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I don't know if the acronym MDR is a huge red herring. I kind of hope that it's something else. I also hope that it's not just that the whole point of MDR is to test the effectiveness of severance for other context, which I feel like has been hinted at. I really hope the whole processing data via abstract emotional intelligence is actual work beyond that. I wonder if maybe all the different departments are constituent parts of a collective consciousness, which is why its important that they're stripped of any kind of outside awareness. Like maybe together they form a big AI, or they create this emergent consciousness (maybe of the founder?). That would explain why there are so many things that don't make sense in isolation - the goats, the weird objects that are getting printed, etc. Maybe they'll never answer what Lumon does - I feel like whatever the reality is will end up feeling small and underwhelming.
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Oct 27, 2022 15:36
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Maybe we all just like talking about the show and the interesting questions it poses and nobody is bad or dumb for doing so.
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Oct 27, 2022 15:52
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Captain Monkey posted:Maybe we all just like talking about the show and the interesting questions it poses and nobody is bad or dumb for doing so. Captain Monkey posted:I've never seen such consistency of username/post combos before.  I was pretty sure this was directed at me
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Oct 27, 2022 16:00
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The Grumbles posted:Maybe they'll never answer what Lumon does - I feel like whatever the reality is will end up feeling small and underwhelming. Like, it could be a question of which direction is the true intention: Is something like severance important because of the financial aspect of the product, or is the financial aspect just a means to appease shareholders and bring in money so they can peruse some crazy religious belief/goal. SalTheBard posted:The Lumon building reminds me of the Oldest House from Control. Normal looking building from the outside but then when you start to explore it, it's way more sinister than you guessed.
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Oct 27, 2022 16:41
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i know there was speculation that lumon is doing something really sinister and world-dominating but i kinda get the vibe that the severance procedure is kind of a flop and a lot of the poo poo that goes on down in the basement is disconnected and inefficient from any kind of profitable purpose, like a satirical look at large companies which over time get hidebound and lost in bureaucracy. but with a surreal sci fi twist like the lumon consumer products division seems to be just fine from how the break room is stocked but maybe the brain altering surgery division never got any traction and the nature of it causes the branch of the org responsible for this to kinda cloak itself in secrecy and weirdness anyway
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Oct 27, 2022 17:08
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There is some canon off screen stuff that heavily implies what they are doing is effective and also pretty hosed up, can’t find it though
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Oct 27, 2022 17:15
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SalTheBard posted:The Lumon building reminds me of the Oldest House from Control. Normal looking building from the outside but then when you start to explore it, it's way more sinister than you guessed. I'd say Severance does the unsettling, unoccupied liminal space office setting even better than Control does. Lumon is just endless anonymous hallways where some of the doors border onto tiny little rooms with hosed up poo poo in them. Meanwhile, the Oldest House has a lot of huge open spaces with neat stuff to look at and vertical room to float around flinging chunks of scenery at the Hiss like you're Tetsuo from Akira.
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Oct 27, 2022 17:17
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i am a moron posted:
my innie did it
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Oct 27, 2022 19:48
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I hope none of you ever get a waffle party.
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Oct 27, 2022 19:52
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Captain Monkey posted:my innie did it Same person 
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Oct 27, 2022 20:42
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i am a moron posted:There is some canon off screen stuff that heavily implies what they are doing is effective and also pretty hosed up, can’t find it though There’s a short story that’s free on Apple Books but also pretty easy to find elsewhere which is a long letter from an escaped employee of a different lumon branch, which implies that meeting quota was somehow responsible for a bombing of a lumon competitor resulting in multiple deaths. It also suggests that milchick is either an alias used by multiple people, or he’s got fingers in lots of pies
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Oct 27, 2022 20:51
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i am a moron posted:Same person 
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Oct 27, 2022 22:33
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quote:Yeah. I'm interested to find out what exactly "Macrodata Refinement" actually is. I kind of assumed they were just doing mindless busywork haha
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Oct 27, 2022 22:37
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The Grumbles posted:There’s a short story that’s free on Apple Books but also pretty easy to find elsewhere which is a long letter from an escaped employee of a different lumon branch, which implies that meeting quota was somehow responsible for a bombing of a lumon competitor resulting in multiple deaths. It also suggests that milchick is either an alias used by multiple people, or he’s got fingers in lots of pies For the life of me I couldn’t Google this
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Oct 27, 2022 22:38
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mutantIke posted:I kind of assumed they were just doing mindless busywork haha i took it as some sort of psychological analysis using the weird lumon framework, like completing a task gives information about a specific person that they can then use, but who knows.
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Oct 27, 2022 22:43
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Facebook : Metaverse :: Lumon : Severance
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Oct 27, 2022 22:49
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The overall aesthetic of the show leaves me uncertain as to whether Lumon is a giant successful company or a weird remnant of something, like Aperture Science rather than Black Mess. I similarly can’t decide if the mythology of the company is like a creepy Apple-style enforced corporate culture or proof that the company is a cult and likely churning out a bunch of unworkable garbage because it’s all premised on scientology nonsense. Either way, I’m confident that the board members we’ve heard communicate through conference calls are not alive in any typical sense of the word and may not even be distinct individuals, and that they’re imagined beneficiaries of whatever the end goal of the severance project is, or have been told that they will be.
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Oct 27, 2022 22:54
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I'm sure this is not news to anybody but it's hella cool that they were able to find the perfect aesthetic in the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex. Kinda blows that they're tearing up the whole entrance corridor to build mcmansions though. I guess they've got a lot of CGI to do in season 2.
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Oct 27, 2022 23:34
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I’ve always read Lumon as an IBM-like company: upstate NY hq unlike all the west coast tech companies, long and morally murky history, mandated use of in-house antiquated technology, and a household name but nobody knows exactly what they do anymore after divesting their retail goods I really like the uneasiness of not knowing if the severed floor is so empty because it’s a forgotten experiment or one about to take off. Based on the high profile of the gala and how they’re centering the legislation (and pr around it), I’m guessing it’s more the latter.
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Oct 27, 2022 23:41
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theflyingexecutive posted:I’ve always read Lumon as an IBM-like company: upstate NY hq unlike all the west coast tech companies, long and morally murky history, mandated use of in-house antiquated technology, and a household name but nobody knows exactly what they do anymore after divesting their retail goods "morally murky history" is an understatement for IBM lol
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Oct 28, 2022 00:08
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Had to bail on the thread soon after my last post to avoid spoilers. Great finale and of course the perfect timing to end the episode. Obviously you can argue until in you're blue in the face about the philosophical definitions of a personhood or whatever. But the show made it pretty clear that for all practical purposes, these are separate personalities even if they share some basic traits or learned skills (like driving apparently). If an innie wants to quit and isn't allowed, that's extremely hosed up, even ignoring the break room poo poo. Mark's been severed for 2 years, imagine never leaving work for two years straight. It's pretty shocking his innie isn't completely insane, actually. Oxyclean posted:I'm having a hard time deciding if Lumon is just going to be bad/sinister in typical capitalistic ways with a touch of cultyness around the founder being a quasi-religious wierdo, or if they have more ambitious ends. (It's also been like a month since I watched so I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of details.) The board is Management from Counterpart  Took me a minute to remember where I saw it before and then another to dig up the name. Here's a scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V40fCvN9g9c And now I'm mad again about that show being canceled after 2 seasons. Speaking of canceled, had to actually check that this show isn't. Apparently they should've just started filming this month. 500 good dogs posted:"morally murky history" is an understatement for IBM lol
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Oct 28, 2022 00:29
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If you black out from drinking too much and remember nothing and do a bunch of hosed up stuff, is that you or your innie?
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Oct 28, 2022 01:04
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mobby_6kl posted:Had to bail on the thread soon after my last post to avoid spoilers. Great finale and of course the perfect timing to end the episode. counterpart kicked rear end and now i'm mad again it wasn't renewed
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Oct 28, 2022 01:07
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500 good dogs posted:counterpart kicked rear end and now i'm mad again it wasn't renewed I read somewhere that Starz management hated the show. gently caress those idiots if that's true.
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Oct 28, 2022 01:41
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i am a moron posted:If you black out from drinking too much and remember nothing and do a bunch of hosed up stuff, is that you or your innie? There's not a separate blackout version of you that retains the memories from when you blackout and builds a whole identity around those memories though.
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Oct 28, 2022 01:57
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christmas boots posted:There's not a separate blackout version of you that retains the memories from when you blackout and builds a whole identity around those memories though. how would you ever know for sure that there isn't
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Oct 28, 2022 02:05
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christmas boots posted:There's not a separate blackout version of you that retains the memories from when you blackout and builds a whole identity around those memories though. citation needed 
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Oct 28, 2022 02:09
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Also what about Harrier Dubois from the smash hit Disco Elysium? He obliterated his memories via alcohol and had to piece it all back together by hand basically. Was he the same Harrier Dubois after the deluge of alcohol? He had all the same skills but no idea what he did to that point.
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Oct 28, 2022 02:12
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And much like Mark S the ex-something forebodingly existed on the periphery of his subconscious. The window of Dolores Dei was Harriers tree in the wellness session.
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Oct 28, 2022 02:13
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i am a moron posted:Also what about Harrier Dubois from the smash hit Disco Elysium? He obliterated his memories via alcohol and had to piece it all back together by hand basically. Was he the same Harrier Dubois after the deluge of alcohol? He had all the same skills but no idea what he did to that point. No, because he was Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau
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Oct 28, 2022 03:11
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Is Beavis the outtie and Cornholio the innie?
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Oct 28, 2022 04:05
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i am a moron, please explain the movie fight club
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Oct 28, 2022 05:56
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holefoods posted:i am a moron, please explain the movie fight club It's that Gundam "Cool robot" meme but about toxic masculinity.
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Oct 28, 2022 05:59
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holefoods posted:i am a moron, please explain the movie fight club Basically it's just Brad Pitt saying stuff like "Mickey Mouse is your Jesus. McDonalds is your church. You are a baby who is pissing in his diaper. That diaper is called Television" and then committing acts of terrorism and having sex with Edward Nort's girlfriend
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Oct 28, 2022 06:16
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I think the way the show frames thing it's likely that Lumon are doing something real, creepy and nefarious, but I don't think that the writers necessarily figured out what the thing is. It would be a disappointment if Lumon in its entirety is just a sort of mcguffin and that the macrodata is just busywork to test the severed workers, I also think that the show implies that this is not the case, the emotional responses the severed employees get when looking at the data do not seem fake to me, to me that kind of indicates that there's something 'real' about the data, it is also of course very evocative of using human beings to train neural networks or rather in this case having real humans serve as components of a neural network of sorts. So yeah, if there's no real mystery it can be a bit of a wet fart but I do fear that it's yet-another-mystery-box situation where the writers came up with something really cool and evocative but that almost any explanation that could possibly come up with will not be as cool as the mystery. I hope I'm wrong! prove me wrong Mr. Stiller, I loved Zoolander and Tropic Thunder.
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Oct 28, 2022 06:25
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What if the goats are severed and get to go outside to frolic but the innie goats never truly know that joy? 
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Oct 28, 2022 07:48
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Ror posted:What if the goats are severed and get to go outside to frolic but the innie goats never truly know that joy? What if they only sever them when they're sent to the abattoir???
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Oct 28, 2022 08:13
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emanresu tnuocca posted:So yeah, if there's no real mystery it can be a bit of a wet fart but I do fear that it's yet-another-mystery-box situation where the writers came up with something really cool and evocative but that almost any explanation that could possibly come up with will not be as cool as the mystery. This is why I thought the show was great as-is and don't really think we need more of it. Much of these details are most likely better left to the imagination. So I'm pretty wary of a second season (or beyond) doing a bunch of wheel-spinning while slowly doling out unsatisfying explanations.
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Oct 28, 2022 09:37
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ashpanash posted:This is why I thought the show was great as-is and don't really think we need more of it. Much of these details are most likely better left to the imagination. So I'm pretty wary of a second season (or beyond) doing a bunch of wheel-spinning while slowly doling out unsatisfying explanations. But yeah there's a decent chance it will go all Westworld on us by suddenly expanding the scope and trying to explain everything. Worst case though if the reviews suck we can just pretend it was a mini-series.
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Oct 28, 2022 10:06
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Show good
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Oct 28, 2022 10:45
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