Disproportionate punishments in White Christmas/ White Bear, spoilers

Maybe I'm missing the point of your thread, but I'm assuming it's just general criticism of the episodes so I'd like to explain my interpretation:

1. I don't know if you watched all the episodes, but this show is largely dystopian and extreme. It's about how dark humanity can get when we have great technological power. In the future society depicted in this episode, can we really say it's illogical for harsh punishments to exist? We live in 2016. Regardless, I don't think that was the point. I think the point was merely to show an extreme and unfair punishment for both main characters, not a realistic one.

2. Yes, he should've been able to see his child. But it wasn't actually his kid. It was hers. Yes, he should've been charged with manslaughter. Maybe he was. He confessed through his cookie form and his real form is being punished, along with his cookie ego, who technically is also him, but not real at the same time. That's why this future society abuses the cookie technology. It's easy for these people to justify clones as "just technology", even though they're experiencing extreme suffering.

3. We don't really know the facts of what happened with the girl. Very little information was provided about it aside from when she's on stage, and I get the feeling we were meant to question if all the facts were true or not. It's like looking at a case after it's already been solved, and not really knowing anything about it. The goal was to use her as public entertainment, which probably generates some form of profit for the community or the community leaders, with paid participants. You may be overthinking this one a bit too much.

The disproportionate punishment was part of the narrative of the stories and the series itself, I don't indetstsnd how that was so difficult to understand. True, this was showing the horrors of technology, but beyond that it was showing the depravity of mankind through the lens (and abuse of) technology.

Specifically with White Christmas, it begs the question of whether or not clones or AI (in a manner of speaking) can be categorized as being truly real, since in it of itself, it is labeled as artificial. But it's very clear that these cookies are feeling and thinking and in a way that makes them real. Hamm's character even notes, "you're empathetic?you care about people." A sterile definition of a clone (cookie) as this particular story tries to set up initially as well, would have no feelings and would approach situations from a very clinical viewpoint, regardless of whether or not they were pulled from the consciousness of an "actual" human being. Hamm's character on the other hand, doesn't view these cookies as being real or even extensions of a real self. To him they are merely code, and he's rather dispassionate about believing otherwise, so in a lot of ways, his excessive punishment is justified by his cruelty towards these cookies.

In a similar regard White Bear is a commentary, I felt, on our punishment system. How there is this collective belief that there is to be equal or greater punishment levied against a wrongdoer, and that said punishment is justified, especially for heinous crimes like murder and abduction of a child. In this case, technology is made available in order to levy a punishment greater than death. A lot of people feel as though a death sentence is not a sentence but rather a way out, that no real lesson has been gained or learned, and that it's not a true deterrent. As much is mentioned in the story itself?thus the prison/death sentence alternative.

This women gets to relive horror and trauma for what I imagine will be the rest of her life?as punishment for the wrong she committed. Aiding and abetting in taking a child's life. It's a sentence not too unlike the death penalty, and I would say in a lot of ways (given our technology and societal standards) they are equal, given the times they are in.

I don't agree with these things, and it made me extremely uncomfortable, but that was the point. This series as a whole made me check my humanity?as I think ultimately, that is what Black Mirror is about. Checking and examining one's humanity (or lack there of).

Black Mirror is all about pushing things to their limits and showing us a world and society that has reached its ugly conclusion. It's not exactly saying 'THIS WILL HAPPEN'. Just that these are potential futures for society if we don't wise up, check where we are going or hold onto our humanity. They are warnings using extreme examples to highlight a point and make you stop and think.
The sad fact is that many people and people as a whole really do suck a large majoirty of the time. Group mentality is rarely a good thing and in this day and age the group is a huge unstoppable blob due to the news, internet and social media.

This show should be renamed, "Horrible things happening to people in a Dystopian Society". I liked both "White episodes" but found many flaws with both.

White Bear was almost laughably stupid at times. I was like, look at these holier than though types passing judgement like they are without sin? They were getting off on that woman's suffering, period. How any society could view that as a reasonable punishment is beyond me. That is complex torture pure and simple. How could they keep that "show" going anyway? Wouldn't people, even if they were sick enough to watch this in the first place, get tired of the same thing every day? Even if they changed the story it would get old fast. I imagine they use other "Actors", but then what happens to the others?

White Christmas was all about torturing clones. I mean that's all they were doing. How Hamm could justify using those "cookies" like that is totally beyond me. Are you telling me a "clones" confession can stand up in court? How does that work? I don't care if he is identical to the guy, it's still not him. They don't share a conscious. That is why the idea that cloning equals immortality is flawed. If you clone yourself, it's just another person exactly like you. You are not looking through that person's eyes. My wife and I like watching Star Trek on occasion and we always note that every time they energize from place to place they are simply cloning themselves over and over, effectively killing themselves repeatedly. I won't even get into the cloning of the girl to be used as her personal slave. That was just sick. Could you imagine having to be stuck in a room of nothing for 6 months at a time? What about the poor clone at the end that had to like 1000 years a minute all Christmas? This stuff is nightmare fuel.

I think Black Mirror shows what society in general think it's 'appropriate punishment'. We see it all the time in real life. People wish awful and inhuman punishments for anything that upset them. People wish that rapists to get raped, murders to be murdered and things like that, even when there is not enough evidence or they don't know the details of the case. It's just a reflection of what's on people's minds. While I agree with your points, I think you're looking at the tree instead of the forest.

"White Bear," "White Christmas," and "Be Right Back" are my favorite episodes of the original(ish) run. I think the other replies have covered the majority of my thoughts. The episodes (and show in general) are cautionary satire and not intended to be taken too literally.

It seems Jon Hamm's character is guilty of the ethically-questionable dating service, as well as being involved in the client's death and attempting to cover it up (likely linked from the wearable camera to the destroyed evidence). We have no clue what the exact legal code of the society is, but the justification for his permanent block is his status as a sex offender, as his other crimes have been pardoned in exchange for his cooperation in soliciting a confession from Joe. I haven't taken much time to think it through, but the idea of social isolation and humiliation as consequence is an interesting concept. It makes sense in relation to technology, with the Z-Eye giving each individual the ability to block any other individual without limitation (e.g. his wife for being upset with his involvement in the murder), much in the sense that we are able to do today with social networking platforms that ultimately leave us feeling helplessly cut off from friends and acquaintances. As a means of punishment or social control, it's both cruel in certain ways due to visibility, but also allows for more physical liberty while still being an effective deterrent.

As far as Joe himself, again, I don't think the normal ideas of fairness apply in this world. Because everyone seems to have control over blocking abilities, his wife is able to cut off any contact with her or her future child. (There could be recourse, but the show doesn't go that far in depth due to oversight or other reasons.) He will be charged with the deaths of the man and the little girl and presumably sent to an actual jail, but I don't know if psychological torture is an appropriate descriptor for the fate of his cookie. Even if it is a replica of consciousness—which one of the replies above misses, as in the Black Mirror world, the cookie IS meant to be taken as a cognitive entity that thinks identically to its human's brain—meaning it can experience empathy and emotion, it doesn't maintain any connection to the original Joe. Is it cruel to the cookie? Yes. Again, something I haven't fully thought out. My best conjecture would be a condemnation of his dishonesty, paying the traditional cost of being found out in jail and the psychological toll of living with the guilt for eternity.

I thought "White Bear" made a lot of sense in the context of a voyeuristic, sensationalism-obsessed media culture. The laws of the UK have no bearing on the laws in Black Mirror and I don't believe the intention was to make the woman feel like the victimized girl more than in essence—simply to subject her to continuous, repeated terrorization and humiliation, hence the daily drugging to wipe her memory and restaging of the scene. Because she forgets the crime and events of preceding days, she can be convinced that the murdered girl in the picture is likely her daughter and convinced to follow through with the events again and again. She wasn't the one to murder the girl, but it's almost more reprehensible to stand by and do nothing about it. Likewise, the spectators of the daily, amusement park-like ritual represent an indictment of those who hover around the television to catch the latest updates on cases like Jodi Arias or Amanda Knox (and apparently don't get tired of the same thing every day). It's symbolic, not realistic. The punishment is overplayed intentionally, both to make a point about the criminals and the spectators.

You forgot to mention that one would have to be a total sadist in order to be even capable of perpetrating a punishment like the kind in White Bear. 

Oh that's all right then. I guess they shouldve let Myra Hindley go free....