📺 Watched Pluribus.

You might know the word “pluribus” from the Latin saying “E pluribus unum”, or “out of many, one”.

Famously, the phrase appears on the US Great Seal, with its original choice reflecting the union of the original 13 colonies into a single nation. It might be hard to say that the same vibe applies to the modern day (dis) United States.

Anyway, the show is not about US history. Rather, one day almost all of humanity wakes up to find they’ve been subject to a “joining”. Everyone’s consciousness has been merged into one, with the result of universal happiness, kindness and coordination. A hive mind, if you will, but a very positive, loving and generous one, committed to such noble sentiments as non-violence.

What’s not to like? Especially when one compares the outcome to real life humanity and its eternal hatred and conflicts.

Well, Carol is one of the tiny number of people who actually failed to be joined. She’s her own independently-minded human still, driven by pain, misery, and inner and outer conflict, same as the rest of us today.

The collective are looking for ways to allow her to join the euphoric mass, to increase the happiness of the world. They’re desperate to make her as happy as they are. In the mean time they facilitate her to do whatever she wants, to try and please her, to meet her every need.

But she hates the whole thing. She is disgusted that the joining happened to everyone else, and has no desire whatsoever to become part of it. So not only is she evading the process she’s looking for ways to totally reverse it and, as she sees it, save humanity.

As the show’s tagline puts it: ‘The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness’. So the shows follows her ups and down trying to figure out what happened, why, and how to undo it.

Intriguing and compelling as both a show and a thought experiment.