The Good Place Season 3
- Thread starter JD
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Well, there are a few possibilities:
1) The 500 years do not directly correspond with years in Earth (given the Jeremy Beremy timeline), though that doesn't necessarily fit with the accountant referring to Doug Faucett as 68.
2) Michael was lying (as it was part of his role to pretend to be knowledgeable about the good place).
3) Michael was repeating a lie or rumor told to him by other demons.
4) The writers screwed up and now have to either ignore it or find a way to rationalize it.
I wonder if the show will explore the idea that even bad people shouldn't be in a bad place or at least one that involves torture by demons. How one treats criminals and the issue of whether or not a human can be rehabilitated, especially if they have forever to live is one worth asking. I could see the show ending with the gang staying in a new Bad Place that looks like the fake one Micheal made in order to not torture people in new ways like his plan but to help change people. Chidi teaching ethcs to bad people and making the afterlife a better place seems like a good end to his character.
Jason
Jason
Saw a theory I really liked. The people in the Good Place hacked the system. Why? We know that post life points don't exist, so it doesn't matter if a bad person becomes good. The same is true in reverse. The people in the Good Place have gone bad over the years, but they generate no negative points now. They decided they didn't want to let anyone else in, since all the newcomers would be goody two shoes. So they hacked the system to keep new people out.
That also gets back to the fundamental debate of prison as rehabilitation versus punishment. Like, maybe the rude assholes like Eleanor with poor upbringings and defense mechanisms need compassion and understanding and a chance to become a better person. But the murderers and rapists? Even if they honestly repent and become better people, shouldn't they face consequences? Shouldn't choices matter, not just the best possible choices we're capable of making? Should Harriet Tubman share a bunk with John Wayne Gacy because he's really sorry about all the murders?
They way I have always looked at the idea of truly bad people like Gacy living in the same space as good or even flawed people is that their actions on earth and whatever punishment they deserved is something that is only a issue with the living. Once you die the old rules kind of go away because you now have eternity in the mix. PLus the issues's of safety stop becoming a issue because a God is not going to allow abuse and crime happen in a afterlife. I have also assumed certain changes would also come by simply removing the organic component of humanity. Your not going to have mental illness for example if you don't have a human body that produces those conditions.
Jason
If you reduce moral behavior to only the consequence of chemical reactions in your brain, then you basically negate the very idea of morality and free will. You never made a choice, you either hurt people or helped people because your biology hard wired you to want to.
If there is indeed some sort of eternal payoff for the way you behave in the real world, then our moral decisions have to mean something. We have free will, and if there is an 'eternity', the way we exercise that free will matters in that eternity. People who make good decisions are good people and people who make bad decisions are bad people. Some bad choices like the ones Eleanor made are forgivable if you start making better decisions, others like murder and rape are not, even if you are rehabilitated. If you believe free will and morality even exist, there has to be a line drawn somewhere for who is allowed into paradise.
Otherwise Hitler is living it up on the beach somewhere sipping pina coladas.
If there is indeed some sort of eternal payoff for the way you behave in the real world, then our moral decisions have to mean something. We have free will, and if there is an 'eternity', the way we exercise that free will matters in that eternity. People who make good decisions are good people and people who make bad decisions are bad people. Some bad choices like the ones Eleanor made are forgivable if you start making better decisions, others like murder and rape are not, even if you are rehabilitated. If you believe free will and morality even exist, there has to be a line drawn somewhere for who is allowed into paradise.
Otherwise Hitler is living it up on the beach somewhere sipping pina coladas.
The question though is what is the value of punishment if you no longer live in a society were good and evil don't mean anything anymore other than being a philosphical question. What is the line between justice and revenge in a afterlife. It is true that in this show everyone we see, seems to arrive as the same person they were on earth so they aren't really playing up the super changed human aspect but we have also just seen humans who have had recent deaths. Who knows what some Roman citizen who has been dead for a very long time is like in the present. You got to assume they are more like Me on "Doctor Who." At some point you simply stop being the person you use to be just because of the passage of time.
Jason
Jason
The 500 years thing contradicts Mindy St Clair’s situation more than anything else. Nobody gets to the Good Place but drawing up plans to help people escapes torture?
For any of this to track you need to assume the 500 years is on the Jeremy Bearimy timeline.
Is there any amount of change that will redeem you for mass murder? Or spending your career raping and groping women just because you don’t expect consequences?
Morality is complex is every day cases, but when you talk about the extreme cases, it’s not. Some things are absolute evils.
For any of this to track you need to assume the 500 years is on the Jeremy Bearimy timeline.
Is there any amount of change that will redeem you for mass murder? Or spending your career raping and groping women just because you don’t expect consequences?
Morality is complex is every day cases, but when you talk about the extreme cases, it’s not. Some things are absolute evils.
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Well, it was clear in this episode that Michael didn't know anything about the people who went in the good place. So it was just flat lying.
I think the bigger contradiction than the Abraham Lincoln thing is Mindy St Clair.
Abraham Lincoln doesn't get in the Good Place, but Mindy St Clair gets a Medium Place for her sister's execution of her idea?
Abraham Lincoln doesn't get in the Good Place, but Mindy St Clair gets a Medium Place for her sister's execution of her idea?
Now that we got the whole good place revelation, I hope Mindy St. Clair gets a bigger role in either the remainder of this season or next season. If no one got into the Good Place in 500 years, what is the deal with Mindy.
Yesterday they did a five hour Youtube livestream of Janet in her void. It was just literally just five hours of of D'Arcy Carden standing in the white void set, and occasionally disappearing and then reappearing a few minutes later.
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