In a time of Obama, Hilary Clinton, and neoconservatism policies, the stories in this episode fall along philosophical grounds. Angela is the neoliberal ”wet dream.” Darlene is the vulgar Marxist. Fsociety are Marxists. Mr. Robot is the anarchist. And Elliot is neither a Marxist or individualist , but he seems to subscribe to a hybrid theory, which incorporates the middle ground between the two theories thereby not being pigeoned holed by just one theory. This is an interesting broadcast.
As this segment begins, we see the Whiterose at an Evil Corp particle collider. This collider is capable of accessing parallel universes. As well, it can create tiny black holes and make teleportation possible. No doubt, it can access the meta verse and is probably responsible for one or two Mandela Effects. Lastly, a collider is responsible for other worlds/realities crossing over into our reality.
The building that’s housing their recovery program. And their back-up paper records, titles, deeds, loan documents.
Globalization is a theme in this broadcast. With the multinational conglomerate Evil Corp being an example of globalization with its worldwide networks and subsidiaries crossing borders, Fsociety seems to want to retreat into nationalism and tribalism. With that, Fsociety, like many cultures and people in the world, views globalization as a threat to their way of life.
That being said, Angela is the neoliberal ”wet dream.” She is all out for self and her mantra is ”self help.” Angela isn’t on the side of the anti corporate movement. As well, Angela has little interest in nationalist or tribalist agendas. Angela is working for the enemy, Evil Corp.
During this airing, Elliot and Darlene attend the hacker olympics. Technically, it’s called s CTF or Capture The Flag. Elliot and Darlene need a fast internet connection to close the Evil Corp backdoor, and the CTF is a good excuse to get a computer and fibre optic speed during a brown out.
In a moment of hindsight, Elliot blames himself in regards to starting a revolution, which I found interesting since it’s the opposite of the Fsociety Marxist approach. See, Fsociety focuses on society or structures of society ie. classes as responsible for society’s problems/conflicts. However, Elliot seems to be focusing on agency/the self/symbolic interactions as responsible for society problems. As a result, Elliot blames the individual for society’s problems which is exactly the message neoliberalism and multinational conglomerates promote. Lets hope Elliot gets over blaming himself for society’s problems, which are too big for him to solve.
Angela remains brainwashed by the Whiterose in this episode. The Whiterose has convinced Angela that her mom was a sacrifice for the greater good: undoing everything Evil Corp had done. Here, the Whiterose sounds like a Marxist too. Anyways, Angela believes what Whiterose believes in that a better world a.k.a utopia is coming.
Oh yeah, this airing talks about Adam Smith, a classical economy theorist. See, Smith believed that the free market is guided by an invisible hand. Anyways, the short of it: let the market work itself out and no government involvement. Basically Adam Smith is saying what libertarians, classical liberalism, and neo-liberalism say about the economy: lassie faire, that is, hands off government.
This episode is big on capitalism. Elliot sees capitalism as the source of trouble. But tell me, Elliot, capitalism with all it’s stages was built on feudalism and barbarism. How can you blame capitalism when it stands on the shoulders of preceding systems- blame them all.
Briefly, it was a good segment. The philosophies of characters were explored. The particle collider and CTF were dope. Angela’s brainwashing continued. I liked this airing too.