Loveday Writing

Upload – the digital, socioeconomical, and reincarnation-based afterlife

Digital aspect

The digital aspect of Upload’s afterlife involves having a person’s consciousness stored on either a SIM card or hard drive and uploaded into a virtual world of their own choosing, relative to what they can afford.

Digital technology is never going to go away and an afterlife can evolve as the technology that facilitates it evolves and sees fit. The digital aspect also allows for many preferences, such as premium services and climate settings.

The obvious shortfalls of a digital or technological afterlife is how effective the technology and the protection of it is. For example, there is one episode where the Ludds have a bomb explode in Horizen’s server rooms, leading to technological malfunctions, and in a season two episode, the Ludds have Nora plant a virus in Lakeview. As mentioned in the first part of this series, when Viv went shopping for digital afterlives for Nathan, she came across a clearly dodgy hybrid of augmented and virtual reality, which clearly has its flaws that could possibly result in losing someone there.

Also, Nathan’s ability to hack the system from the inside, seen when he steals data from the rich uploads to give to the 2Gig uploads, exposes its online security flaws.

Socioeconomical aspect

Other than technology, the other way that digital afterlives are possible is through socioeconomic means – how good of an afterlife someone can have digitally is dependent on what they can afford.

As mentioned in the first part of this series, this has been shown by the 2Gigs floor as well as through Viv shopping around and having limited options. Within the realms of Lakeview, how cushy one’s afterlife can be is dependent on what their relatives can afford, shown when Nathan tries to have coffee but Ingrid would need to pay more, the 2Gigs floor being provided with the bare minimum features and benefits, and Ingrid casually offering to provide Nathan with more money and benefits when she senses he’s pulling away from her.

The socioeconomical aspect of digital afterlives was so huge that Nathan and Jamie were working on creating a free afterlife, Freeyond, which is eventually launched in season two, and Nathan was murdered by Choak over it.

Reincarnation aspect

Shortly after Nathan is fully rendered by Nora, she describes the process as being similar to dying and being reborn. The digital file that is Nathan in Lakeview is his consciousness, so he’s not technically reborn on a human level, it’s still him, he’s just been reborn in a digital form in a digital world.

The Good Place  – the moral, philosophical, and Heaven and Hell-based afterlife

Moral aspect

Ultimately, people end up either in the Good or Bad Place due to the points total of the decisions they’ve made, good or bad, during their life on Earth, and these decisions are made due to people’s personal morals.

Eleanor realises a mistake has been made and she’s not supposed to be in the Good Place in the pilot as she knows she acted immorally in her own life and the first season is mostly about her becoming a better person through Chidi’s philosophy classes. Jason also takes Chidi’s classes for a similar reason (other than hiding his true identity from everyone). Mindy St Claire and the Medium Place are a big moral aspect of the afterlife, as her mostly selfish life but massively selfless actions before her death led to a new section of the afterlife (albeit for herself) being created by both sides (and can also be taken as a hint that the points system was flawed).

When the points system is changed, it’s changed from having life on Earth being a test of morality to being a class humans take and the afterlife being their test. This change ultimately works, and leads to a successful and smooth-running afterlife in both the Good and Bad Places.

Philosophical aspect

Although the afterlife in The Good Place is more morals-based, the philosophical aspects inform the moral-based choices the characters make, which is demonstrated through Chidi’s philosophy classes.

Throughout the series run, multiple types of philosophy are explored, which include but are not limited to: utilitarianism, the trolley problem, moral particularism, moral dessert, scepticism and taking leaps of faith, contractualism, consequentialism, deontology, nihilism, virtue ethics, and determinism.

Heaven and Hell-based aspect

The series establishes in its pilot that the religious based Heaven and Hell concept that a large number of people would have been raised on is only five percent accurate. Instead the series establishes a Good and a Bad Place, which is essentially the same as Heaven and Hell, with the difference being that where someone goes in the afterlife is based on the points total of their actions (good and bad) during their life on Earth.

Although the twist at the end of the first season does make you question if this is true, it does turn out to be true, although it’s eventually discovered there is a problem with the points system. Due to the evolution of human existence, people lose points due to unintended consequences to ostensibly good acts. Once the protagonists figure this out, they eventually manage to change the points system by making life on Earth a class humans take in morality instead of the test.

Other than fixing the points system, the Good and Bad Places as Heaven and Hell themselves generally remain the same.

Final thoughts

I wrote in the first part of this series that I enjoyed watching Upload because it explored the afterlife as a certainty and the afterlife was digitally and socioeconomically based, instead of religious or morality based. I also wrote that The Good Place is unique due to its focus on the Heaven and Hell concept represented by the Good and Bad Place respectively, this concept being turned on its head at the end of the first season, and ultimately having the afterlife system undergo a complete overhaul.

Overall, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the afterlife being explored in such unique ways, which is why I believe both shows were popular with both critics and viewers. While these certainly weren’t the first shows to explore the afterlife and they certainly won’t be the last, it will be interesting to see, based on the premise and performance of these shows, how the afterlife will be explored on television in the future.