Saturday, March 19, 2011

Surrogates Review

First of all, let me define the word surrogates. According to Encarta, the word surrogate means “somebody as substitute: somebody who acts as a replacement for somebody else.”.

In the movie, a surrogate(as what the definition said), is another body made for you which you could control remotely, even without leaving your home. Basically, it was a super developed robot that would do all your work for you, to keep you away from harm. If you would refer it to a clone, you would be mistaken, because its not a copy of you. Its physical appearance could be way more different from yours. But, its possible that your surrogate could look like your original self.

The movie was set at a time where most of the people had a surrogate which did their work for them. But not all people approved of surrogates. There were areas that were only to be inhabited by people.

Basically, what happened in the movie was that the original creator and the one who first thought of using surrogates developed a scheme to kill all the surrogates with their human operators. He had a grudge on surrogate users because he was ousted by the company who made the surrogates, which he helped build. Plus, his own son was accidentally killed because his former company plotted to kill him.

Now, first thing that I could say about the movie, or the concept of us having surrogates was, absurd. But possible. Like for example, in the movie, the operators almost never really got up from their seats, because their surrogates were doing all the work for them. But how about the operators? What were they eating? Drinking? If they were just to sit around there just controlling their surrogates, then they’d have no time to exercise or to get some physical activity. And if they didn’t have any physical activity, then they’d be more prone to so many diseases, ailments, etc. They’d easily get a heart attack if that was the case.

But if there’s a bad side on all of this, there has to be a good side also. As what the creator of the surrogates in the movie said, surrogates were made to empower the powerless. Surrogates were perfect for people with disabilities. Those who couldn’t walk could now experience how to walk. sprint, run, etc. If you wanted to be a guitarist, but you couldn’t because you only had one arm, then with surrogates, you could. There are limitless possibilities as to what surrogates might be capable of. They might be made to go to hard to explore areas, like the Amazon, or Antarctica.

Having a surrogate would really be helpful to you, if and only if you would use it for the good. Being addicted to your surrogate (like Bruce Willis’ wife in the movie) is bad (although she uses it to help forget the pain of losing their son). Its just a matter of using it in the right way. But for me, if I were to choose, I wouldn’t want a surrogate. Why? Because you wouldn’t experience the joy of being human. To feel the warmth of the sun, the drops of rain, the joy of being with your loved ones, and many, many, many more. I don’t want a copy of me to experience the best things in life. Its true that you would be safe from harm, but you wouldn’t experience what a normal human would. I would prefer being out in the open, risking my life while enjoying it, rather than to stay in a corner and doing nothing. No surrogates for me, I guess.

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