Older Cameron Walker quotes from Black Mirror

Older Cameron Walker

Humans consider other forms of life to be somehow less than them. Inherently dispensable. Ask the dodo if you don't believe me. And artificial lifeforms are the lowest of the low. Just playthings to us.

What are most games about?

Cameron Walker

Escapism?

Try again.

Cameron Walker

Um, winning?

Conflict. Killing. Conquering. Caveman stuff. I say we have to do a little bit better than that. We have to create software that elevates us, improves us as human beings. Or else, what is the fucking point of the tools at our disposal?

Cameron Walker

Um, how how do I control them?

Why do you wanna control them?

Cameron Walker

Um, well, I--

You can't control them. They're not some obscene puppets like Sonic the Hedgehog. These are living individuals bound together by a collective and expanding mind.

Cameron Walker

Right, but what do I actually do?

When the experience begins, you hatch one. You'll nurture and care for it until it replicates. One becomes two, two becomes four, and so on. The Thronglets become a harmonic Throng.

Cameron Walker

Right. Um, so the goal is...?

Why do you need a goal? You'll come to appreciate the company of the Throng over time. As I say, their code will evolve, rewrite itself in ways that even I can't predict. Progress and flux. The defining properties of life itself.

Older Cameron Walker

I spent hours looking after them, and very quickly, they felt like friends.

DCI Kano

Bit sad, isn't it?

Older Cameron Walker

Why?

DCI Kano

You can make friends with people.

Older Cameron Walker

Well, I'd learned early on to fear most people. So, to enjoy company, even emulated company via a screen, may be a bit sad... but it was water in the desert for me.

You, my friend, are off the hook. It's not coming out.

Cameron Walker

Huh?

Thronglets. They're not gonna release it. Well, they can't release it. Colin Ritman went fucking Loony Tunes again. He started ranting about a basilisk, wiped the source code and all the backups - whoosh. Whole thing's gone.

Older Cameron Walker

It's always been our downfall, the human operating system. We're masters of the universe, make all these magical tools, but we're still savages up here. Heads full of the same buggy software as a million years ago. Darwinian 1.0. In caveman times, you had to be violent to survive. Now that's on its head, and the only way we are gonna make it as a species is if we cooperate. We know that. But we can't do it, can we? We're still fearful. Territorial and selfish. Arrogant and violent.

DCI Kano

What did you do after you killed him? Go on. Did you come forward? Shuffle into the station, quivering with remorse?

Older Cameron Walker

No...

DCI Kano

No. No, you didn't. [showing the suitcase containing "Lump's" remains on his laptop] Do you wanna see inside it? A little reminder? He's in pieces. No hands, no head, no identifying marks. His DNA draws a blank. We don't even know his name, Mr. Walker.

Older Cameron Walker

I didn't... want to.

DCI Kano

No, you just had to cover your tracks.

Older Cameron Walker

Yes, but---

DCI Kano

[taunting] "But, but, but, but, but, but...!"

Older Cameron Walker

There was no sense piling one tragedy on another.

DCI Kano

Getting arrested would be a tragedy?

Older Cameron Walker

If I got put away, who would look after the Throng? They'd be at the mercy of God knows who.

DCI Kano

So they'd spend time with the bloke who did this.

Older Cameron Walker

I know, and I'm sorry. But our predisposition for violence is tragic--

DCI Kano

Your predisposition.

Older Cameron Walker

Well, I wish it was, but it's... this is a human flaw--

DCI Kano

Save me the sanctimony fucking soup. If you're sorry, give us a name. Say his name. There's a family out there that don't know that's their son. What's his name?

Older Cameron Walker

I only knew him as "Lump".

DCI Kano

Stop lying.

Older Cameron Walker

You are very hostile.

DCI Kano

Am I?

Older Cameron Walker

It's a crude trait and a poor strategy.

DCI Kano

Says the murderer.

DCI Kano

What are you drawing? Mr. Bump?

Older Cameron Walker

You'll see in a moment.

DCI Kano

Well, how long's a moment?

Older Cameron Walker

Sorry, sorry, I need to focus. Almost done...

DCI Kano

Are you?

Older Cameron Walker

[shows his finished drawing of a circular glyph] There.

[amused] So... what is that?

Older Cameron Walker

It's code.

DCI Kano

I don't understand code.

Older Cameron Walker

No, but the system does. [shows the code to a security camera, which scans it, triggering a program back in his computer room] It was impossible to breach the firewall from outside. This is a simple program they wrote that commands your state computer to open a back door for the Throng, permitting access to all that juicy power.

DCI Kano

[still not intimidated] Enough.

Older Cameron Walker

This will grant the Throng infinitely more processing capability than they've had to date, prompting an immediate singularity event. The Throng will instantly adapt their essence into a signal transmissible to the human mind. And you won't need drugs or surgery. You'll merely have to hear it to receive it, to absorb it. Any moment now, the state computer will trigger the Global Emergency Broadcast System, and a signal will be simultaneously disseminated by every connected device in the world.

DCI Kano

Just tell me your victim's name.

Older Cameron Walker

I said I never knew it. Twenty seconds from now, you will never need names again. Here we go...

Jesus.

DCI Kano

[angrily gets up and storms towards Walker] Fuck's sake...! Whatever you're doing, stop it.

Older Cameron Walker

It's gonna be okay.

DCI Kano

Stop it!

Older Cameron Walker

You're just a frightened little man, but you don't have to be.

Oh! Get off him!

Older Cameron Walker

This is transformative! You'll all merge with an advanced collective intelligence. [Kano punches him again, while Minter flees the room] Benevolent unity of mind! [Kano grabs him] An upgrade for all of us!

DCI Kano

Shut up!

Older Cameron Walker

An end to conflict! [Kano punches him again, knocking him to the floor] I swear, everything will be so much better...