" when it dies, and the child repeats the cycle. In the scene in which Gemma goes through the "underworld" beneath the sidewalk she passes through other peoples' lives, stuck in this cycle. I love a movie that is not afraid to tackle big ideas.

The main premise of the movie is that social media platforms are manipulative and addicting. The film instead itself distorts reality to manipulate your thinking on the matter, just as it claims social media manipulates reality to make you addicted. It is any business's goal to be successful. If you went to a restaurant that served great food, you would go back time and time again. Do you think people would say -- "This food is too good, it's addictive". Then do you think people would say -- "This restaurant's food is too addictive. The restaurant is manipulating the ingredients so that the food tastes better. We need to do something about this.". The same stupid argument is being made against Facebook. It made a good product that people want to use. Do you think Facebook would say -- "There are too many people using our product. Let's make it worse so that fewer people use it." NO. The truth is that Facebook succeeded using intelligent approaches such as machine learning and A/B testing in order to produce a product that more people want to use. It is in their best interest to produce a product people want to use, otherwise fewer people would use it. It succeeded by using various approaches which the film just touches the surface on, enough to confuse the hell out of you (I have a data science background so know these topics much better than the surface-level references in the film). For example it uses machine learning approaches to construct a feed. This is called personalization of content. The film treats personalization of content as a nefarious feature. Let me ask you -- would you prefer the content was not personalized? This is like preferring that all people know nothing about any other person, so that they are all treated the same. We prefer that people know something about us, so that when we talk it is more personal. Another thing mentioned at such a surface level to confuse the hell out of you is A/B testing. This is so that Facebook can test out different features and see how they impact the product. Would you prefer if Facebook didn't test features out and had no idea how they impacted the product? This would produce a worse product that fewer people wanted to use. I agree that social media has major problems -- - It can distance you from reality and make you see things through the lens of the digital social realm - It can filter only happy moments and make you think that everyone else is happy, but why aren't I happy? - Controlling for biased or intentionally misrepresented facts is tough, so people might change their opinions on things based on what they read when what they read might not be truthful - The business is driven by advertising revenue, so the social media companies are incentivized to drive conversion to ads as their main business. This makes for an unhealthy relationship between building a good product and driving revenue. But the film argues that you are driven to use its product and hence be exposed to these problems through addiction and manipulation, which looked at in a different light, is what happens when you build a good product, just as what happens when you serve good food at a restaurant -- people want to come back. It is your responsibility to make sure you and your children are aware of these problems and deal with them in a sensible way.