Per my automation talk… I really shouldn’t have got into it as having watched it back there are so many things I left unsaid that leave what I said a little lacking. Also, with the speech about the eradication of jobs and how that would be a good thing in one way - I realise this comes across that I think all jobs are bad. This isn’t the case. I think a lot of humanity like to work, I just think our version of capitalism doesn’t allow for the best practise of them. We’re worked to the bone, we work from 9-5, 5 days a week which leaves so little time for leisure time as well, seeing friends and family. Not to mention rising prices and lack of money, inability to reap the rewards of your work or being able to buy a home etc. In my mind you’d erase the NEED to work thereby allowing people who would like to work the option to work at their own pace and ENJOY it. This also comes with issues of course. In the best case scenario I talk about automation taking over which begs the question, why would people come to you for a product if everything was automated? You’d have to become a master perhaps in order to surpass the ‘cheap, low effort’ alternative (automated product) that would make people seek your work. But then comes the issue of ‘why do we have automation in the first place’ if there are humans doing that work. Another issue to be encountered is this also doesn’t account for automation becoming so good that the products being made are akin to a master, which again risks making the work a human finds fulfilling ‘worthless’ in the sense that they won’t ever feel the accomplishment of ever getting to make something and having someone else enjoy it. A balance needs to be struck. The problems with what I talk about would take careful planning and cultivation to avoid and make this system work as intended. An elegant solution might be to keep track of what folks want to do/apply themselves to while adjusting automation accordingly to meet the needs of the community. My talk about the theory of it was very brief and also applied to the world we have now (which it doesn’t fit in) which made it more flimsy as an argument than I wanted. I guess I wanted to just clarify that the issue I have with jobs and work we have today is that there are so many jobs that are so worthless in the grand scheme of things. I think jobs that actually serve our communities directly should be things that are more available/the focus as opposed to things like filling in spreadsheets for x company that only exists because of arbitrary systems that make the rich richer etc. That’s more so the issue I have with work, not work itself. I know many people if they had the freedom I talk about would choose something that could be categorised as a ‘job’ that we might recognise today.

Tahani's intentions were bad, but her outcomes were good. Chidi's intentions were good, but his outcomes were bad. The system doesn't care either way.

0:26 “Michael did nothing wrong!” - Tyler Alexander, The Good Place 1x13

One of my favorite little details throughout this season is that we never see Michael by himself, not for one single frame, because he’d have no reason to keep up the act.

0:54 "We know that Michael isn't too blame." Famous last words.

In many ways Tahani and Chidi are perfect foils for each other morally. Tahani has corrupt and selfish motivations, but her actions raising money still have very positive consequences. Chidi had good and noble intentions, but his actions still had harmful and negative consequences to those around him. We can surmise that the true system in the background of the show requires both pieces in order to be considered a "positive" action. The show does a great job of continuing to pick apart the overall fairness of this metric, and the way it has sorted humans in the afterlife. Cant wait to see your thoughts on Season 2!

This is truly one of the best plot twists in TV history imo, I've watched plenty of reactions to this show, and I've seen people suspect this is the bad place, but then dismiss that idea, I've seen people be completely caught off guard by the reveal, and I've seen people see the cracks but never suspect the truth. It changes the whole story, and adds new context to everything that's happened. If I ever wanted to explain to someone how to write a plot twist, this would be the first example.

All of the great commentary and moral reasoning you've been putting in this entire season has been like intricate mandala art and this last episode is just a giant gust of wind.

Oh man, when I saw your video title for episode 5 I thought for sure you’d figured it out! I’ve been dying from anticipation for this reaction!

The roar of "YEEESSS" when I saw the notification for this video shook the house to its foundations. Excellent commentary, so happy you enjoyed it!

The thing about this show is that the status quo is always breaking. The whole premise of "Eleanor hides her badness in Heaven" breaks into "Michael and everyone try to protect her despite being revealed" and then we get here. I can just say that the show evolves over and over and over again as it goes.

When Michael laughed, I never felt so scared while watching a sitcom in all my life.

The genius of this show is that in episode 2, Michael kicked a puppy into the sun, and we didn't question. There are so many little hints - the way Michael talks about the frozen yogurt. The Good Place has four seasons, and all your questions and ponderings will be addressed!

What made the twist work for me was sort of an inside meta joke. The show plays into sitcom tropes (of course) but it used those tropes to gloss over the perceived imperfections in the Good Place and hold the audience back from thinking too hard about what's going on.

11:04 Huge clue before the reveal - the quotes around The Good Place.

An interesting tidbit, Michael almost got the scenario back on track with the point counter in episode 11. If Eleanor had gone through with going to the Bad Place, she would have retained her million+ points, giving a legal(aka “convincing to the humans”) reason for Eleanor to stay in the neighborhood. Then Jason and Janet showed up with an escape plan. Eleanor might get all the credit for figuring it out, but that ding dong is the real spanner in the cosmic works.

FINALLY!!!!!!!! Now - imagine you just got this bombshell. Then the season ends. And we all had to wait. It was terrible. 😂 😂 Please don't wait. Also - season 2 is probably my favorite. I love them all, but season 2 is special.

I've been refreshing KZfaq over and over, waiting for this episode 🎉

Chidi is an indication that good intent is lacking if not followed by good action. Furthermore from an Adlerian perspective, I think his moral ruminations serve the underlying function of him avoiding action and decisions. He’s been doing that his whole life. Let’s watch

Remember, Tyler: Michael 👏 didn't 👏 do 👏 anything 👏 wrong. 👏 I know how you feel, though. I was 100% fooled on first watch. 😅

Very early on in the season, you were pretty much on the brink of figuring it out, and ive been curious all season if something would finally push you over the edge to concluding this is the Bad Place. BUT one of the things that I think works strongly in favor of hiding the twist is that this is a sitcom. So things that seem off or like "did the writers really think that through?" can be glossed over as "well, it's a comedy, some things just need to happen for jokes/resolution". Ultimately we find out that things being off was completely intentional. I know it's a huge ask to tell someone to watch an entire season again, but if you ever do, there's going to be SO much jumping out at you! Others have mentioned some big things, but one of my favorites is when Michael and Eleanor are investigating the problem with the neighborhood, Michael gets excited and gives Eleanor a paperclip shower. It reads like Michael just not getting humans and really enjoying paperclips, but actually he just wanted to pour a bowl of paperclips on Eleanor. You made a lot of good points and asked a lot of great questions throughout the season that are still going to come into play later! Try not to get into the mindset that EVERYTHING you saw here was invalid and a lie and so none of it matters. The ideas all matter a lot, even though we were deceived on the scenario we were watching. Excited to keep going forward with you! This is a huge twist that we all hope reactors don't get spoiled on. This is the big "we're all holding our breath until you get here" moment, but the show isn't about to slow down or stagnate :) One of the few series that I don't believe ever dips in quality... And you're going to love where it goes!

oh boy, FINALLY! the community can breathe a collective sigh of relief. I am a tad sad, if anyone was gonna be suspicious of a Good Place architect calling a Good Place neighborhood "The Good Place", I thought it would be you. Great work though, and still plenty of stuff for you to ponder over across the runtime of the show, so strap in for the long haul :)

10:30 in a deleted extension of the scene, Real Eleanor says she’s also going because knows she can stand the torture, and she’s started to befriend some of the lava monsters, so it’s also about her selflessly choosing to take on that burden.

please do not apologize for a meaty episode i absolutely LOVE your talk. like. you dive into this show so deeply like you literally do what it is designed for

Michael's evil laugh gives me shivers every time. Best twist! And the way your eyes bugged out in surprise at that was perfection.

This is my first video of yours and i just want to say I'm so impressed with you analysis! You put so much thought into your reactions :)

I think it was so critical they cast such a beloved actor like Ted Danson, really makes that betrayal palpable imo

I love the fact that you pretty much all but predicted the twist as you went through the season to the point that it made complete sense when you got to it here. Excellent analysis in every single episode so far Tyler, love listening to your rants (not just in tgp ofc). I definitely would recommend you rewatch season 1 at some point for yourself because you can notice more stuff with how Michael acts and how the system works now that you have this context and your suspicions confirmed. This man literally kicked a dog into the sun and most of us still believed him. Looking forward to your season 2 reactions :))

I love hearing all of your thoughts on this! Next season is not the same, there are still surprises to uncover! I can't wait to watch you continue on this journey!

14:42 I get what you're saying. Like, there have been some Dr Who "twists" that left me feeling annoyed bc rather than breadcrumbs, there were last minute "corrections" instead. No way to predict it, no real clues. With The Good Place you can rewatch season one with entirely new eyes! Suddenly all the stuff you thought were plot holes or Michael just being oblivious makes so much more sense! Things that you thought were just played for laughs, suddenly are seen in a new, darker light.

OOOH THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!

yes !! chidi and tahani are a wonderful example of how neither utilitarianism nor kantian deontology work on their own. the intent and the consequences BOTH factor into the morality of an action. as a philosophy student i adore this show

Been WAITING! You’re so insightful and watch your shows with such attention! I knew this one would get you!

Speaking of this show and its relationship with philosophy, inspiration was drawn from the 1944 play 'No Exit', by Jean-Paul Sartre, in which three people arrive in hell and await their presumed physical torture, only to discover that their real torture is having to spend eternity with each other, because it forces each of them to confront their own flaws. It is where we get the phase 'Hell is other people'. It's so fun to rewarch this season and spot all the breadcrumbs the show drops. Michael's actor knew the twist from the beginning, and he sprinkles in tiny little smirks and other indications that Michael is really enjoying messing with these four.

Once again, great reaction and analysis. Also, nice catch on the contradiction between the results for Tahani and Chidi. As real people who interact with others, results will always matter because of the effects we have around us. But as limited and ignorant individuals, our intentions must hold some value because we can't know everything. Impact vs intention is one of the main reasons western philosophy always goes back to the Socratic Method. You will never know everything, but you must try to know as much as possible about the person(s) you are dealing with in order to understand how your actions will affect them.

Love these reactions, best TGP reactions on YT hands down. I'm not giving anything away but you are going to freaking love this series and by the end it will be in your top shows of all time.

Ive never Seen a reaction KZfaqr that has had this much commentary This vid is awsome ❤

0:50 "We know Michael is not to blame" he says in the beginning of the video 😂😂😂

Thank you! For the automation part of the conversation. Its insane how we still live by industrial revolution standards when we really dont need to work as much as we do anymore. We live to work and most of the work that is done is completely trivial. Some areas sure are important, why cant we focus just on that? Let the triviality die, we dont need it anymore. All that technology and we completely forgot thw point of living

To give you some context (without spoilers) for the rest of the show…. You’ll absolutely love how they tackle this twist going fwd. it’s not dragged out, nothing is. This show does an incredible job at going through every question you have about morality and actually answering it. It gets even better! S2 ep 2 is a personal fav ☺️

12:51 👀 The moment we've all been waiting for! 🤣 Was so excited for this upload.

The funniest thing is that you're not really wrong about the big thing: the problem isn't Michael; it's the institution(s).

When you started going on your tangent about automation and how the current systems in place don’t work, accept on paper, I realized “This Is The Bad Place.“ 😮

Tyler: All the same, we know Michael is not to blame. Me: Right. *cough cough 👀😬😄

I think the great thing about this show is that, actually, they shake up the premise of the show for every season. For Season 1, we think it's about "How did the wrong Eleanor get here? And will she be found out?" You've just hit the big twist at the end of S1 - so for Season 2 it becomes "Can the four humans find out what's really going on here?". And what the main focus is changes every year - as you noticed early on in these reactions, this isn't a show that drags out its big reveals, or does the conventional sit-com thing of pressing the reset button for every episode so that the characters can remain basically the same for many seasons.

I feel like (1) you sold yourself short--there are a lot of folks who have reacted to The Good Place and you are the FIRST that I've seen clock the situation before Eleanor. I felt SO SMART when I clocked it before her. I don't want to see you robbed of the same. (2) I'm extremely frustrated with the number of spoilers for this specific episode. Luckily, without being specific, there are probably at least six times after this point where I was as blown away as this episode, if not more so, including the next episode which you've already seen. (3) you have the BEST handle on the morality of the characters, and it's such a pleasure to view. It's always a joy whenever you drop an episode of The Good Place or Buffy and I truly wish I was interested in some of the other series as well!

I think that the automation talk was interesting. What they have hinted at, but perhaps not said entirely out loud is that the bad place always does things the worst way. Not just in torturing people, but in how they work with each other. So, it being a lot more work would be considered a "good" thing because it's bad.

Quite possibly the best TV twist of all time. There has never been a twist so out in the open yet expertly buried. In writing fiction, if your story has a big twist or a reveal, the audience has to be told the answer in advance at least 3 times - if not they feel cheated. Nobody is satisfied by a whodunnit where the answer is the killer was the neighbour we were never introduced to. Nobody wants a totally unguessable twist. You want a twist that you conceivably could have guessed but never did. The good place told us constantly that it was never the good place, and even people who question it early on never fully commit to the idea of it not being the good place. It is astounding how Schur managed to write Michael kicking a puppy into the sun and nobody twigged still, not even regular members of the cast. Incredibly constructed show.

"Hell is other people". Go look that up. (Or just search "No Exit") And not JUST the meaning (which is pretty obvious at this point) but the actual plot of the play it's in. Heck. There's an a 1962 film that got made from the play if you want to go overboard and watch it. BTW: I don't think it's out of bounds to say that you're going to get more Philosophy with this show. Soon. Your comment on how much work, and resources, Michael's plan took was not something that escaped the writers I believe. I think they WANTED us to interpret the plan as dumb. Even if they flipped our perception of what he was working on, this is a continuation of a LONG arc of us coming to understand that Michael is something of a bumbler. A screwup. Or as Eleanor puts it... "Ya Basic".

Your discussions and immediate reactions are great to watch!

I was curious about this, as you have so often pointed out the flaws in the system and the way the place is run. Some are just because it’s a bad system, but many were clues. I think you actually concluded at one point that it wasn’t the good place because of some of these.

The shows insinutation is that under the initial system, to get into the good place you need both good intention and good consequences. Eleanor failed on both counts, chidi and tahani only failed on one of those counts, while jason mostly gailed on the latter because he didn't really think about the former. but it still matters. GIven what you say in your contractualism count I think you more or less agree in theory, even if the good place rules appear to be badly implemented in practice. This is not the same as the show saying this is right, just this is how it works.

They do a great job planting the seeds for the twist that it doesn't necessarily make one feel surprised but makes all the pieces fall into place.

It won't get boring, that's what's great about this show.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about your reactions to season 1 were how long it takes to produce each edit. Not asking you to speed up, but I felt like I was in the bad place waiting for your reaction to the next episode to be released. Great job! Thank you for the intelligent commentary. I love how you communicate your thoughts as you run through each episode.

FGG sent me, and your channel looks really cool! ^^

I think it's interesting that if Michael had put them in 'the good place' and then not told any of them that they weren't supposed to be there, they'd have 'tortured' each other way more. It's because Eleanor thought/was told it was wrong for her to be there and needed to convince people that she tried to change, but if she'd just thought she'd gotten in as she was she might not have been motivated to change. Which would have been much more infuriating for everyone. Same for Jason.

So excited for you to start season 2! This show is truly one of the most satisfying and best written shows I have ever watched. They subvert expectations at every turn and even your tangent on jobs and capitalism and systems -- Tyler, you are going to love this show more and more.

Tyler at the start of the episode: Michael did nothing wrong, he shouldn’t be blamed for this! Us: 😏😈😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😆🤫🤫🤫🤭

After this episode, all the frozen yogurt shops make sense.

one if the things i find most interesting about adhd is how we tend to (because of what i call our ‘constellatory thinking’) think of every possible permutation of a situation. i think this has some really interesting implications within the context of evolutionary psychology and the chicken or the egg argument about neurodiversity but mostly in daily life it just means that we aren’t shocked very often. as someone that watches reactors for almost the validation of my original feelings to media it’s been interesting watching you knowing you’d likely rarely be shocked or surprised by things that always gobsmack other people - so seeing you with your jaw hanging even slightly open at the reveal was very satisfying. all this was a very appropriately adhd way of saying: ha ha got you!

i’ve got some of the video to go so i’m not sure if you’re gonna talk abt this or not but i had to before i forgot. i find it really interesting that we can actually lump chidi with jason here in the argument of: is it fair that they were judged on the same scale/metric as other people when they clearly have (for chidi) some sort of mental illness, maybe an extreme anxiety disorder, ocd or possibly even autism and (for jason) an intellectual disability. should, if the reasons they’re sent to the bad place are dependent on or affected by that disability, they be judged on the same scale as everyone else? hell you could even bring eleanor’s (and to a lesser extent tahani’s) childhood trauma into it! is it fair that these things weren’t at all considered in deciding where they were going to end up when they died? what the hell could the real scale be measuring (because with this reveal we have no idea if the way michael explained ‘the points system’ is even real!) if tahani, who did incredibly good things for selfish reasons and chidi, who made everyone around him miserable but only with the best of intentions, BOTH ENDED UP IN THE SAME PLACE?!! ahhh i forgot how much i loved this show and all of the questions it brought up! (also i’m so sorry for the all comments haha i’ll try and make this my last one)

The twist is so fun! Personally, I initially guessed it once the sinkhole came into play, but my partner objected hard enough that I doubted my theory until the finale. The great thing about the show is that there's no dead space in the main storyline, everything ultimately makes sense, and they still manage to continuously surprise us until the end.

Something that adds nuance to consequentialism is considering the consequences of the punishment for the action. Are the consequences of the "punishment" worse than those of the original immoral act? And that gets us into questions of rehabilitative, restorative, or retributive justice. The Good/Bad Place system currently in place would be the latter. The "learning ethics" would be the former. The (thus far) unmentioned option of making amends and reparations would account for the median.

12:52 welcome to the show!

and you called it less than halfway through the season!

oh boy. I have been waiting for this episode. I will watch it after work and edits this

Yay we’re at the twist!

12:51 I waited for this face a very long time 😅

ITS HERE!!! :D now that you've seen this ep there's a video of the cast learning the twist you should watch it now!

One of the things the creators of the show have said is that they always tried to get to the next stage ahead of when you think they will. And all seasons are S-tier, but season two is probably my overall favorite.

also i think i spot a new painting up on the wall, it’s gorgeous! please tell your partner that random person on the internet number 69 (i had to) thinks they’re very talented!

Don't worry about season 2 getting stale or repetitive. The amazing thing about this show is the pacing, they will never linger on anything for the sake of lingering. Every plot point takes exactly as long as it needs to and you will never be bored

I'm honestly not convinced that a consequentialist analysis of the Chidi/Jason/Janet situation would necessarily end up blaming Chidi. What would have happened if he didn't act? Janet would have died. What happened when he did act? Same thing. He doesn't get any moral credit for trying, but he hasn't made the world worse by acting. Janet's death was the consequence of Jason making the decision to go for the button, in a very real way. I think that rule consequentialism (which basically says that an act can be a morally good call even if it ends up having a negative consequence because the likely outcome of that action is consequentially good, and society will be better off if people choose to act even if a good outcome is not guaranteed in each individual instance) might even suggest that Chidi's intervention was morally good, because intervening and attempting to stop Jason was the most likely thing to lead to a consequentially beneficial outcome, even if it didn't end up working. Overall I think most ethical frameworks can be bad if you use them to ignore meaningful elements of a situation, but there's no reason you have to do that.

God what a smart guy. 😳

Man, your reaction to the reveal was everything I hoped it would be. I knew you'd put together enough pieces to see everything once the reveal was out there, and that was the realization with the best reaction. It's a gag! It's so hard to engage about the show when I know the important bits, so I can't join the speculation and I don't want to draw attention to what direction things will head. I tried not to make too much of a fuss about the finale- I think it's a bit spoiler-y to describe it as game changing, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, I'm so happy this particular twist has been revealed and this episode can be part of the conversation. You did not disappoint! Re: Jobs: I don't think we (the people) understand how many jobs could be eliminated if we didn't have the economic necessity for everyone to work all the time. Capitalism relies strongly on the exploitation of labor and, in my experience (in the US), a public too overworked to be educated. We don't need 40hr work weeks, we could do so much better than that. It is crazy to me, the things people are willing to just accept because it's always been that way. I am of the opinion that we should burn down the system because nothing about it is worth salvaging. Anyone who defends capitalism is a victim of propaganda and abuse, full stop. And you are exactly right that it's so hard to make even a slight change to any system, let alone a major change. It's designed to be like that; it's corrupted from the top down. Anyway, I really like how the show evolves and I hope you do, too.

wait, would consequentialism consider a surgeon a murderer if the patient dies during a surgery then? that seems ...silly.

I've just recently noticed an unexplained plothole in this episode. During the reveal, Eleanor calls herself a selfish ass. Not Ash. Ass. She swore which she shouldn't have been able to.

Loved your reaction. Personally, I think season two is even better than season one. I really like where this show goes. Looking forward to more of your reactions to TGP.

I was waiting!

Either housing should be free, or there should be a universal basic income

By the system we've been shown so far, assuming the demons are at least sometimes honest, you need *both* good intentions and good results for actions to count as good. We can only hope the opposite also applies, and you need both bad intentions and bad results to get negative points....

22:07 or that you need BOTH the unselfish intent and the positive effect on the world. Tahani’s actions don’t count because it was easy for her to raise that money by virtue of her wealth and privelige. Chidi’s intent doesn’t count because for all that he was trying to do good, he never actually achieved a positive effect.

I think when you consider the difference between Tihani and Chidi’s behaviors and why they got them into the bad place, you’re missing a lot of nuance. Yes, all of Tihani’s good deeds didn’t count due to her corrupt motivations, but good motivations alone don’t make up for Chidi’s bad consequences. Chidi knew he was hurting people and didn’t change his behavior. We know he knew about the harm he was causing because his friends repeatedly told him and he chose to ignore them.

Intention matters BUT it’s not ALL that matters. It’s a balance. Chidi and Tahini are representing both side’s of the equation. She did a lot of good, but it was with the wrong intentions, and Chidi did a lot of bad, but with the right intentions. Both are wrong.

Ok, now i have watched, huge reaction and comments as usual. there is on bit, they do i think, its genius. When Eleanor and Michael are speaking about friendship, they brought up Friends. how can they afford those huge flats with the salaries they had- Michael ask. The answer is becuase in a sitcom, things sometimes doesnt need to add up, since it is a sitcom. So what do we do, if things doesn't immediately add up in this show? Well, its a sitcom. I think, its a brilliant and intentional misdirection.

I loved the automation rant. If workers owned the means of production, we can reap the benefits of machine power. Let's say we work 8 hours a day without automation. Let's say we make machines that allow us to produce the same amount of XYZ but in the span of 4 hours. The workers just got 4 more hours of leisure time.

To support your comments on Consequentialism, here is an example from the opposite inference. What if a mother has a placental abruption and the doctor determines that this specific abruption is placing the lives of both the mother and child at risk. If the doctor determines that if they do nothing, there is a very small chance both will be fine, but an extremely high probability that both die. If the doctor performs a medical abortion of the baby, the baby has a small chance of living, but will most likely die; however, while there is a small chance the mother will die, there is a high probability she would live. If the doctor goes with the most probable event, they will abort the baby (which is legal in all 50 states of the U.S. under the medical exemption clauses) and save the mother. But ... what if during the abortion, both the baby and mother die? Under Consequentialism, the doctor would be charged with homicide and manslaughter (intent with the baby, indifference with the mother). The situation, nuances, and intents would not matter. Only that there were two live patients and, as of a consequence of his actions, there are now two dead former patients.

I feel like you it both you perceive it as more sinister and Ted is playing it more sinister. Performance and perception are coming together. Micheal always looks redder after the reveal

I want to push back a bit about what you said about automation. Not about what you clarified in the pinned comment, I agree wholeheartedly with you on how our current systems of capitalism are a scourge on human prosperity. No, I want to challenge the idea that Michael is even trying for “automation” in the first place. Yes, this is a lot of work for a small reward IF you’re only crunching numbers, so to speak. On paper, this seems like a waste of Bad Place resources. One lava monster could physically torture multiple humans for ages, but in Michael’s neighborhood, there are 318 full time demons pretending to be human, plus Michael, plus all the others that come in temporarily, like Shawn and Trevor. That would be a huge waste. And Shawn is thinking along those same lines, too. BUT I think both you and Shawn have mischaracterized Michael’s intentions. First of all, Michael explains that this is a proof-of-concept experiment of sorts. If Michael’s plan works, that doesn’t mean that it would always be 319+ demons for every four humans. Perhaps with enough planning, they could have many neighborhoods in which all 322 residents were human AND still all torturing each other? But again, even if that were true, efficiency is NOT Michael’s goal at all. He doesn’t want to avoid work, he wants his work to be creative and thrilling, not just the same-old, same-old manual torture. Next, if Michael actually just wanted to automate torture, he could probably have figured out a way to just have Bad Janet do everything. Or, steal a bunch of Good Janets and somehow trick them into creating the torture. But he doesn’t even try that, because again, automation is not his goal. Finally, the real-world application of this: so, I have a master’s degree in education and I’ve studied the history of pedagogy a lot. In the past, education was thought to be as simple as “Step 1. Teacher disseminates knowledge. Step 2. Students obtain knowledge. Learning has been accomplished!” But over time, we’ve learned that is not how our brains work. Learning is deeper and more meaningful if it is effortful, and therefore, getting students to do the actual work of teaching themselves is one of the best methods of teaching! Striking the balance is EXTREMELY difficult, especially because many of the traditional ways of teaching and studying FEEL productive, but aren’t actually very effective, while some of the most effective methods FEEL harder and like less progress is being made but actually result in better retention and deeper mastery of the skills and concepts. I don’t think improving the humans is even remotely one of his conscious goals, but I think this is unintentionally part of the reason he failed. So yeah, long story short, Michael is not interested in automating the Bad Place at all. He’s interested in making the demons’ jobs more creative, mentally stimulating, and fun… for the demons.

Rest assured, the series does NOT take the easy option and simply have season 2 a repeat of season 1. There are still lots of surprises and analysis to come. One of the very few series that doesn't peter out after an initial clever idea is revealed. An eternity of butthole spiders and you are looking to mix things up a bit. 2 weeks is a long gap between eps though

the automation conversation i have to disagree with you fully here, atleast, as far as teh show goes (not for the reality side) and the reason for that is this: This used so many "workers" for only "four people" because it was an experiment, a proof of concept. after this, future iterations of this design would be less and less work heavy, in theory.

Automation should be a good thing but it's not because... capitalism.

You could fix capitalism by removing almost all taxes, all regulation, and introducing a rent tax. All wealth, you put for auction to rent it for tax duration, highest offer determines the taxed value(90-100% of that value paid as tax). Then, this tax goes to UBI. You'd fix the entire capitalism, to the point anarcho-capitalism would function as a socialist utopia.

I’m pretty sure you just like to hear yourself talk