The bees are dying, the government is watching, and we are in a drone crisis. Black Mirror knows this, and decides to combine these three elements in their season 3 finale episode. Generally Black Mirror creates a world not to different from our own, but with a healthy overlay of science fiction. This time the bees had died, and to sustain our ecosystem (well Britain's ecosystem) a company created robot bees to pollinate in their place. There was a small caveat not mentioned until later in the episode that the government had ultimate control over these bees and were using them to spy on the public.
So drones?
It’s easy to make the comparison. Usually the show doesn’t make it so obvious, but when the government takes control of drones to willingly spy on its public it’s impossible not to see that parallels. Especially because the drones got hacked and started killing people. Again, the message is received loud and clear. But what’s most interesting to me is why they chose bees. I mean the bees are dying (see colony collapse disorder) and we don’t know how to solve it. And if we had to solve it drones would likely be the foremost contender. This scenario is scarily within reach. Its real - drones are already used to spy on ‘the bad guys.’ Snowden revealed to us that the NSA collects all of our data for security purposes. The next step? A species extinction turned into a government wet dream.
Black Mirror is frightening simply because it's visceral. Let’s hope we can save the bees.
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