Thoughts on Pluribus

The Unhappy Consciousness versus the Hivemind

I am completely fascinated by the new Apple TV+ series Pluribus. It rarely happens to me, these days, that I find myself absorbed by any kind of narrative fiction. Though I am only four episodes deep—and I suspect my fascination may taper off at a certain point—I wanted to quickly explore why this series feels so relevant and of this moment. For those who haven’t seen it, the story begins with radio transceivers discovering a regular code arriving from outer space that describes a long genetic sequence. Scientists in a laboratory reconstruct this sequence, discovering it to be a form of virus. They synthesize this alien agent and test it on rats and monkeys, but nothing happens until it escapes the lab—shades of Wuhan—and infects the first human. One of the scientists undergoes a shuttering catharsis to become ghoulishly happy, and she immediately gets to work infecting everyone else.

Within a day, almost everyone on Earth has become part of a psychically welded hivemind, speaking as “we” and possessing the collective knowledge of the species, except for a dozen or so humans who, for unknown reasons, remain completely unaffected. One of them is the protagonist, Carol Sturka, played by Rhea Seehorn, best known for her celebrated performance in Better Call Saul. Carol is an irascible, cynical writer of pirate-themed romance novels who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her wife, Helen, does not survive the transition into the hivemind, dying in the chaos of the initial convulsions.

Pluribus seems like a multivalent allegory for our contemporary moment, integrating numerous vectors such as Artificial Intelligence, the resurgence of Fascism, the secret possibility of Communism, the spiritual quest for enlightenment, hyper-individualism versus the idea of a “Noosphere” made of our collective thoughts and intentions. Of course, everyone brings their own thoughts and inner world with them when they seek to understand or interpret any work of art. Given that, I want to explore where I find the relevance and the resonances with my own past work and ideas.

First of all, we are actually in the midst of a deep disruption of our culture and our society that feels like–and functions like–a viral infection, attacking us from outside. The virus is this Byzantine or Putin-esue form of authoritarianism–anti-freedom, anti-free-speech–that has taken hold of our federal government and is now seeking to squeeze or suffocate our society (ruining the economy, remigrating, etc) until we all surrender to it. This mind-virus started to infiltrate via Fox News, Facebook algorithms, and the unholy meld of Christian Apocalyptic fanaticism with a reactionary political agenda. More recently the virus grew stronger when Musk bought Twitter, and now, with an ally of Trump buying the Dominion voting machine company, with Larry Ellison taking control of TikTok and CBS, and with the U.S, seeking to build a total surveillance society where dissent is criminalized via executive order NSPM-7, we are sliding down the Orwellian funnel into what could become a totally mind-controlled dystopia. Yet, for that sector of the population who are already brainwashed into “traditional” Christian values, this recolonization of the U.S. seems like a victory to savor.