There’s this throwaway conceit in the current season of Black Mirror that keeps tugging at me, and it’s Friday, so I thought I’d think out loud about it.
In Episode 1, “Common People,” the protagonist, a school teacher, is lecturing her young pupils about pollination. She casually explains how robotic bees have taken over for their organic ancestors, buzzing from flower to flower and, one presumes, keeping the world’s agricultural ecosystem from crashing. The exchange is meant to contextualize the episode as happening sometime in the near future – most of us know that the bee population is crashing, and the concept of autonomous insect drones doesn’t feel that far off. It’s also an elegant reference consistent with one of tech’s most fundamental beliefs – don’t worry, kids, technology can and will save us from ourselves!
It’s a ten-second exchange in an episode that is otherwise concerned with the ethics of a life-saving surgical procedure. Unfortunately for the teacher and her husband, the procedure takes over the teacher’s brain, and is in turn controlled by RiverMind, a corporation whose business model eerily mimics the subscription and advertising models of present-day capitalism. Forced subscription upgrades, creepy and unavoidable advertising, monopolistic rent seeking – it’s all there. I wasn’t a huge fan of Season 7, but there’s a reason that “Common People” is its top-rated episode: It feels very, very possible.
To avoid spoilers, I won’t get into a deep critique of the story – but I did find myself wondering why, upon realizing they were trapped in the amber of RiverMind’s business model, the beleaguered couple could find no recourse. Government agencies and scoop-hungry journalists seemed to have gone the way of the honey bee, leaving our protagonists at the mercy of a soulless and extractive corporation.
Oh wait (checks notes) … that does seem realistic…
Still, I can’t stop wondering about those bees. Something about them didn’t match the episode’s dystopian vibe. The teacher speaks of them as if they were a neutral force in the world. How did they come about? If the society in which our hapless protagonists suffered was dominated by extractive techno-capitalism, then who owned and operated those autonomous insect drones? What was their business model?
Organic bees aren’t owned by anyone, after all. They buzz around doing their thing, and it turns out the thing they do is a massive public good. Without bees, we’d lose roughly a third of our food supply, which is… a lot more than we can afford to lose. So we’re all motivated to keep them pollinating, right?
Well, yes, but…also no. I think most sensible people agree that it’d be a good idea to keep the bee population healthy. But somehow, we’ve failed to do so. Same with addressing climate change, or educating a curious and rational citizenry, or investing in basic scientific research. This is where techno-capitalism’s primary dogma kicks in: If a public good is failing, never fear! We can solve it with monetization and early lock in! Bad transit systems? Take an Uber! Poor healthcare and declining education levels? Privatize it all! Dead bees? That’s an opportunity, not a problem – there’s money to be made, especially if famine and war loom on the horizon!
As a thought experiment, I tried to imagine how our current day society would actually implement the introduction and maintenance of a massive colony of robot bees. It broke my brain.
Here’s the (terrifyingly plausible) scenario responsible for my brain bleed:
– The global food supply declines to a point where willful ignorance of the bee problem becomes impossible, and governments are forced to respond.
– In its infinite wisdom (and fealty to techno-capitalism), the United States decides to outsource a solution to its private sector, delivering a massive contract to a tech company led by someone like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg (or Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook or Marc Andreessen or Alex Karp or Peter Thiel, it really doesn’t matter).
– The company succeeds in delivering millions of robot bees, but insists it must make money on its investment, and is granted full control of the intellectual property, product rollout, data gathering capabilities, and business model. Its stock booms!
– The company quickly gains monopoly share by refusing to pollinate any crops not covered by a subscription payment plan. Its stock booms again!
– Insurance companies refuse to pay for the novel technologies, claiming the payments are not covered “under current plans” and that the decline of the organic bee population constitutes an “act of God.”
– Riots, famine, pestilence, war.
Ok, that last step was a bit of a leap, but remember, this is a thought experiment. My point is this: Our society no longer seems capable of orchestrating massive public goods. I think we’ve given up believing we can coordinate long term benefits through the instrument known as “government.” That leaves us dependent on large corporations. And that is…truly terrifying.
Happy Friday.
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