I was frustrated earlier in the season, because it was going off in a direction I thought was a theological dead end*, but I've been liking the past few episodes and their people-and-communities focus so much.
*I still don't understand why the same magnifying effect of bad things on the Points System in our modern global world, as Michael theorized at the end of the previous season, don't also amplify good things.
They seem to have sort of gone away from talking about the magnifying effect! -- it doesn't seem to have factored in this season at all, at least so far.
The magnifying effect is the ostensible whole point of the experiment! If the points system is unfair at judging people because on modern day flat Earth, the magnifying effect is artificially pulling good peoples' scores down too low when they have the capability of earning more points on a less flat Earth, then we can see how much better those people can become when the magnifying effect is not in play. Otherwise, what's the point of conducting an experiment that so badly models Earth? If we're not trying to see what happens to these people in absence of the magnifying effect, then basically Season 4's big experiment is "Let's Watch Team Cockroach Snowplow for these new people".
But you're right, in spite of this, the show has largely pivoted away from talking about it. Instead of asking if the new people truly earned more points in the experiment, the focus in the storytelling has shifted back to Team Cockroach, the idea that what makes humanity special is not the absolutism of the points system but the way that working in concert, humans can make each other relatively better.
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*I still don't understand why the same magnifying effect of bad things on the Points System in our modern global world, as Michael theorized at the end of the previous season, don't also amplify good things.
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They seem to have sort of gone away from talking about the magnifying effect! -- it doesn't seem to have factored in this season at all, at least so far.
no subject
But you're right, in spite of this, the show has largely pivoted away from talking about it. Instead of asking if the new people truly earned more points in the experiment, the focus in the storytelling has shifted back to Team Cockroach, the idea that what makes humanity special is not the absolutism of the points system but the way that working in concert, humans can make each other relatively better.