Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘Upload’ might be a comedy, but it has its fair share of shady billionaires doing whatever it takes to serve their interests. Since the first season, the show has pressed upon the impact of capitalism and how it worms its way into everything, even the afterlife, where people are supposed to rest in peace. Nathan Brown and his friends discovered that something was not right about David Choak, the billionaire who is also a resident of Lakeview. Things looked especially shady when Choak’s company promised Freeyond to the people. But in the sixth episode of ‘Upload’ Season 3, it turns out that there is much more to their nefarious plans. SPOILERS AHEAD
HR 32255 Law is Intended to Make Billionaires like Choak Richer
At the beginning of the third season, Nathan and Nora discover that the idea to bring Freeyond to the masses was not exactly the philanthropy that Choak and his fellow billionaires were making it out to be. Their plan was to kill hundreds of thousands of people who would have voted against their political party in the next elections. With the majority of supporters of their rivals gone, Choak’s people would have assured victory in the next elections. It made sense that people like Choak would go to such lengths to assure their political interests, but the true nature of those interests comes to light much later.
In the fourth episode, Ivan stole the hard drive with David Choak on it. Instead of destroying it, he sends it to Nathan, hoping that he will find some use for it, considering that they’d worked together to stop the Freeyond program. This turns out to be the golden ticket that Nathan and Nora had been waiting for. They scour through Choak’s memories to find out anything that could give them incriminating evidence against the old man and other billionaires.
They hit the jackpot when they discover a memory in which Choak is in a meeting with the board. This was before Choak died, which means that his evil plan had been in the works for quite a while. In the memory, Choak and the board plan to get the law HR 32255 approved by any means possible. This confirms their involvement in the elections. They killed all those people and were ready to kill millions more so that their political party came into power, allowing them to pass whatever law they wanted. HR 32255 is one such law.
A quick search on the Internet reveals that the law would allow uploads to work. For now, uploads (who are dead) are not allowed to have jobs, not in the real world, at least. The backup-Nathan believes that the law could be good because it would allow dead people to pay for themselves rather than rely on alive people to pay for their upkeep in the afterlife. But of course, Choak and his people are not thinking along the lines of making things better for anyone. In fact, what they want would worsen things for everyone.
By giving uploads the right to work, Choak wants to get labor that doesn’t cost him as much as alive people do. When the law passes, he would rent uploads from companies like Horizen, and make them work at his companies. Meanwhile, the real people who have been working for him will be fired because most of their jobs can be handled by dead people. What makes it a sweeter deal for people like Choak is that they would get rid of things like the labor union and other organizations that keep the interests of the working class in mind. Employing uploads would also be a much cheaper option, saving his company around half a billion in the first year itself.
It’s clear that HR 32255 is meant to serve the rich and has nothing to do with getting uploads more rights or a better chance at the afterlife. People like Choak view the working class as a liability because they cost money, even if they are being minuscule sums for their work. Choak doesn’t consider them worth the money and wants to exploit dead people in places like Lakeview, which would save him a lot of money and other stuff that he has to deal with because his employees are alive.
