Headscratchers / Black Mirror: White Christmas

• How does blocking someone make you feel safer from a stalker? If that person wanted to stab you or shoot you, the laws of physics couldn't stop it. In a sexual harassment way, they can still fondle you and touch you and since you can't communicate with them more forcefully, they're just gonna get frustrated. Lastly, you can still send letters.
  • By the same token, there's the ugly possibility of two (or more) people who have been blocked by the same person using the "blocked" status to gaslight the person being harassed if they can act in a similar manner and be outside of the surveillance system (or even if the cops just aren't motivated to check and see beyond "Did Mr. X do this?" without checking for other possible suspects).

• Why create a cookie when they will probably be so resistant in the first place? Even if you break them (and can deal with the moral ramifications with that), how will a reluctant person be a good servant?

• What happens if someone still wants contact with someone they've known who ends up on one of those "universal block" lists? There are plenty of cases where a relative (particularly parents/siblings/kids of the offender) or longtime friend would probably opt to retain contact, "red-listed" status be damned. Somewhat-indirect communication can be maintained (e.g. letters), but one would expect that folks would find workarounds.
  • This also presents a sticky problem: If you have a relative who is "blocked by the system", what's to prevent someone else with a similar status from imitating them if you can't confirm who they are?
  • For that matter, how is he supposed to buy things, call a plumber or electrician, get his car inspected, talk to an attorney ir the cops again...? Sure, if the point is to make him die by starvation, "blocked by everyone" would make sense, but that doesn't seem to be the goal.
  • Such services can be arranged through web sites and delivery services today. The question is how such individuals pay for goods and services since they’re largely or entirely unable to earn a living.
  • As mentioned, blocked people can still communicate with others, just not via visual or audio means — writing messages on a slate or sending emails are just two examples that come to mind. And it should still be possible for blocked people to earn a living, they'd just be unable to perform jobs that require verbal communication. Still doesn't address the problem with people who choose to keep contact with the blocked person, though.

• Everything a Cookie personal assistant does can be done by machines without AI in our world. The music, the coffee maker, the toaster, the calendar, all of it can be programmed once to the person's liking. What is the motive for creating virtual slaves to do nothing more than operate a control panel whose functions can already be done in our world without a sentient being pushing a different button every second?
  • It is just the next step up from AI having "you" controlling it means you wont get any AI issues.

• For that matter, since this is a paid service, why not just hire consenting humans to shadow you, learn your preferences, and run a smart house control panel for you? It would be a lot simpler.
  • A cookie is supposed to run all aspects of your home life, watching you walk around naked, dimming the lights or playing romantic music when you have sex. Not things you want a stranger observing.
  • As long as the technology exists, extracting a cookie to manage your life would be a lot simpler that employing another human being to do it. You'd have to explain to a human employee exactly how you wanted every aspect of your life to be run and trust they they'd remember it all whereas since a cookie is you it already knows everything and isn't in danger of forgetting it. And because a human employee would have a life of their own they wouldn't be on hand to serve you all the time and would need to take holidays and sick leave at certain points while you can guarantee that a cookie would be available every second of the day and night. Plus you'd be saving yourself a lot of money because for a cookie you just need to pay the one time fee to have it extracted and set up whereas you'd need to pay a human a continuous salary for as long as you employed them.

• From the way Matt reacted when the police told him that he'd be blocked from everyone, it's clear that this was not part of his original agreement. Legally, that's considered a breach of contract; shouldn't he be able to get an attorney and appeal the decision?

• How is this service functional or an improvement on Siri or Alexa when it doesn't have mind reading powers? The cookie is not mentally linked or synced with real Greta. The cookie knows Greta's likes and dislikes and such but cannot read her mind. So even if the cookie knows, for example, the flavors of espresso Greta likes, how is the cookie supposed to know which flavor she's in the mood for any particular morning unless real Greta tells her Alexa-style? How is the cookie supposed to know what groceries the real Greta wants that week without being told? Unless the customer has severe OCD and religiously eats and drinks the exact same things and follows the exact same schedule every day, the cookie can't do its job without Alexa- or Hey, Siri-style commands, so why not just use that technology instead of assigning the work to a reluctant slave capable of suffering?

• Why didn't the cookie remember "she" signed up for this service? She never says something like "This isn't what I signed up for!" or "You never told me it would be like this!" — she's completely confused like this is the first time she's hearing this company exists.
  • Note that the cookie of Joe also isn't initially aware that he's a cookie and seemingly has no memory of the police extracting a cookie from his real self's head. It appears that the cookies retain the overall memories of their human counterpart's lives but not short term memories, including the parts where they had the cookie extracted from them.