Having the cake, Eating it, And still Having it
The bad and ugly is what makes the good so good.
Last broadcast’s Coherence Metric score was 4.964 ,placing it #5 overall! To understand what the Coherence Metric score is, check it out here :)
Hello everyone, today’s broadcast is about the idiom ‘ you can’t have your cake and eat it too’ , the idea that you cannot have the best of both worlds: there are costs to enjoying things, and if you want good if your life, you need to be ready to deal with the difficult. But after watching the show Severance (which I heavily recommend), what if this doesn’t have to be the case? What if we can enjoy the good without having to go through the bad? What if we can have the cake and eat it, and have even more? Do we even want that?
If you haven’t watched Severance and are aiming to, there may be some light spoilers ahead, but I’ll try to avoid as much as I can :)
Setting the Table
Just to give some background, in the show Severance there is technology that enables a person to have their memories wiped when they enter a specific area. The person is the same, they just have no recollection of who they are, their family, their history, anything.
So, to explore today’s topic I will need to introduce to you to Todd:
In order to differentiate between Todd and his ‘severed state’ (when he enters the area and has no memories), lets call his ‘severed’ self Ddot.
Now, these two need to be separated as they do not share any memories of each other. Sure, the body they occupy is the same. They may have the same innate characteristics, preferences and tendencies, but their ‘nature’ element if you will is completely different. Its like flicking a switch to a light in a room. The bulb (the body) is always the same, and when it’s on (i.e. its Todd), its ‘off’ state (Ddot) is no longer active, and vice versa. The bulb cannot be on and off at the same time. Likewise, Todd and Ddot cannot be ‘active’ at the same time.
What’s also important to note is that when of Todd or Ddot is inactive, their sense of ‘time wouldn’t be paused. In each of their perspectives, they are always ‘conscious’: as Todd walks into the area, Ddot is activated and he does his thing, and then Ddot leaves the area, turning back into Todd. All Todd remembers is stepping into the area he is literally walking out of. All Ddot remembers is walking into the area right literally after he was walking out. The best comparison I can offer is like being a character in a video game where you rapidly skip cutscenes, and suddenly your character is in a different situation almost ‘immediately’
What is important to note is that bodily or physical ‘memories’ would remain. For instance, if Ddot stumped his toe on his way out of the area, Todd would be cursing at this sudden instant pain too. Ddot might suddenly realise that he is magically holding a chocolate bar wrapper in his hand.
The Appetizer
This technology could be very useful for a myriad of uses, especially if you could manipulate the ‘area’ where your ‘severed’ state can exist. For instance, what if you set up the area to be in a waiting room. Todd would register his attendance at the reception, noting the time on a digital clock as being 6:05pm, and walk into the waiting room. Next thing he knows, he is walking out of the waiting room and greeting a doctor. As he is walking into the clinic, he notices that the hands on the clock show the time to be quarter to 7. 40 minutes passed since registering at the reception, but the whole ordeal lasted seconds in Todd’s life.
Poor Ddot, he suddenly appeared in a room and was told to wait until he was summoned. But he sat and waited, with immense boredom, until he was saved after what seemed like hours by a nurse calling him over. But Todd didn’t have to experience this long wait at all. Instead of being irritated by his wait, Todd managed to get medical attention almost immediately.
But being able to skip waiting rooms is just the beginning, as if this ‘area’ technology was ever improved, further life improvements for Todd await (not for Ddot though, more on that later).
The Main Dish
Lets imagine if this technology could be implemented on moving objects, or maybe it was so worldwide that we could ‘sever’ entire cities, whereupon one could flick a switch or press a button in order to enter one’s other severed state.
One area of potential could be while travelling or commuting: imagine Todd needs to travel to work, or to the other side of the city. Imagine when Todd steps on the bus or onto the train, tram, subway, any mode of transport, Todd presses a button with his own identifier. When Todd reaches your destination, as he leaves the bus he presses the same button, and there you go- Todd’s original self’s memories remembers stepping on and then off the bus, right at his destination.
This could be very beneficial for Todd, as he no longer has to be bored on the bus, no longer have to endure that mysterious and repulsive smell, no longer have to hear outrageously boring or inappropriate conversations of strangers. Of course, Ddot has to, but that isn’t a real person, right?(More on this later).
Of course, how would Ddot know what he is doing or where he is meant to be going? the crudest thing one could do is have a piece of paper at the ready detailing when to get off the stop. But could something so crude suffice?
An assortment of sauces and condiments
A further beneficial variant of this technology could be if the degree of being ‘severed’ could be adjusted, as if on a dial. For instance, if you could only limit the severance of any new information learned from getting across but you stay the same, this could be perfect for companies or governments trying to keep secrets secret, or from preventing the leakage of sensitive information. For instance, if external opinions are needed, such as for an audit, a company could invite Todd (he’s now an esteemed auditor!) into a special room in their office.
Once in the ‘area’ Ddot, who has all the memories and skills of Todd, can see all of the company’s data they need to provide assurance and do their audit work. Upon completion of the audit, or even at the end of the day, Ddot can leave the room, and Todd would have no recollection of the information he has just seen, and the therefore the company is assured that none of their information will be leaked.
Maybe if the dial is turned up to a more medium level, wiping away all recent memories, experiences, skills, traumas, maybe this could be a way of redeveloping certain behaviours or curing mental disabilities? If someone in particular suffered a particularly traumatic incident and couldn’t live with it, one could isolate those associated memories in a specific ‘area’ they would never return to. Someone with dementia could return to a time where all their memories and cognitive abilities were still intact.
Maybe it could be used as the ultimate form of punishment, turning the dial up to maximum, making criminals or murders simply forget who they are, essentially taking away their life without killing them. I’m sure it would be met with resistance from elements of the public, but it could be a third way of dealing with the worst of humanity aside from killing them or have them serve life sentence.
Asking about the Ingredients
So far, we have been assuming perfect teamwork: Todd writes himself a letter or note with instructions, and Ddot follows them without question. But what if that wasn’t the case? Ddot may not have the memories or life experience of Todd, but he is stull a grown human with free will. What if Ddot decides one day to do his own thing, and get off on a different stop or not get off until he is forced? When Todd comes back, he is likely to be incredibly disorientated and angry at his severed self. And this probably wouldn’t be too crazy of a scenario. I can think of hundreds of times where future me looks as past Me’s decisions with confusion, irritation and even contempt, and I’m not even severed (at least, I think??)
I don’t think there’s a way for Todd to hold Ddot accountable- If Todd decides not to travel on bus for a couple of weeks, that doesn’t affect time as Ddot’s self doesn’t recognize time that has passed when he isn’t ‘activated’. Maybe if you arranged it so that someone with authority could speak to your severed self and try scare them of some ‘consequence’ but without teeth, this may not go too far. Even if such a talk could be arranged, trying to punish or hold someone to account just for exercising free will doesn’t sound ethical at all.
An Over-salted Side-Dish
It is not difficult to imagine a scenario where just before Todd hops on a bus, he is cornered and the original piece of paper is thrown away and his is handed a new one. Ddot is now misdirected to another destination, and upon padding his pockets, he notices his wallet is gone. He takes a look at the note he was forced to take on the bus. Instead of saying ‘get off in 18 stops’, it instead says ‘ get off in 20 stops, leave the wallet on the bus’.
Now the criminals could organize such a ploy, then arrange for one of their severed selves to go onto the bus and collect the wallet. How could Ddot have prevented this? Sure maybe he notices that the handwriting on the note was different this time, but it is not like he can go back and ask Todd for more clarity, there is no communication between the two selves. [fix this section]
Now, in the show, when someone becomes severed for the first time, they are completely disorientated and need an orientation to settle down and realise what is happening. But something like this would require a lot of trust- that’s why the best solution would probably be like in the show, where the severed person has a prerecorded video of themselves consenting to this and informing their severed self of the situation.
The boring, bland kale vegetable salad
I have so far been largely avoiding the ethics and moral discussion behind voluntarily severing oneself, but it shouldn’t be totally ignored in the end. At what point does your ‘severed’ self deserve to to have the same standards of life as you do? If the whole point of severing yourself is to avoid the difficult parts of life, aren’t you guaranteeing that your severed self is going to have a sadder, more boring, just plainly worse life than you- is that acceptable?
Oddly enough, it probably could be for your severed self- with no reference point, they may not know that life could actually be better. maybe they could see others living lives, but without experiencing it themselves they wouldn’t truly know.
While this may sound extreme, i do see area for a stance where one could argue that your severed self does not even really need human rights, as the memories of that event is not remembered by your real self. Its like the age old question: if a tree falls in the forest and no-one is around to see it, does it make a sound? Similarly, If an injustice is suffered in your severed self and no memories exist of it, does it constitute as a violation? Some form of rights should surely be enforced, if even for the sake of our humanity and dignity, but it would be incredibly difficult to monitor or enforce them. How can you whistle-blow if you cant remember what you need to blow the whistle for?
Lets refer back to the sauces section where I discussed the idea of Todd and Ddot becoming auditors. Wouldn’t it mean Todd would be earning salary for something he himself hasn’t done? But if so, how would you compensate Ddot? If Todd is earning, Todd can feed himself and buy new things such as clothes which even Ddot might be able to enjoy. And what if Ddot does a bad job, how much of that should reflect on Todd? Should a fireable offense by Ddot impact Todd more than just losing out on that specific audit job?
Icing on the Cake?
So far the show itself has only split a person into two different states, with one dominant one (in the real world) and a work one. However, what if technology advanced so far that similar to radio frequencies, we could sever twice, three times, multiple times? For instance, have one of you be the one that goes on public transport, the other would be the one going to work, university or school, maybe a third purely devoted to learning a language.
These may all seem redundant, but could be useful if then you could merge and split these versions to and from your original self ( For instance, a severed version of Todd (lets call him Ddot2) would be able to learn French free from stresses of daily life with no other thoughts distracting him, then merge back later once the language has been learnt). This could lead to faster learning times and more easily develop skills.
But it also begs the question, as more and more of severed versions of Todd exist, which one is the real Todd? The original one, or the one that is the most ‘online’, or least dormant? One thing is for sure that Todd would not be the same Todd that we all know and love. The personality, the memories and perceptions of Todd is not just about the good times, actions or moments, its also about his bad and ugly ones too.
Ultimately, I’m torn between deciding if this technology would be an overall net positive for humanity. The better life filled with less boring, sad moments seems very appealing (especially for me right now, I’m writing this part while on a long train ride). But is it worth sentencing a reflection of yourself to only those boring sad moments?
Additionally I’d argue that sometimes we need to those moments just to remind ourselves of just how good things normally are, and appreciate the good moments even more. In a life full of the good, the bad; the ugly, it is the bad and ugly that make the good so good.
And with the broadcast drawing to a close, lets extend our goodbye’s to Todd, and of course, Ddot.
Make sure to give this broadcast a coherence score!
That’s all from me for now, but stay tuned for future broadcasts,
This has been Kunga’s Written Radio,
Check out last week’s broadcast here →
This is really interesting :) The text mentions the potential for "life improvements for Todd" but notes that Ddot may not benefit. What factors might determine who benefits from such technology and who doesn't? Is this answered in the show? Should I watch it?