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Sewil1
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The Social Dilemma (2020)
Good message falls a bit short on the actual problem
Good message falls a bit short on the actual problem and workable solutions. A lot of facts are either inaccurate or out-of-date. These problems have been known for a decade and measures have already been begun to start fixing some of these issues.
The documentary tries to portray it as if your data in particular is controlled by some small number of people that are actively trying to mind-control you into using their app as much as possible, while in reality it's more like your information is a tiny droplet in an ocean of data that is handled by AI. There is no personal connection between your data and the employees at these tech companies.
Then they bring up that because you are using the app for free and viewing ads, you are the product, as if that somehow makes you a mindless slave to these tech companies. This entire point just falls flat if the app just starts offering subscription services instead, such as YouTube premium. They don't bring up adblockers, and they say that advertisements is a reliable source of income, while it's the complete opposite; advertisers pull their ads all the time, from even the most minor of controversies. Many youtubers can't even rely on ads anymore, and have to use subscription services such as patreon or YouTube member to survive. More and more news sites have paywalls because adblockers are too effective. Everything seems to be heading in a paid-membership direction, which makes you the customer.
Then they continue to compare facebook to heroin because of the dopamine kick (and ignoring the destructive effects of heroin), and compare some notifications on your phone and an AI-tailored feed to magic and mind-control.
The fake news thing they bring up comes from echo-chambers, which is a real issue in any environment, not just social media. Religion is one of the biggest echo chambers we have. They go a bit too far with this though and blame facebook for promoting election fraud, invasion of countries, genocide, and that it will be the downfall for all of humanity.
Lastly they call for a ban, taxing, or regulation for all social media instead of looking at any actual solutions such as parents teaching their kids about social media, being more strict about phone usage, teaching them not to trust what some random guy on the internet said, staying objective on a subject and taking in as many angles as possible before making up your mind, visiting social media maximum once a day to check for updates, and most importantly blocking your notifications! There is nothing more annoying than a phone notification, I don't understand how people stand it.
Overall I think it's important to bring up these issues and I'm glad they did. Perhaps it was necessary to over-do it in order to make people afraid and think about it long and hard, and to spark a discussion.
The Predator (2018)
Thoroughly enjoyable
In terms of entertainment the movie did its job. Thoroughly enjoyable. Doesn't take itself too seriously and ironically enough has more of an 80s vibe to it than other installments. If you're a die-hard Predator fan expecting a sci-fi horror though, this movie is not for you.
Breaking Bad: Crawl Space (2011)
Didn't make much sense
Ending didn't make much sense. Gus warned him that if he interfered, he would kill his family. All Walt had to do was not interfere and he and his family would be fine and be left alone. He was out. But of course, being Walt, he couldn't settle for that. He just had to warn Hank, risking the life of his family, and then we get this artistic ending that just seems kinda cringe and overplayed. What was that deafening white noise at the end, some way of masking the nonsensical plot points?