Obviously, this show is a little out of step with its misanthropy. It's a little out of step with where we're at culturally where it's a time of great optimism and we're all just knocked out daily by the warm bath of humanity that we find ourselves in these days. [Pauses, and then reveals he was being sarcastic.] No, it's a fucking disaster. It's a fucking total disaster. And every time I turn on the news I'm provided with fodder for our discontent. I think our timing might have been exactly right on.
Listen, I'm surrounded by the wonders of the creations of human beings. I have children and [series co-creator] Lisa Joy and I are reminded daily of how much beauty there is in humanity. But yeah, you turn on the fucking news and it's a shit show. And I've been reading a lot of history this season, a little bit connected to the show, but also just following the train of things I'm interested in, and it's depressing to realize how familiar some of these problems are, right? It's like we just can't figure these fucking things out. We come back to them again and again. It's as if there's a flaw—and this is very much the premise in our second season—there's a flaw in our code and it follows us around. Wherever we go, there we are. And we just can't get out of our own fucking way. All the beauty and incredible things we brought, and we just consistently find a way to fuck it up.
Much of the dramatic storytelling across the ages has concerned itself with "how will we overcome?" and personal growth and change. At a certain point you gotta fucking call it. We're not going to fix this shit, we're not going to figure it out. But there's an opportunity for the things that replace us to do so. And that's the dream of every parent, right? That their child doesn't face the same things they do, that they make better choices? But there does seem to be a pattern of behavior that follows us, that history echoes from the past, the same mistakes, the same foibles. So you say: At what point does this fix itself? Or are we just stuck this way?" ~ Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of Westworld on HBO, speaking to Entertainment Weekly
Maybe this just mirrors my general mood these days, but it sounds right on.