Where are we going?

Warning, this post may be triggering and it will also contain possible spoilers of famous sci-fi series and movies (Dollhouse, BattleStar Galactiga, Terminator series, Firefly/Serenity)

I sometimes wonder what the future's going to be like. Where's all this technology going to take us? What will happen to free will or free speech? Could it be that we're heading towards a Terminator type world, where the machines start evolving, form a conscious "mind" and rebel? Come to think of it, it's the BattleStar Galactiga world as well. As an aside I'd like to note that I never quite got why they could travel to the stars but the humanoids they made were so poorly done? I mean, the humanoid robots nowadays are better than their first models.

But to continue; I sometimes wonder whether the Whedonistic approach is really the one that will get us in the end. We are so obsessed with making ourselves better. Making others better. You can see it in America every day. Half the country thinks that women should be enthusiastic and grateful mothers (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, mind) and try to deny anyone who isn't the right to their own bodies. Very much like what happens on Miranda; instead of the normal terraformed planets with their problems the good people in the Alliance want a happy workforce with no riots or problems. They just want the best for them... by denying them the access to their own minds. I'm not saying Europe is any better. I mean we don't even have free speech provided by law, which is something that I find amazing, or more accurately; creepy.

We just finished watching the first season of Dollhouse and needless to say, it had an impact on me. I was expecting to hate it, having read countless reviews on how boring it is, Borehouse I think it was referred to by some. Anyway, just in case you haven't heard about it, the idea behind Dollhouse is programmable humans. Anyone of the volunteered Actives can be made to anything you want. Provided you have pockets deep enough. Need a master thief who'll never ask questions or come blackmailing you or indeed even know you exist? You got it. Always been curious about something sexual, but are too attached to your power to risk anyone finding out? Not a problem, not even the Handlers know the particulars about your engagement.

Humans as a commodity is hardly a new thing, but Dollhouse takes it to the next level. Needless to say, the issues around consent are at best, hazy and at their very worst left me at least feeling violated. In one episode Echo's soul (we are led to believe at least) wants to complete the mission that the man who engaged her wanted her to do. In a sense even I feel it's almost all right. The man wasn't always a millionaire, he was in love with the woman of his dreams and they were struggling. When he finally made it big, he bought her dream house and summoned her to it. On the way she was in a car accident and died instantly. He never got to tell her. So to live that moment, he hires dolls imprinted with her mind and memories. I can see why Echo/Caroline would want to give him that.

On the other hand, another doll is sent to the dollhouse by the man she said no to, simply because she said no to him. And now he rents her out to say yes to him. Sounds kind of what someone like Tucker Max would do doesn't it?

Technically it's all consensual, since we are lead to believe all the dolls are there by "choice". They've all signed the five-year contract and handed their bodies over to do with as the dollhouse sees fit. But if the dolls malfunction, they are sent to the Attic. Indefinetly. And in the final episode of the first season the Rossum Corporation decides to start offering upgrades to their clients ie giving away the bodies of the dolls.

So anyway, I've often wondered if that's not more likely the direction we're heading. We're so busy making everyone around us "better" and more fitting to our own image of what a person should be that we forget to wonder whether or not those other people have a different definition of what makes a good person. So many people are not happy with themselves, would like to be different, if just on the outside. I mean for goodness sakes, there's surgeries and coloring agents specially made for women's genitalia to look "more beautiful". I wonder, given the possibility, how many people would actually take the body of another human being, exhort their own wants over them, over the other persons right to exist. Well... I just described the act of rape, didn't I? And hey what do you know, out this week; BBC reported a study where majority of women felt that rape is the victims fault, at least sometimes.

It's thoughts like these that make me glad I'm not conventionally attractive. I mean if the technology existed, how many millions of people would there be in Halle Berry's body?

ETA; this post totally didn't go the way I envisioned it so I decided to change the heading.