tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post602651045254427461..comments2024-02-24T03:34:18.060-05:00Comments on Stealing Commas: Things I would have liked to have seen in The Matrixchris the cynichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-88905124568350035292015-02-08T17:43:03.939-05:002015-02-08T17:43:03.939-05:00Ah, thank you. Well: your enemies are providing yo...Ah, thank you. Well: your enemies are providing your living space (or power, whichver), as long as they don't rebel. One obvious way to stop them from rebelling is to keep them happy. If you had a fairly naïve attitude towards human psychology, you might think that dumping them into a paradise simulation would achieve that. You don't care how happy they are, or aren't, as long as they're productive.<br /><br />(Maybe the paradise simulation removed their incentive to think and imagine!)Firedrakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-29218499774750231632015-02-08T09:34:22.639-05:002015-02-08T09:34:22.639-05:00But the simulated world clearly isn't paradise...<i>But the simulated world clearly isn't paradise anyway: people still have to go to work, have nasty bosses, and so on. (I may be missing your point.)</i><br /><br />I think you are. Possibly because I did a bad job of consistently distinguishing between the name of the movie and the name of the simulation within the movie. I've gone back and, hopefully, made sure that all references to the simulation are lowercase.<br /><br />Regardless, it's something that Agent Smith says in the first movie:<br /><br /><i>Did you know that the first matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.</i><br /><br />It's picked up on again in the sequel but retconned so that the <i>second</i> matrix was also a failure and thus the reason the first failed probably had nothing to do with it being a perfect world but instead with the reason that likewise caused the second to fail. I'm not going to get into that because, as with various things in the later movies, it makes no sense even in a "we must have plot" sense.* Anyway, discussing the first simulation (in the second movie):<br /><br /><i>The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art - flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.</i><br /><br />So my thing in the main post was basically this: in both cases the first matrix (simulation, not movie) was a perfect world. Why? It's not as if the machines were familiar with a perfect world, one has never existed. It's not as if the machines would be particularly eager to reward people with a perfect world, humanity was in a war of extermination against them.<br /><br />So why go through the difficult process of trying to design a perfect world for <i>your enemies</i> to live in?<br /><br />-<br /><br />* Short, short version: the first two simulations failed because when not given a choice human minds rebelled, however when given a choice (even at a subconscious level) the vast majority accepted the simulation.<br /><br />Why this makes no sense above and beyond sacrifices made for reasons of plot: if choice is all that is needed to make things work, then the machines should have re-installed perfect world (plus subconscious choice) because then people would be even less likely to choose rejecting the simulation.chris the cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-36125377862639056912015-02-08T09:20:17.486-05:002015-02-08T09:20:17.486-05:00I think an argument was made in the movies that th...I think an argument was made in the movies that the attempts to make a paradise caused people's suspension of disbelief to be shattered. Like, the robots weren't good enough writers to make something that the humans would accept as real.Packbathttp://packbat.net/w/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-55180573093085557292015-02-08T03:58:31.882-05:002015-02-08T03:58:31.882-05:00Brains are much better at fuzzy pattern matching t...Brains are much better at fuzzy pattern matching than current algorithms (if you don't mind a big false positive rate, hello pareidolia). And one could probably make an argument for imagination as well.<br /><br />Re background programs: why is there this disconnect between "the environment" and "the agents of the AIs, who can bend the rules in specific ways"? That should be seamless: the bad guys don't chase you, they just drop you out of your reality straight into a holding pen. Of course you don't get much of a story then, unless it's by Harlan Ellison.<br /><br />If you're using the minds for processing, you probably have to keep them stimulated. (Actually it's much easier to fool them than one might think, see Bostrom's simulation hypothesis.) But the simulated world clearly isn't paradise anyway: people still have to go to work, have nasty bosses, and so on. (I may be missing your point.)Firedrakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-45038972329901778562015-02-07T22:23:52.598-05:002015-02-07T22:23:52.598-05:00I love this post and all the thoughts being shared...I love this post and all the thoughts being shared!Lonesparkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16278753827545905559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-52502548935210752712015-02-07T18:29:44.733-05:002015-02-07T18:29:44.733-05:00Like. That explanation makes a lot more sense. Als...Like. That explanation makes a lot more sense. Also thanks for the relink, lost track of the other Matrix one in the comment slog.<br /><br />On the Paradise thing for your enemies? Not as far-fetched as you'd think, as it's something that's crossed my own mind. I had a mental argument between one of the Damned, damned on a technicality, and a Believer who did horrific things to them in hopes of paradise, and the Damned cursing them with Paradise, basically going 'You want paradise so bad? Fuck you, go ahead and have it, there are more important things in life than feeling good'.<br /><br />Happy humans are, if nothing else, less likely to want to escape.<br /><br />More intriguingly, the machines may be sapient beings who want the moral high ground. They want to view themselves as superior, so they do things to justify, just like humans would, their actions. Like imperialists except the imperialists could never build a Matrix.Stardusthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00132286380127316140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-1264298868342653412015-02-07T13:24:13.120-05:002015-02-07T13:24:13.120-05:00I like your ideas.
A thought re: background progr...I like your ideas.<br /><br />A thought re: background programs: there were a lot of periods in history where the government was unstable but basic services were being held together by apolitical actors, right? I don't actually know my stuff, but one of the 1632-series books talked about the bureau men in Russia in the Time of Troubles staying out of politics and doing their job for the czar of the day because <em>that was the best way to stay alive</em> in a time of chaos. I could easily imagine a similar thing going on with the programs running the stars and planets, the water system, the electrical grid, et cetera.<br /><br />...actually, come to think of it: given the way the Zion residents use the phone system in these movies, do they perhaps have a friend they don't know about?Packbathttp://packbat.net/w/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-45343207589498584312015-02-07T12:01:57.922-05:002015-02-07T12:01:57.922-05:00Regarding the reason for the Matrix, I'd had t...Regarding the reason for the Matrix, I'd had the thought that the Matrix was keeping humans engaged for the purpose of "downloading" parts of the human mind, at least in basic structure. Inorganic physical parts making use of organic origin code.<br /><br />That would also be why human breeding is, to all available evidence, matched to how humans choose to mate within the Matrix. New minds, interacting, all the time, in a changing world, keeping those human minds flexible and in best possible condition for use as AI templates, allowing them to reproduce, but only by reproducing with us, essentially.<br /><br />That might be part of why the Matrix would originally have been an attempt at a paradise. The war between Machines and Man was, to some extent, a civil war between siblings.<br /><br />Agent Smith, in this case, wouldn't just be someone who hates, say, Morpheus, but someone who resents Morpheus for never having been there for the big moments, like he should have.<br /><br />I couldn't really get into that with just a few silly scenes, though.WingedBeasthttp://wingedbeast.dreamwidth.org/noreply@blogger.com