Macrodata Refinement
379 comments
·February 1, 2025CharlesW
charles_f
Yes Charles W.
Would you be inclined to use a nickname?
petersellers
I had to check your account to see whether it was made just for this comment. Well done!
tones411
This is the winning comment
gpt5
For those who haven't seen the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q99KYhD9BpQ
P.S. The numbers are scary.
svachalek
The work is mysterious and important.
maiar
At first, “scary numbers” seems ridiculous. Then you realize we live in a world where otherwise meaningless numbers (also known as “money”) are, because of their emotional effects on others, scaling up to the whole society, legitimately fear-inducing.
deaddodo
I think it's funny that 90% of the arguments I hear people having day-to-day, especially in the political realm but also in general, are literally just semantic arguments. Things like "yeah, I'm fine with someone being trans, I just don't think they should call themselves <insert-gender>" or, inversely, "calling someone <insert-gender> when they want to be <insert-other-option> is highly offensive". Like, yeah I guess so, if specific words just have that much power over your life...personally, I just care about what the intention/meaning behind someone's entire point is. Like when my mother used to call my Sega a Nintendo, I knew what she meant...no reason to focus on the semantics.
To tie back to your point. People give so much power to words, and numbers are a bit more abstract but the same can be said of those as well. I care very little that someone else has 250bln USD, however I care very much if they are using that (or have the power) to inordinately effect/shape society.
telesilla
Have you ever had to put in a 6-digit code from an Authentication app, you have 10 seconds left before it renews and you know if you type fast enough without any entry mistakes and no number discalculia you'll make it in time and if you don't well it's fine you'll get another number but you know you can make it if you just focus and in those few seconds getting those 6 numbers right is the goal and you feel anxious that you might not make it..
I think that's what MDR feels like.
Popeyes
If you wanna focus on the happy numbers for a while...
bobsmooth
Not just scary, they cover the complete gamut of human emotions, including frolic.
0x1ceb00da
I want my finger traps goddamn it. I met the quota.
pizza
That’s the limiting state behavior of the global optimum GRPO trained language model, if you squint at it and look at it just right, funnily enough..
Cadwhisker
I swear as I played it, I actually felt something.
tedd4u
That's 10 points, you have 90 points remaining.
teej
This is a recreation of a fictional computer program from the excellent Apple TV show - Severance.
The work is mysterious, and important.
Season 2 is going now. It’s one of my top 3 shows of the last decade, highly recommend it.
pavlov
“The Americans” doesn’t get enough love as one of the top shows of the past decade.
The darkness sneaks up on you. The people who start out seeming like James Bond characters end up carrying the full intolerable weight of their lies and destructive actions. People who looked like side characters are followed up with entire life stories in the shadows.
aaronbrethorst
The Americans also has the advantage of being done. It's six seasons long and, imho, manages to the stick the landing.
simonw
One of the best endings of any show I can remember. It answered the biggest question of the show (concerning Stan) so well, and the ending was both surprising and fully earned. Masterful television.
NoMoreNicksLeft
>and, imho, manages to the stick the landing.
That last part is the miracle. So many shows start out strong, and are just dogshit for the finale. Does anyone really believe that Severance will manage this trick? Would love to be surprised and mistaken, but they're just throwing crap at the wall to see what will stick, and that only lasts so long.
UncleOxidant
Yep. Recently I've been enjoying "Slow Horses" which is also a spy thriller, though it doesn't hit quite like "The Americans" did.
strix_varius
Same, it's not quite Americans caliber but it scratches a similar itch.
cududa
The Americans absolutely gets enough love as one of the top shows of the past decade. People say that all the time
zemo
critics say that, but its viewership is low compared to other dramas. Usually when I tell people that it's one of my favorite shows, their response is that they've never seen it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Americans_episodes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prison_Break_episodes#...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lost_episodes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episod...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)#Rat...
^ compare the viewership. The Americans was getting fewer than a million viewers in its final seasons, Lost regularly got over ten million. You can't easily chalk it up to just the fact that Lost was on network; The Last of Us was getting more than 10x the viewership of The Americans and it was on HBO. While The Americans is very critically acclaimed, it is not as widely watched as it really should be.
albedoa
Yeah what a bonkers comment. "The Beatles are never recognized for their cultural influence!"
sidibe
The Bureau is an even better spy show IMO though I loved both. Something about how low key and realer The Bureau feels makes it more intense. It felt like The Wire to me though completely different shows.
Dotnaught
The Bureau is excellent. One of the few shows where the hacking is relatively realistic (as opposed to magic to advance the plot). The Wire is an apt comparison.
nanomonkey
Le bureau des légendes was a great series from start to finish! I honestly enjoyed all of the characters, even when they seemed a bit manipulative or cold.
reaperman
The 2009 English-language series or the 2015 French-language series? Both share the same title.
konart
Too "Bondish" if not grotesque in my opinion. It started pretty well, but after some events in the show it feels caricaturistic.
teej
You’ve sold me, I’ll check it out.
spopejoy
Since Severance is a "comedy" -- I really liked Preacher and never see any love for it. Incredibly funny
inopinatus
I am enjoying the form and structure but still uncertain about the substance.
I do hope they have a narrative arc planned with a satisfyingly metaphorical conclusion and will not, like certain other shows in a similar genre, meander from one surrealist allegory to another because additional seasons were ordered. The only truly exemplary production I can name in this vein being the sole season of The Prisoner (McGoohan, 1967-68).
Be seeing you
veeti
"'Severance' creator has whole series mapped out: 'There's a plan for where it's all going'"
https://torontosun.com/entertainment/television/severance-cr...
We'll see how that goes.
ascorbic
That's what the Lost creators claimed though, and we all know how that went.
philsnow
> meander from one surrealist allegory to another because additional seasons were ordered
This is how I find many shows made in the last ~20 years, but changing out "from one surrealist allegory to another" for various other things. Heroes, Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, House of Cards, hell even Downton Abbey... I would add the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones but I couldn't get through a season of either. I never saw Lost but I think it's the same kind of thing. I'm going to catch flak for it but I thought the same about Stranger Things.
All of them had a good pilot and/or first season, but then the rest of the seasons.... definitely came afterwards.
nabla9
In Breaking Bad only the general idea, the main character turning from protagonist to antagonist was there from the beginning. They filled in the middle part as they went along.
js2
aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_box_show
I will never forgive Lost (which I originally watched in real time) and almost always wait for shows to conclude now before giving them my time.
Nonetheless, I'm enamored by Severance. The attention to detail by the show runners is amazing[1]. It's absolutely gorgeous to look at[2]. It's downright funny at times. I've re-watched the entire first season and there's so many details I missed the first time through. I will likely be satisfied even if it doesn't answer all its questions, but I have a feeling it will.
[1] BTW, the first eight chapters of The You You Are were released on Apple Books yesterday in both eBook and Audiobook form (read by the author).
[2] I watch in a home theater on a 120" 2.39:1 screen. I love that recent shows are being released in scope (see also Silo).
majormajor
Hah, I hate the theater-wide trend. Most people are watching on 16x9 screens and it's so annoying that TV directors refuse to take that into account and shoot taller to use the whole damn screen. It's seriously non-trivial to get a wider setup than that for normal living-room use. And there's not even a wave of TVs on the way like when people started moving to 16x9 from 4x3. It's just a bad side-effect of prestige and money moving to TV from motion pictures.
Especially when you consider that the real snob format for many is IMAX which is taller anyway.
ethbr1
Here's the thing I don't get about post-finale annoyance at Lost -- how does the lack of plot resolution impact all of your enjoyment previous to the finale?
You still enjoyed thinking of all the plot points after the second to last episode, no?
And after the end of the first season?
Those moments existed independent of how it ended.
Sure, people having an issue with the ending and plot threads is maybe a reason not to start watching it now (I'd say it's still worth it...), but behaving as though somehow the ending invalidated all the realtime enjoyment is weird.
TheDudeMan
With Lost, I knew they had no direction in mind, and that bothered me. But I also knew that whatever they were doing, they were doing a damned entertaining job of it.
whilenot-dev
> but still uncertain about the substance.
Honestly, I'm really enjoying that uncertainty and I couldn't image how entertaining it'd be. It certainly has a special place in this current "Zeitgeist" where video games are played by various generations and people calling each other "NPC"s as insult. There's this massive scale of contemporary enterprises, they all would like to retain that image of being young and full of empathy, while also standing above the law. Have you ever talked to some superior at a company and left with this empty feeling that made you recognize all of this unwillingness to change? Severence just hits that spot and frames it nicely into humor, yet still doesn't laugh about it. I question a bit the addition of the latest department in episode 3 and just hope they can stick the landing with such decisions.
> The only truly exemplary production I can name in this vein being the sole season of The Prisoner (McGoohan, 1967-68).
I definitely see Twin Peaks in the same realm.
UncleOxidant
I think people are hoping it doesn't end up like Lost where so many of the quirky details ended up completely unexplained in the end.
willis936
It cannot be another Lost. The Severance mystery box has an anti-plutocracy, humanist foundation. It would be really hard for them to not make it satisfying.
wk_end
(spoilers)
It was really good at building up a mystery over the course of the first season, but I've been a little disappointed in the second so far.
The pacing's become glacial; the first couple of episodes worked mostly to undercut the dramatic significance of the events of last season's finale.
And I feel like the way that the satire is slowly being replaced by self-serious "lore" is hurting the show; it was very funny and disturbing to see the way the innies are "raised" in a cult and view the CEO as a kind of Messiah (and observe the parallels to real-world corporate culture); Lumen really being an evil cult - as opposed to just an evil company - in "reality", feels less satirical and more ham-fisted.
The ending of the most recent episode suggests promising things to come at least.
aaarrm
I think season 2 will end up doing a lot tbh. It got great reviews from critics and they allowed critics to watch the full season before reviewing, which isn't as common. Usually it's only one or two episodes. It makes me feel like they had a big story that they wanted to be witnessed in its entirety for the critics.
_petronius
It did the thing I hate, which is a cliffhanger climax, and instead of picking up the thread where it left off and providing resolution/denouement, it just sort of ... resets?
The gold standard, IMO is something like the TNG episodes "The Best of Both Worlds" pt 1 and 2 -- an end-of-season cliffhanger that rewards you returning to the show by telling you what happens next!
I think the lacuna here is meant to add to the tension and mystery, but I agree that the new season has started off frustratingly slow. You gotta wrap up stuff to move forward with a plot, otherwise it's all just treading water for the sake of atmosphere.
ethbr1
> Lumen really being an evil cult - as opposed to just an evil company - in "reality", feels less satirical and more ham-fisted.
Agreed. The 'banality of evil' horror of the first season was the show's strongest point.
Sadly, I expect it will eventually suffer from the same thing that torpedoed Lost:
1. Fans are originally attracted by the mystery and unexplained.
2. Those same fans then clamour for explanations.
3. Then when the show explains things, it loses its mystery and/or people complain the explanations aren't good enough.
To me, the only winning plot move is not to play: drip just enough teasy but mysterious stuff that nothing is ever explained, but everyone stays on the edge of their seats.
Then it can be incredibly successful, and people can bitch about the finale 30 years from now.
mr_toad
> meander from one surrealist allegory to another because additional seasons were ordered
As a satire of office work, that would kind of track; a version of Parkinson’s Law.
ethbr1
"Patriot" (on Amazon Prime) https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4687882/
Criminally underrated. If you enjoy older Guy Ritchie films or In Bruges, do yourself a favor and watch it.
Also thematically similar, re: alienation and disassociation!
anotherhue
I must wave the flag for The Leftovers, whose third season holds an impossible 99% RT score: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the-leftovers/s03
I hated the first few episodes but I think it might now be the finest show I've ever seen (and I've seen all those mentioned here).
plasma_beam
Absolutely agree and surprised it’s not getting mentioned in this thread with all the complaints about Lost. Most people don’t realize Lindelof did learn a lesson with Lost and corrected it with The Leftovers. One of the most under appreciated and amazing shows ever.
Duanemclemore
Patriot is indeed criminally underrated. I knew about "pipe speak" [1] before the show [2]. But it turned my partner on to it, and so we speak a lot in it to this day for fun.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HML8PMPeFkg [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_encabulator
ethbr1
I may be able to make your weeks then.
https://m.soundcloud.com/leslie-claret/chapter-one
Nine episodes were made as part of the show: https://www.lgclaret.com/
null
panorama
One of the best things I've ever seen and I watch quite a lot of TV and film. I'm really only making this comment so that a passerby will see this abundant confluence of support for the show and decide to try it out on a whim. Just a fantastic absurdist, surrealist comedy that's also well-acted and well-written.
mstade
Oh, another Patriot fan! There must be dozens of us! :o)
Seriously though, couldn't agree more. Criminally underrated indeed!
ethbr1
gives you a half-smile that makes you feel seen, from your t-nut, to your SKN, to your chim line
... Cool.
dumbfounder
So very sad it did not continue. Another underrated gem: Wayne.
taberiand
I was very happy with how Patriot ended though - it's probably heavily influenced by where my head was at when I watched it but it left me deeply affected for days, and it's the only show to ever do that.
wellthisisgreat
Patriot is unlike anything else. Magical in a way it worked.
The same crew made another show and I couldn’t get past 2 episodes.
Patriot was really a celestial event in the world of TV
vFunct
My favorite show over the last decade. Also on Amazon is Zero Zero Zero. Intense.
gordon_freeman
Same for me. Severance is probably the best show of last decade. The last time I had such an engrossing experience was while reading 1984.
My other two are:
- Shogun (The depiction of 1600s Japan is so real)
- Resident Alien (Funny and heartwarming to see an Alien getting accustomed to life on Earth dealing with complex human relationships with their flaws)
PS: I am sad to exclude Parks and Recreation which ran from 2009-2015 so probably considered outside of last decade.
tazjin
Counterpart!
(That, by the way, is where Severance seemingly got the inspiration for "The Board")
fotta
Counterpart was so good and I was so sad to see it cancelled.
fl0ki
See also The Board in Control (2019).
udev4096
You'll find halt and catch fire equally engrossing. Give it a shot!
__rito__
Totally liked Halt and Catch Fire. One of the best I have seen.
rplnt
> Resident Alien
Interesting. I thought the premise had potential, but found the writing unbearable. There were major plot holes in the universe they created withing the first 10 minutes. It just didn't make sense. The dialogues and acting was bad on top of that. Didn't even finish the first episode. That being said, the series has OK ratings and was renewed several times, so it might be me not giving it a fair chance.
gordon_freeman
You should give it a try and watch the S1 entirely. Based on your comment, it seems like you are watching it with a different lense. It is not a drama or thriller where you'd look for holes. It is about perspective of someone who is new to this world trying to blend in.
tsycho
I found Shogun the show to be relatively disappointing, after having read the book before. The book has a lot of nuanced explanations of people's motivations and philosophical/intelligent dialogue that the show just skips over, since they wanted to cover a huge tome in just one season.
This series deserved to be 2X longer to cover those imho.
spaceman_2020
Apple TV is silently killing it
Both my two favorite shows of the last few years are on it - Severance and Silo
brujoand
My current theory is that the severed workers are actually monitoring silos.
phren0logy
You forgot Slow Horses!
wellthisisgreat
Started ok to good. Latest season is near masterpiece especially in terms of dialogue
bobsmooth
Ted Lasso, Silo, Apple knows how to make television.
nikisweeting
Now they just have to revive Maniac from Netflix!
MrDrMcCoy
Revive it? It was a complete story and ended where it wanted, as far as I can tell. I loved it, but can't imagine how it would continue in a meaningful way.
trevorhinesley
Seconded
UncleOxidant
Agreed. I think "The Americans" is still at the top of my list for the last decade then it's a tossup between "The Leftovers", "Severance" and "Mr. Robot".
Edit: I forgot "Andor". Easily the best Star Wars thing since the original 3. I like how it shows the hubris and infighting of The Empire and how that leaves openings for the resistance. Feels like a very real look into the workings of an authoritarian regime.
georgeecollins
Americans is great-- a little uneven because there is a lot more of it then say, Patriot, but also a typically underrated show. Superb cast (they were actually married) and a great take on the material. They could have made them goodie two shoes who subverted their mission; they could have made them sinister spies. Instead they made them people.
jiggawatts
"Or perhaps you find my politics a bit strong for your taste?" was some of the best television I had ever seen in my life, easily up there with the best lines from Breaking Bad or Anthony Hopkins' monologues in West World. The build-up to that moment was masterfully done. I got goosebumps at that crescendo.
beardedmoose
Mr. Robot had one of the craziest endings I have ever seen in a show. I'll admit I had a tough time watching it around S2 because so much was unexplained, and I felt like I was going insane.
So glad I stuck it out though, I still think about it.
UncleOxidant
Yeah, it takes a while to figure out that the narrator is unreliable... oh, don't want to spoiler it.
I hope Sam Esmail is working on something else for us.
steve_adams_86
I’m routinely pulled out of it for a moment to appreciate how genuinely interesting and thought-provoking the writing is compared to what I’ve been seeing for years now.
Maybe I watch the wrong stuff, but I’m glad I gave this a chance. It’s so fun.
philip1209
I'd add in The Bridge - original Swedish version with subtitles - is another of my favorite shows. The Nordic Noir genre has mix of intellectualism and misanthropy that I love in shows (including Severance).
__rito__
I liked first two seasons, but couldn’t continueq watching the third one.q
pavlov
Working at a startup before product-market fit can feel like this.
You don’t know why the work is important, but it must be done so we can at least discover whether it was important. You may not get that information, but you can take comfort in assuming someone does have it.
You’re mostly disconnected from your previous life.
There is a guy in the next office feeding baby goats, and your reaction is: “Yes, it makes sense that we’re also exploring feeding baby goats.”
People come in as blank slates and you’re grateful to have their companionship in the shared madness.
UncleOxidant
I find this more likely in a large corporation. In my experience, in a startup I know what we're trying to accomplish even if I don't know how we're going to do it, yet. I have a lot of control in a startup and I'm wearing a lot of hats which gives me visibility into how things are going.
By contrast, in a corporation you're handed a small piece of the puzzle and you're not sure how it's important or if it's really necessary and you're reliant on others in far flung parts of the company to relay how things are going.
I kind of think that people who haven't worked in a large corporation probably don't get Severance on a visceral level like those of us who have do.
Apocryphon
Startups can be as siloed and prone to messianic cults of personality as large corporations do. It would be themed differently from Severance, sure, but there are other shows that tackle that.
UncleOxidant
> Startups can be as siloed and prone to messianic cults of personality as large corporations do
Oh, probably more prone to messianic cults of personality than large corps. But as you say there are other shows that tackle that angle. I don't think it's a secret that many tech startup founders have sociopathic tendencies and delusions of grandeur. I've certainly seen that close up even in tiny early-stage startups that never ended up going anywhere.
goaaron
This completely misses the disturbing horror aspect of the show.
pavlov
Severe enough burnout at a startup (or crunch-mode game studio, or similar) can give you a reasonable simulacrum of that.
Come in, go home, come back. Did something actually happen that wasn’t work? Unclear.
trhway
to me it isn't about burnout, etc. To me the show is a metaphor for "nothing personal just business" - for how people may turn off that human personality inside them and do whatever is "just doing my job/following the order".
manapause
That’s funny because I thought they captured it perfectly. Cults can be blissful places; the experience and friends I’ve made amidst the madness I’ve experienced in startups made me stronger in the end.
ethbr1
Yeah, to me the show was much more about how every modern real company secretly wished they could sever their employees, and how much they'd abuse that power dynamic if they actually had it.
Work without workers? Perfect!
inopinatus
ah yes the pineapple
simonw
Huh, this was mostly written 3 years ago at the time of season 1: https://github.com/Lumon-Industries/Macrodata-Refinement/com...
Looks like it's not an official thing, it's a fan project: https://twitter.com/shiffman/status/1512075150857965574 - here's the YouTube video (2h52m from a livestream) where Daniel Shiffman introduces it, at about 34m in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vmcm25cSTU - then talks through how it works.
int_19h
It straight up says that on the website: https://lumon.industries/company/legal/
"This website is not affiliated with Apple, Endeavor Content, Red Hour Films, or anything else remotely official. It’s made by a dude in Kentucky."
notwhereyouare
isn't that a different site? that's lumon.industries, this is lumon-industries.com
mattdesl
This is by Daniel Shiffman aka The Coding Train, source code:
dom96
Guess this should get a "(2022)" in the title
shiffman
I’m hoping to make updates based on this season (not caught up to episode 3 just yet). Also there’s an Easter egg at /main-level
latexr
That immediately explains why it was done in p5.js. And why the code is so organised and commented.
timpark
Here's a Pico-8 version that Liquidream did in 1024 (compressed) bytes of code for a game jam: https://liquidream.itch.io/lumon8-1k
Liquidream
Thx @timpark
utopcell
Pretty cool
ninkendo
Are there any fan theories of what the work is they’re doing?
My bet is on lumen “renting” part of their subconscious to train a computer, while their conscious minds see a sort of projection of the training, and the act of selecting the numbers has a mirror effect on the part of the brain they’re renting, affecting the model training. But that may be a little too “current events” focused, and the writers may have something totally different in mind.
abetusk
My theory is kind of the inverse. Their technology has the ability to "take over" the mind and implant a new personality but maybe at the current level it's unsophisticated and all they can do is make a "clean slate" of a person with some basic motor, language and other socialization skills.
"The work" is then not about training a computer model but seeing if they can induce a reaction into a person. That is, they're trying to refine their mind control program.
The characters talk about feeling things when they group numbers for binning. So the task is about refining their projection system, to induce a particular emotion or reaction, in a controlled way, over and over to dial in the technology.
From season 1, there's lore of MDR going crazy and killing a neighboring group. This could be when their experimentation malfunctioned or was too sloppy in some way and induced a killing frenzy.
I have no idea what "cold harbor" is though, or why Mark S. is so special among the other innies.
filoleg
Agreed with your theory overall, but wasn’t that lore of “MDR going crazy and killing a neighboring group” revealed in s1 to be fabricated entirely, with each group having their own version of that lore against other groups? E.g., the optics and design group had the exact opposite version of the lore as MDR, down to paintings depicting the events being the exact same, but with swapped badge colors that indicated the aggressor.
abetusk
Just a theory on my part, and I'm trying to build evidence from clues in the series, so you might be right.
We know that there's a lot of unreliable information because Lumon is actively trying to deceive everyone but my take on that was that there was a significant event that actually did happen, some group going crazy, that Lumon needed to rationalize with some narrative in order to address it.
Just to list some events after re-watching some of season 1:
* s1e3 Dylan talks about O&D staging a coup but Mark assures everyone that there was no killing
* s1e5 Irving intercepts a print job that was sent to their print station "by mistake". The picture shows people with green badges (O&D) attacking people with blue badges (MDR). Immediately revealed to be a subterfuge attempt ("you ran a 266 on Irving B." Cobel to Miltchek)
* s1e5 Dylan finds a painting in O&D depicting the same picture that Irving saw on the printer but with the attackers as blue badges and the victims as green badges ("The Macro Data Refinement Calamity")
So this very well may be subterfuge by Lumon to keep the groups separate.
I read it differently initially, that the printed copy was altered from the original painting and that the original painting was the "true" version, but I think your take is probably more consistent. If Lumon can erase memory then there's no need to keep institutional knowledge about past events that no one remembers.
Some other tidbits of information:
* s1e2 and s1e5 Irving hallucinates black goo while in front of his terminal. I believe as soon as he stands up or backs away from his terminal, the effect goes away.
* s1e3 Natalie is shown on tv talking about a "workie" getting pregnant while severed
* s1e5 Devon goes to a house to give birth and meets someone who's severed. I think the house or property is owned by Lumon (but I'm not sure?)
So, I suspect Mark S.'s sister, Devon, might be the severed employee who got pregnant while severed, though I'm not sure how this fits into the larger narrative if true.
Also, I might be reading too much into it but there's clues sprinkled around about immortality and "Kier speaking through people" that might be support the theory of them trying to resurrect Kier. There's a scene where Cobel gets Petey's chip with a line that says "that's Petey".
So far the series has delivered and I trust the writers, so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
frenchtoast8
My theory is that all the severed employees are doing various maintenance tasks to keep the floor functioning. Like the hospital in Yes, Minister that is closed to the public but has 500 employees, all of them overworked.[1]
Take O&D for instance, their full time job appears to be to just create art and handbooks used on the severed floor. Perhaps all the departments are like that. MDR could be doing some sort of ongoing maintenance for the severed system itself, like emotion or memory control of the employees on the floor.
I believe the "point" of the severed floor is not the actual work that's being done, but the act of keeping them occupied while they are experimented on. Besides Mark S and Cold Harbor, I believe there are hints of other experiments being run. The dreams Irving B has during work seem unique to him, and it's uniquely affecting his outie as well. I also believe recent events in Season 2 with Dylan G could be the start of another experiment.
pests
I thought the wife was oddly emotional during that scene with Dylan G. While I agree it would be odd to see your SO's innie, the way she was in awe and full of emotion just seemed very intense. Like seeing a long lost lover or those first date jitters. Probably overthinking things but I thought it was odd.
junon
My take was that she's dissatisfied with her marriage with her outie husband who seems detached and a bit wayward, whereas the innie has purpose and drive and finds her awe inspiring.
I'm almost certain it's going to turn into a love affair with deep questions - is she cheating? Well, on paper, no, but it's obviously more nuanced than that.
dustincoates
I think it was because she was finally meeting the version of her husband that could hold down a job and was good at what he did.
pohl
My spouse not even recognizing me might have some emotional impact. Didn’t seem the least bit odd.
atennapel
My guess is that they're setting up the wife being more in to the innie than the outie.
alimbada
To me, she seemed taken aback by his foul-mouthedness. Maybe his outie is more "reserved".
NeutralCrane
My hunch is that Lumon is working on trying to transfer minds into new bodies and/or bring deceased people back to life, namely for the immortality of the founder. I think the MDR numbers stuff is somehow related to getting severed individuals to map memories somehow, hence their association with different feelings.
GeekyBear
My thought was that their ultimate goal is to recreate the mind of their founder and place it into a cloned body.
junon
This is also my running theory. Cult-like structure focused on elongating legacies via body replacements and consciousness transfer - MDR being a testbed or something for emotional stability and processing or something of the sort.
jccalhoun
I think clones or androids seem likely.
jldugger
It's been suggested that Mark S is adjusting the neural nets for a robot replacement of his wife. This supported by a few MDR UI screenshots showing acronyms that reference Kier's 4 fundamental tempers: Woe, Frolick, Malice and Dread.
thegabriele
My opinion is that the work they are performing it's not the point of them being there. It's about testing the limits of the exploitations of human beings.
wmf
We know the Cold Harbor file is related to Gemma/Ms. Casey. There's a theory that Mark is somehow resurrecting her by refining that file.
neximo64
Mark Scout's wife is in a coma, they want to bring her back and reconstruct her soul using MDR.
kylehotchkiss
This seems like the most interesting way to go - “last time I saw her she was alive” really was a choice of words.
The whole concept of the show is artificial amnesia, so what if the concept is induced amnesia to solve for it?
NoMoreNicksLeft
Best I can figure is that it's some form of cryptography. The "severed" thing would be to compartmentalize even more what the underlying work is, the outties are clueless, but even the innies don't get to know what they do because the work is encrypted. They're able to perform it because another part of their brain is severed even more, and just performs the raw algorithm work of decrypting/sorting.
But the rest of Lumen just seems like some bizarro "there's a spaceship hiding in the tail of the comet" cult.
jiggawatts
I had to explain to the missus — who’s never worked in a large enterprise — that the environs of Lumon and the apparently pointless and meaningless work is entirely realistic. She didn’t believe me.
She never had to “massage the numbers” to make them less scary to someone in management.
Duanemclemore
Huh.
I noticed that
https://lumon.industries/intranet/wellness/
Is a sub of just
https://lumon.industries/intranet/
There's some fun stuff to be found there too...
IncreasePosts
If every HNer does their part, cold harbor can be a reality.
louthy
The work is mysterious and important
intrepion
In refining A39672:14BF61 (Dranesville) in 00h 05m 34s 215ms I have brought glory to the company. Praise Kier. 4⃣7⃣8⃣0⃣1⃣ 3⃣7⃣4⃣1⃣1⃣ 4⃣3⃣3⃣1⃣2⃣ 9⃣6⃣7⃣5⃣2⃣ 1⃣7⃣9⃣4⃣1⃣ #mdrlumon #severance lumon-industries.com
hongsy
In refining 0x3890 : 0xE193C5 (Labrador) in 00h 06m 29s 468ms I have brought glory to the company. Praise Kier. 7⃣3⃣9⃣9⃣6⃣ 4⃣4⃣8⃣1⃣5⃣ 4⃣3⃣5⃣4⃣4⃣ 0⃣4⃣7⃣4⃣3⃣ 5⃣8⃣1⃣5⃣0⃣ #mdrlumon #severance lumon-industries.com
Keirmot
The board will not participate in the meeting, vocally.
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