why have slop in reality when you can have steak in the matrix… whatever the Simpsons said.
exploring the matrix would be cool
exploring the matrix would be cool
I hear it was based on the earth.
you know you can’t resist those eyes
The Matrix would have been better if there had been a stronger incentive to leaving the Matrix. It’s still a great film though.
Unlike its cheap imitations that miss the mark entirely (cough cough Persona 5 Royal)
Star Trek had several episodes which touched on the idea, even if you build a perfect fake utopia, it’s still fake. And reality is ultimately better than a false life (for most people).
Red Dwarf did it better though.
I think human beings have evolved to see a fake reality, because true reality is too complex for our minds to process and simplifying it saves on resources.
I think the desire for reality is a trap that will make you vulnerable to all sorts of cognitive biases. I think the rich have learned to use the desire for reality against us. I think the only way to be free is to choose to create our own unreality. I think through mental techniques to reshape our beliefs, we can achieve the power to break out of the capitalist mind prison.
Persona 5 has it’s issues, but it never once occurred to me that it had any similarities to The Matrix.
I mean, I guess thinking about it now I can see some parallels, but to call it a “cheap imitation” seems a little absurd. They’re two entirely different stories
It’s mostly the third semester plotline which imo is poorly written because, unlike the matrix, the villain has the power to actually rewrite reality. And yet, when the protagonists turn him good, he doesn’t start using his powers for good, fixing injustice, giving everyone (not just the protagonists) the power to shape their own fate… no, he just stops using those powers. The altered world is presented as a ‘false reality’, like in matrix, even though it’s clearly stated that it would eventually become real. It’s as if they took the core idea of matrix but forgot the parts that made it work in the original story
Wasn’t the third semester added on for P5Royal and not part of the main story?
Either way I don’t really care that much
But that would drastically change the message, no? People should choose to leave the Matrix because the reward is living in reality, even if it’s harder and there’s no other reward.
Fun headcanon idea: Morpheus is perfectly capable of explaining the idea of the Matrix but he avoids it to avoid the inevitable “what’s the outside like” question.
You mean choosing whether to live with purpose or just continue to exist?
You have never dated a punk. You have never been in love with anyone adapted to poverty who had any sense of adventure.
You’re an odd morpheus.
but also the rave orgies.
The Matrix is a trans allegory. Living in a cave and eating slop is an allegory for being fired because of transphobia.
Still worth it.
The Matrix is a Rambo 3 remake. Living in a cave and eating slop is an allegory for shooting explosive arrows into a bridge.
Still worth it.
Yeah, but what is the blue pill for?
It lights blue.
I’ve heard this, but, my estradiol is a blue pill? 🤔
At the time they were red.
Big pharma ruined the metaphor by changing the pill colors.
The blue pill was an antidepressant, the red pill was estrogen.
Also the main villian is a man in a suit who constantly deadnames the protagonist. The matrix is real life.
I wonder if they did it intentionally.
Changing the pill from red to blue basically cost them nothing and served no purpose, but just so happened to ruin the metaphor.
It can be interpreted that way. That doesn’t mean that anybody who doesn’t see it that way is wrong.
Its an alagory for the social matrix we all find ourselves in.
It’s an allegory for the fact that through their control of the media, the rich can construct whatever reality they want in the minds of the masses.
Indeed.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
― Edward Bernays, PropagandaWe are controlled through encouraged habits.
I submit that the only antidote to propaganda which is capable of curing whole societies, is the conscious manipulation of one’s own beliefs and perceptions. We must abandon the desire for objective reality, and instead become masters of our personal unrealities. Great responsibility can only be fulfilled with great power. We must become better than we are. We must take hold of the power of unreality for ourselves.
Exactly right. Neo expressed true freedom when Agent Smith, enraged, asks Neo why he keeps fighting, and Neo says “because I choose to”.
Our world is full of people who have been programmed like robots, that don’t examine their programming. Freedom from the Matrix starts with recognizing our programmable nature, and learning to see clearly how it’s exploited by the system. Only then can we begin to program ourselves.
One of the failures of the Soviet Union is that they didn’t deprogram themselves. They defeated capitalism in the material plane, but they remained inside a capitalist consensus reality. Thus, they simply became capitalists.
I believe that a successful socialist revolution requires sorcerery. We must create a socialist multiverse using techniques of mysticism.
Yeah but at least I’m part of an armed resistance trying to win back their freedom.
So terrorists. You’re saying that’s a good thing?
One person’S terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
Nuh uh!
developer version
…Did Neo have an active social life? Admittedly I haven’t seen the movie in forever, but IIRC he didn’t have much going on other than work and being a hacker.
He followed the white rabbit so he could stand in the corner of a rave.
And then speaks to one girl and promptly falls in love with her.
feels seen
Well, it definitely would have been easier to build an active social life than to take the red pill.
Neo was powerful. I wonder if he could have gained the same abilities, without the help of Morpheus, throughout his time in the matrix. Were he able to do so, he could have lived a nice life inside. I guess Neo felt a higher calling to free mankind or something, so he left… or maybe Morpheus just didn’t tell him the whole picture before offering the pill. Morpheus probably needed a powerful warrior and just rolled the dice on Neo, deciding to not exactly paint the whole picture.
Anyway… had I known the whole picture, I’d have stayed inside.for me, it’s the opposite. I don’t mind living in a simulation if everyone else is a real thinking person, but I would’ve felt compelled to help give everyone the option to leave
Its a metaphor for a real philosophical movement that parallels the trans experience, and decision the writer/directors did make themselves.
The gender binary literally rewrites our perceptions, causing us to perceive nonbinary people as male or female, unless we go through the effort to deprogram ourselves and take agency over our perceptions.
The Matrix wasn’t a metaphor.
Morpheus was just terrible at explaining. From xkcdMorpheus says that line to Neo from within the Matrix. I think he’s basically saying to Neo that if he just used words to explain it, Neo would never fully understand or believe it. Aside from his encounter with the agents, Neo has never apparently questioned whether he’s actually living in reality or in a simulation.
Keep in mind that this is 1999 when the peak of computer graphics is Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and Crazy Taxi.
On the other hand, Neo is a skilled hacker, deep in geek culture, and he feels the Matrix like a splinter in his mind, driving him mad.
Maybe Neo would have understood, but the audience wouldn’t.
Yeah, so even if the simulated world has steak instead of goop and gives you a cushy office job, Neo is the kind of person who can’t just accept not knowing.
It’s not that he’ll enjoy life in the real world more. It’s that he can only truly understand if he gives up all these comforts to know the truth.
That also goes to the criticism that people (sometimes jokingly) have of The Matrix. That in 1999 Gen X was so spoiled that a steady, well-paying office job with a cubicle was so terrible that Neo tried to escape it. The reality was that in a sense his fatal character flaw was curiosity. His actions as a hacker drew the attention of the agents. When Morpheus gave him a choice, he gave up the comforts of good food, an easy and boring job, not being on the run all the time, etc. so that he could know the truth, because he just couldn’t accept this simulated reality.
I don’t think Neo’s curiosity is a fatal flaw. I think it’s his greatest virtue.
In the end it turns out to be. But, it’s what prevents him from living a quiet, pleasant life like Cypher wants to do.
I found a picture of @stenAanden@feddit.dk:
A flying octopus drone has been sent to your location
Just a few extra arms needed
What is my purpose?
You move chairs
Hoth calling
Red pill side effects include cave raves, bad clothes, and new zionism
Before The Matrix, there was The Invisibles. Before Morpheus, there was King Mob. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisibles
And before that, there was Fassbinder’s World on a Wire, which features different characters, but parts of the premise - in particular, a simulated world with phones as connections to the “outside”.
And this, in turn, has it’s roots in a 1964 novel called Simulacron-3.The trans woman is named Lord Fanny and her focus chapter, fucking She-Man 😭
To counteract this, Morrison suggested a “wankathon” in the hope of bringing about a magical increase in sales by a mass of fans simultaneously masturbating at a set time.[3] Phil Jiminez taking over art duties, and a more conventional story style in volume 2, may have helped as well.
Cold Wikipedia article
