So, the new season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is almost here; For those of you not in the know, it’s a very, VERY dark TV series that explores the impact of technology on society through dramatic form. Going over the synopses for the first series, the future presented in this somehwat hellish universe is utterly terrifying. People under the thumb of ruling parties, corporations, their own greed and sadism; It’s not only a grim, bleak portrayal of the future, but serves to analyse the social dystopia we inhabit here and now.

It’s all a matter of perspective, of course, and ties in very heavily with the relative cynicism of the author. Charlie Brooker is well known for his scathing (and highly entertaining) opinions on modern life and pop culture. He is a steadfast of the ‘cynic’ camp, among whose ranks can be counted people who see government as corrupt, self-serving and out-of-touch, those who understand that corporations exist purely to make money for their shareholders and damn those who must be trodden on to get there, and those who see that media in all its shapes and forms simply exist to disseminate the agendas of the former two and bring the masses to their knees in feeble-minded subjucation. With recent history, one can easily see this panning out. Politicians who break promise after promise, answering only to the calls of big businesses who, themselves, are embroiled in scandals, crises, collapses, all the while interacting with their target markets through creeping, pervasive adverts inserted into entertainment designed to pander to the lowest common denominator.

Wow. That’s a bit of a downer. But there’s another side to it, as there are to all things of import. In this camp, we find the optimists, those for whom technology and society are pulling together to lift the human race upwards on a journey of discovery. More and more citizens have the opportunity to interact and input into their governments globally, and make a better life for themselves; Expanded communications not only brings us closer together with our friends, but also allows people with less resources to sell their products or publish their ideas to a wider market than they could have ever dreamed of a scant twenty years ago. More, smaller providers with better specialisations mean that we get a whole lot more entertainment than before, and can find something to our tastes. Many of which are of high quality. In the future, this will only improve; Breakthroughs in science and technology will be made by small teams liaising with each other, empowering the populace and allowing them to stand up to the government more easily, fostering a quiet revolution with peace and plenty for all.

Of course, being the person of balance that I am, I’m loathe to declare either of these better than the other; they simply represent two exaggerations of opposite ends of the spectrum that is real life. Things are never going to be the idyllic utopia that the Optimists portend, but neither will they be as dead or depressing as the Cynic camp believes. It’s because drama of the neutral or the normal makes for a dull story, so we have to inflate the figures a bit when we write. There is though, as always, a grain of truth to these analogous assertions, and they are meant to make us think about the world as it is…

What do you think about our future, based on the world today? Are you a cynic, an optimist, a realist?

M.