this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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I never understood the plot of the matrix. Why the fuck would you want to live outside of the virtual reality world? Just let the machines make the vr world awesome if you promise not to break out. The whole “the world was too good and the humans noticed so we had to make it shitty” plot point was stupid as fuck. If the world was too awesome you think I’d ever want to leave that world?
"let the machines" is the problem. They decide how it all works, and what it's for. If there was an opt-in virtual world, with an independently certified logging out option, maybe manually checking in with everyone at regular intervals, then probably a whole lot of people would choose to be there.
Black Mirror's San Junipero was an example of an opt-in and a rare good ending.
Yeah, that's why I don't watch that show.
It's also not very good.
It boils down to saccharine American episodes or "what it tech, but too much?!"
Lol, I didn't even say it was bad. I think it's an alright show. I just don't think it's especially poignant or anything.
Isn't that how the matrix 3 ends?
I was super drunk when I watched it but I feel like that's the compromise they reached
From what I remember it ends with Doogie Houser saying "lol jk go do whatever you want" and then fly away.
That's Matrix 4. Just forget about that whole trainwreck ;)
Haha you're right. Both of those movies are just so good I mixed them together
Isnt that's the major question of the movie. Is it better to live a lie as a battery slave or free but miserable
Yeah but the answer is easy, battery slave me robot daddy.
Genuinely, for 90% of the population that seems like the actual answer. Same as those who partake in Twitter/Reddit. But the 10% who don't, it would be nice to have another option.
It was more expressed as a need or a part of the human condition to need to be free. Even if someone was comfortable with the matrix, part of them inside was not. That was a bigger part of some of the Animatrix shorts where it wasn't so much choosing one life over the other, it was the truth or a lie, freedom or subjugation.
The animatrix was so good.
That's explored in the movie, no? That's why Cypher betrays them to go back into the Matrix. Some people are fine and even prefer the Matrix, others can't live that way knowing it's all fake.
My biggest problem with The Matrix is where the machines are getting the food from to feed the humans. You need a continuous supply of food to support continuous energy conversion; that energy isn't being created from nothing. Normally that comes from the sun photosynthesizing plants (which then works its way up the food chain), but with no sunlight then plants can't grow. They say they feed the liquified remains of dead humans to the living ones, but even if digestion were 100% efficient (which it definitely isn't), the amount of usable "food" would constantly decrease until there's nothing left.
It originally used humans' brains as "wetware," or extra processing space. Imagine everyone's playing an MMO, but the computers are all rendering their own copy of stuff so the server doesn't have to do anything but handshakes and data transfer. The matrix is handled, in part, in our heads.
The test audiences got confused so the whole "lol, people are just batteries ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ " plot was put in place instead.
Oh my god this makes so much more sense
That movie had so many plot holes that it’s actually kind of difficult to watch as an adult.
I still enjoyed the first movie.
That's because The Matrix(the movie) is actually a meta-commentary on being trans, the confusing at best sci-fi is just the veil over the actual meaning.
The matrix(the virtual world) represents cisgender. For most inhabitants, everything is totally fine and nothing is amiss, because they are cis.
The ones that notice something is "off" about the Matrix represent trans people. Taking the red pill is the equivalent of leaving the closet. They end up in a world that mostly hates them and want to control/destroy them(the machines represent bigots) and their safety is much lower than before, but they do it anyways because while it was easier to live the lie, they were never truly happy living it. Living in the real world doesn't guarantee them happiness, far from it, but it at least gives them a chance for it which they never had in the Matrix.
I don't know if you can draw those exact parallels, and I think it's trivializing the plot a bit to just "ignore all that sci-fi stuff," but it has been confirmed by the Lily that it was at least partially on her mind when writing the Matrix:
There's a lot to unpack in the above comment, and claiming that being CIS removes all the problems of the world is more than mildly naive as well, but there's for sure a lot of lgbtq+ messaging in the Matrix, and it doesn't take a great leap to see it either.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/12/22/1066554369/the-matrix-original-trans-fans-resurrections
That’s a good explanation. I’d heard it was some kind of trans allegory before but I didn’t see it and never had it explained before, or at least not well.
I think it kind of makes sense when you look at the world now
When you keep people busy fighting just to get by, the majority worries more about the next paycheck instead of thinking about how things could get better.
Look at the coal miners - they fight tooth and nail to destroy their health only to enrich someone else. Look at minimum wage service workers, they'll work three jobs where they're constantly treated like crap by everyone, but they won't risk that terrible job to try to unionize
And look at all of us - the world we've created sucks. Most of us are unhappy and never come near our potential, but we're generally more scared of losing whatever we have to even consider a system that would be better for everyone
If we had the time and mental energy, we'd be pushing the boundaries. We'd find our passion, whether it's science or exploration or spiritual development. If there's cracks in the simulation, we'd eventually find them and start picking at them like a scab
In the matrix, the majority is too busy in their gentle suffering to push the boundaries. And the few that have what it takes to break out are given another layer, a hopeless fight where both victory and defeat just restart the cycle
Yes, if the simulation was good enough everyone would willingly stay in the sandbox, but self actualized people will always try to imagine something better. They'd want to explore the universe and build worlds within worlds - if the machines let some people out to explore the real world and left the willing in a great game things would be better for both parties, but they'd have to give up control - the humans outside could fix the skies and colonize endless worlds alongside machines, but they could also decide to come back with better technology and win the war once and for all
In 1999, it was suspicious how good things were.
Cisgender
?
CISGENDER!
Hahahaha