What People Are Totally Missing about Pluribus

Pluribus is a mass ethical thought experiment. I haven't seen anyone discuss this but it's really the core message. The show is designed to ask the American (and international) public if we want to continue where we are going by showing us the ultimate outcome.

What do I mean?

There are three major kinds of ethics: deontological (a Higher Power determines what's right or wrong), virtue (what's right is what helps me become a better person), and consequentialist (the outcome determines what is right and wrong).

One of the main ethical dilemmas this show faces is about utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is a kind of consequentialism.

Utilitarianism is about maximizing happiness (utility) and minimizing suffering for the greatest number of people.

So what is good & ethical to a utilitarian is what brings happiness & pleasure. Causing pain & sadness are unethical or even evil.

Modern Western societies are utilitarian. Most secular people are utilitarian. Capitalism, democracy, republics, all of these are fundamentally utilitarian systems.

What happens when you take utilitarianism to its logical conclusion? What if we didn't need science or technology to help us arrive at a maximal utilitarian state?

Enter the Hive.

The Hive is essentially a thought experiment on perfect utilitarianism. Without requiring people to volunteer, or a totalitarian state, or war; suddenly everyone has maximized utility essentially overnight.

The concept of the ends justifying the means is a dilemma for utilitarians, and one we have seen played out throughout the 20th century with Nazism & the mass killings under Communist regimes. We see it now with technofeudalism, AI, and the tech-bro utopia.

The hive believes the joining is ethical because it has brought happiness and pleasure to everyone on earth with the exception of Carol. They don't remove themselves from Carol until she causes them to suffer.

Diabaté is a utilitarian. He is seeking the shortest path to maximize his happiness. So is Laxmi. So are a lot of people who are primarily concerned with themselves and their well being. The hive has optimized happiness and well being.

So, these other survivors have no problem with the Hive or each other. They are operating on the same wavelength. They all want to be happy and maximize happines for everyone else. The Hive has accomplished that and brought peace on earth.

We see this taken to ridiculous extremes when the Hive brings Carol a grenade because she wants it and is willing to give her a nuclear bomb.

Carol and Manousos are not operating in a utilitarian paradigm. Perhaps Carol was before the joining, however she was beginning to struggle with achieving happiness by the easiest means neccesary and began seeking higher meaning/purpose (with her poorly written novel). She was developing an aesthetic component to her ethics.

She gave in in episode 7 to the pleasure principle and it left her feeling so hollow, alone, and empty that she was willing to essentially commit suicide. She can't find true human connection so she is seeking an emulation of it in Zosia.

While we don't know about Manousos' personal beliefs, much has been made of the Catholic environment he is from (and most likely raised in). We see Manousos holding very firmly to deontological ethical values about property, ownership, identity, authenticity and virtues like self-reliance. To Manousos, the ends do not justify the means. Being a good person is not about accomplishing your goal of maximizing happiness, it's about values that trasncend and therefore define humanity.

Hence his willingness to die before accepting help from the Hive, who he sees as unethically colonizing humanity & stealing its property collectively.

As we rapidly approach the terminal state of utilitarianism in the real world, Pluribus is asking us if we really want to live in such a world or whether there are other values that matter to us.

Is humanity more important than maximizing happiness? Is it worth having peace on earth even if we lose our individuality? Is scientific or technological autocracy justified if it ends suffering? Can advanced science or technology really solve our problems?

Analysis by Ali Shukri Amin