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SuperMechagodzilla posted:All you've written is that the camera makes everything 'intimate and desperate', by making the movie 'pushed in and faster'.
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Jan 23, 2022 18:53
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bushisms.txt posted:I know you would relate to a bot, but I'm describing the humans. Just drop it. I don't need to write paragraphs of text when you're nitpicking the preciseness of a single shot where two men kick in a dusty cellar. It's a problem in most of the action scenes in the film- they are incredibly perfunctory, and uninteresting. Interspersing them with clips from the originals does them absolutely no favors. In addition, Smith is barely even a character in the movie- he holds no relevance to it thematically. That'd be fine in a movie that actually gave a poo poo about Neo's psyche and had him as just a piece of that, but it's just a dull film that shrugs at the implications of its first half and says 'love conquers all, no one dies'.
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Jan 24, 2022 20:21
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Panzeh posted:In addition, Smith is barely even a character in the movie- he holds no relevance to it thematically. It’s weirder than that because, like everything else in the film, Smith is just a repetition of what was already done in Matrix 3. Abandoning his cushy CEO identity to assist the homeless, he’s revealed to have ‘all along’ been the hipster barista - y’know, the dude who’s certainly making only slightly more than minimum wage. He’s the film’s sole leftist character, and sidelined for that reason; he doesn’t ‘belong’ in this ideological universe, even though he’s ineradicable.
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Jan 24, 2022 23:30
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That’s an interesting read of smiths I had not connected, ceo to barista. He does say he’s everybody-the masses and the elite. But I guess that goes back to the film not trying to destroy the matrix, but rather impose new leadership.
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Jan 25, 2022 00:55
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Looks like film is out tomorrow on vod with the 4K physical release on March 8th.
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Jan 25, 2022 00:57
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checkplease posted:That’s an interesting read of smiths I had not connected, ceo to barista. He does say he’s everybody-the masses and the elite. But I guess that goes back to the film not trying to destroy the matrix, but rather impose new leadership. It comes down to something that is extremely poorly-explained in the film: Neo has the entire matrix source code in his brain. The virtual earth and all the events in it are, quite literally, ‘all in his head’, in the sense that anything he thinks becomes real. This is why the baddies assigned him a game designer backstory: to channel his ‘creative energies’ into an artwork, while Analyst’s role is basically just to sit there and insist that art isn’t literally real. Smith is, consequently, there because he represents the archetypal Jungian shadow or whatever garbage. He is (presented as) an aspect of Neo‘s psyche that Neo must embrace on his inner journey of self-realization (and the accomplishment of the harmonious sexual relationship, etc.).
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Jan 25, 2022 03:29
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I can see this. The end of revolutions and saving of matrix/Zion occurs when neo fully welcomed smith as a part of him and they become one. They are separate again here, but seem more willing to accept each other with smith even trying to talk him down from the first fight. And and only by working together can they get trinity back for neo to fully heal.
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Jan 26, 2022 07:30
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matrix 5 but it's got a nutty professor gimmick and agent smith is neo's buddy love. eats the io strawberries to change back and forth
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Jan 26, 2022 12:30
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checkplease posted:That’s an interesting read of smiths I had not connected, ceo to barista. He does say he’s everybody-the masses and the elite. But I guess that goes back to the film not trying to destroy the matrix, but rather impose new leadership. Reminds me of Richard Stanley's journey from directing the Island of Dr. Moreau with Brando and Kilmer to getting fired and replaced, which led to him sneaking onto set as one of the dog people extras, completing his transition from boss to worker.
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Jan 27, 2022 03:10
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So, we're back to the fundamental question of "what is the matrix?" I and others have been reading against the series, but the ideological universe of the films remains libertarian. Although there have been attempts to color this as progressive - the fight of the oppressed against state power - what we are actually seeing is the expression of a conflict within libertarianism, inherent to libertarianism. If Matrix is an allegory for anything, it's cryptocurrency. It's retroactively a prediction of NonFungible Tokens and "Web3". This is the only way to really redeem Ferrinus' claim that the machines are capitalism, and that the ultimate source of energy is from the interlinked computer-brains of the individual matrix users. Where can this energy ultimately come from? Only from outside the whole "matrix/real-world", "software/hardware" arrangement - from the actual power plants that supply the whole thing. After all, aren't the machines the ultimate example of some malware running a bitcoin miner in the background of your PC? The matrix depicts internet itself, and that net is vast and infinite, until your computer is unplugged from the wall. As Zizek notes in a recent obligatory 'Bitcoin Is Stupid' article, "digital control and manipulation are not an anomaly, a deviation, of today’s libertarian project; they are its necessary framework, its formal condition of possibility." The goal was never to destroy big banks and the state but to recreate banks and the state in a way that benefits the early adopters of a fanciful but-nonviable technology. This is perhaps the best way to square the double analogy of the Matrix films, uniting Capitalism and God: "Blockchain – as a non-alienated ‘Big Other' – needs a lot more work than inscription into an alienated third party, creating the new ‘proletarians’ of this new domain out of the bitcoin ‘miners’ who do this work. ... The paradox here is that they do not work to produce new use-values, but to create new space for exchange-value. To guarantee that bitcoins do not need a legal external authority and the accompanying legal fees, an effort is required which takes a lot of time and uses so much energy (electricity) that it is a heavy ecological burden." What is "bullet time"? Simply that Neo's personal computer is suddenly using so much processing power that the rest of the internet slows down around him. He's overclocking his brain, causing agents to experience "lag" by comparison. But where is the electricity to do this coming from? From the Nebuchadnezzar's reactors? (And what fuels those?) Where do we see the ecological burden, the inevitable byproducts of production? The answer is simply that the origin of the electricity that appears as if magic is outside the scope of the films, yet a necessary precondition of the whole fantasy scenario. So, to be clear, "bitcoin miners" are not precisely 'the people who do the mining', but the computers - the graphics cards chained together in a warehouse someplace. But somebody must maintain the warehouse! Mining facilities require a whole staff of people, since any current mining venture is beyond the capabilities of one person. It's these workers who actually fuel the crypto-economy - along with a perpetual influx of outside cash from marks, and the obvious exploitation of the workers actually producing all these graphics cards, mining the rare metals from which they are made, etc. This is where reality comes back with a vengeance, beyond anything in the "real world" of the films. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jan 27, 2022 |
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Jan 27, 2022 18:31
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:This is the only way to really redeem Ferrinus' claim that the machines are capitalism, and that the ultimate source of energy is from the interlinked computer-brains of the individual matrix users. Where can this energy ultimately come from? Only from outside the whole "matrix/real-world", "software/hardware" arrangement - from the actual power plants that supply the whole thing. After all, aren't the machines the ultimate example of some malware running a bitcoin miner in the background of your PC? The matrix depicts internet itself, and that net is vast and infinite, until your computer is unplugged from the wall. Ohhhh my god dude. If we're actually concerned with precision and clarity here, we need to identify the entirety of the post-apocalyptic "society" (at least in the first three films because the status quo in Resurrections is kind of weird) with capitalism and the machines with, specifically, capital, i.e. the alien power that sustains itself at humanity's collective expense. Second, that the energy "ultimately" comes from power plants (although this is also technically imprecise - the energy "ultimately" comes from like, the heat of the earth's core, and part of it is likely first filtered through cave lichens or something) is really part and parcel of the status quo described above. You asked earlier why the machines don't just burn fungus to run their fusion reactors, and the answer is that in effect they do; it's just that part of the "burning" involves human beings. DeimosRising's tidbit about cows a page ago was really instructive here; even though you objectively lose nine tenths of your kilojoules for each trophic level you move up through, that's better than losing ten tenths of your kilojoules because they're useless to you in their basic form. If the matrix is a blockchain, then flesh-and-blood people are not the figurative computer-owning miners but the graphics cards, which are expensive, increasingly rare, and useless without elaborate supporting infrastructure but on the other hand commodities indispensable to the complex calculations required to, in this case, moderate a cold fusion reaction. As you say, a bitcoin mining rig needs, itself, to be powered and maintained, which is presumably where programs like Rama Kandra come in (this guy keeps popping back up). Squids or other hardware probably have to periodically screw in new pods or repair burnt-out cables or whatever. However, it's dangerous to look at a prison or slave camp and be like ah, but who poured the concrete for the cell walls? Who drew the blueprints? That's who we should be really concerned with, and who is being kept out of sight for ideological reasons! Of course in the The Matrix series they are not kept out of sight, and nor is the obvious answer of "the prisoners themselves" ignored because of course A) the power generated by the matrix feeds the machines who manually maintain it and B) both loyal and treasonous programs get to participate in the dramas of the sequels. Properly speaking, I think the original Matrix does have a bunch of libertarian assumptions, like that "consciousness-raising" terrorism is actually effective in the long run or that you can defeat the ruling class by just growing your lil commune apart from society until everyone sees how great it is and opts to divest from the status quo and join you, but the sequels complicate these ideas considerably, which is part of why I appreciate them. I'm also going to be petty and draw attention to this: quote:What is "bullet time"? Simply that Neo's personal computer is suddenly using so much processing power that the rest of the internet slows down around him. He's overclocking his brain, causing agents to experience "lag" by comparison. But where is the electricity to do this coming from? From the Nebuchadnezzar's reactors? (And what fuels those?) If I sneak a bitcoin miner onto your computer, and you find your internet browser chugging, it's not increasing my power bill. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jan 27, 2022 |
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Jan 27, 2022 21:13
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What does Smith mean by saying “I want what you want” to Neo in Reloaded and Revolutions?
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Jan 28, 2022 15:23
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An end to the Matrix, I think. I can only presume that, among the Machine people, there are people who are sick of their whole society being built around maintaining this fruitless experiment.
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Jan 28, 2022 16:00
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Smith wants to end the matrix and end the war with Zion and the machines. But by killing everyone. So slightly different methods, but always a plan b option for neo.
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Jan 28, 2022 18:03
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Smith's epiphany is "the purpose of life is to end", so yeah, he wants to just kill everyone. He wants to end the current system by completely destroying it and every part of it. It's kinda funny how much more chilled out Ressurections Smith is by comparison.
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Jan 28, 2022 18:12
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He got to live a couple decades as a rich executive vs being a field officer. Life seemed alright after that.
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Jan 28, 2022 18:30
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Revolutions and the Sailor Moon manga really do have the same ending.
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Jan 28, 2022 20:20
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Neo is
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Jan 28, 2022 21:33
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Neo is Sailor Moon and kinda Sailor Cosmos. Tuxedo Mask is Trinity, which also maps because he's dead in the manga before the final battle. Their love story is more developed in the manga and his role as being supportive finding Sailor Moon is better established. Smith is Chaos but also Sailor Cosmos as well. Nobody really fits Sailor Galaxia. The ending of Sailor Moon might be more philosophically involved because there are more positions being argued up to the end. Its less material politics since you don't have Zion or the Machines to consider. But the core choices of continuing the cycle, destroying everything or embracing chaos to try to create an uncertain but better future are the same.
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Jan 28, 2022 23:15
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Smith just wants to kill everyone in the Matrix. But they are also of no value to the unplugged. The only people of value worth unplugging are people who have come to share Morpheus' desire in "freedom" from a "system". Smith wants what Neo wanted in the first Matrix. But Neo, having been indoctrinated by wealth and power, then wants to preserve and reform the system instead by Revolutions.
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Jan 29, 2022 12:26
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checkplease posted:He got to live a couple decades as a rich executive vs being a field officer. Life seemed alright after that. Amazing what a little breeze on your ankles will do for your mood.
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Jan 29, 2022 16:59
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Shiroc posted:Neo is Sailor Moon and kinda Sailor Cosmos. Sailor moon got a lot more serious it sounds like than one I remember on tv.
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Jan 29, 2022 18:03
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Eggnogium posted:Amazing what a little breeze on your ankles will do for your mood. Having to chase leather clad criminals all night through the slums and sex dungeons would fill most with hate. The real lesson in the matrix is the value of paid leave. Smith just needed a sunny getaway.
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Jan 29, 2022 18:10
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checkplease posted:Sailor moon got a lot more serious it sounds like than one I remember on tv. The manga goes much harder and more complex than the first anime did. For instance, instead of redeeming almost every villain through the power of love and understanding, the Guardians kill the gently caress out of them through the power of solidarity and justice. The two versions of the 4th and 5th arcs only share superficial similarities because the overall tone and plotting had diverged too much to rationalize together.
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Jan 29, 2022 20:50
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The Matrix is probably unique compared to most franchises since it's one of the few where the creative team is involved in most of the supplemental material so we have a pretty firm idea of what the meta-textual intent is so, oddly, there's not a ton to dig into with "what is the intent here". Even more so than the above, the movies are pretty straight forward about everything you could want. I mean, there's not a lot of subtlety here. Okay, so, about this: SuperMechagodzilla posted:So, we're back to the fundamental question of "what is the matrix?" I and others have been reading against the series, but the ideological universe of the films remains libertarian. Although there have been attempts to color this as progressive - the fight of the oppressed against state power - what we are actually seeing is the expression of a conflict within libertarianism, inherent to libertarianism. No, just no. The Matrix is a powerplant because it's the most logical reason for machines to generate power during a war where humans LITERALLY RUINED THE SUN OUT OF SPITE. Machines, would need to pick a power source that humans wouldn't poison out of spite and humans are the only thing that humans can't destroy. Sounds like the thinking of a machine, to me. Why is The Matrix like it is? (i.e. corporate 1999) Answer: budget. Plot Answer: In the Animatrix (and the movie) it's revealed that the machines intended a perfect paradise for humans but we kept rejecting it (I'll come back to this) so they were probably toying with iterations of The Matrix that people will mostly just accept. Yes the Merovingian has ghosts and werewolves, because power comes from stress and movement so we need people (while plugged in) to move a lot and get real stressed. So sure why not a fear version? Happiness didn't work. Also we learn from Kid's and the Runner's Stories (animatrix) that you can pretty much "will" yourself awake if pushed hard enough, so you want to push people to get power, but not enough to force them out which leads us too.. How does the Matrix generate power at all, like aren't people (blah,blah,whatever)? We know, from the MOVIES that even while plugged in, your body and muscles are still twitching and convulsing (there's shots from outside of people grabbing the chairs, reacting to getting shot, convulsing from being punched), "Your body makes it real". And in pods, people have hoses and connections at major muscle groups and along the spine. This isn't for show, it's where the power comes from. While fully plugged in (pod) every action, movement, muscle twitch and brain impulse gets harvested a bit to make power. "you've never used your muscles before" Okay, but why do they use people? Why not cows or, since the war is over other forms of power? Answer: Rama Kandra. Rama Kandra is Sati's dad. He's a program. He also feels love and sentience, the Oracle explains that the Matrix is full of programs managing systems and doing background rendering work. Those programs are like Rama Kandra. They're alive. And they don't want to be deleted. The Machines, in having self awareness probably have empathy for each other, and thus Shutting down The Matrix is basically a Genocide (War's over, delete Arizona). The Matrix, is too big to fail. Thanks for coming to my seminar. Stay tuned for part 2: The entire trilogy was a plan by the oracle and the architect literally says this to her at the end of the movie how did you miss this? Trollologist fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Jan 30, 2022 |
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Jan 30, 2022 07:48
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Trollologist posted:How does the Matrix generate power at all, like aren't people (blah,blah,whatever)? We know, from the MOVIES that even while plugged in, your body and muscles are still twitching and convulsing (there's shots from outside of people grabbing the chairs, reacting to getting shot, convulsing from being punched), "Your body makes it real". And in pods, people have hoses and connections at major muscle groups and along the spine. This isn't for show, it's where the power comes from. While fully plugged in (pod) every action, movement, muscle twitch and brain impulse gets harvested a bit to make power. "you've never used your muscles before"
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Jan 30, 2022 14:30
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"Nature is man’s inorganic body, that is to say, nature in so far as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature, i.e. nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature." -Marx Neo: If we wanted, we could shut these machines down. Boring Old Dude: Of course - that’s it. You hit it! That’s control, isn’t it? If we wanted, we could smash them to bits. Although if we did, we’d have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our air.... Neo: So we need machines, and they need us. Is that your point, Councillor? Boring Old Dude: No, no point. Old men like me don’t bother with making points. There is no point. The boring old dude doesn't assign any meaning to his observation because he's allowing Neo to reach his own conclusions. However, the truth is that Neo is very wrong. As with the flipping of the 'material' and 'immaterial', one of the basic reversals of the Matrix series is to present nature as an artificial mechanism set in motion by a creator. "So we need nature and it needs us?" Obviously not, Neo. Nature does not need humanity. The relationship is entirely one-sided. Robot Baby Head: We don’t need you. We need nothing. Of course, the complication is that the robot baby head is not directly nature itself, but a robotic god with his own wants, desires, etc. This robot god would like to create a 'livable' world for humanity, but ultimately wants his own survival (which is why he can be negotiated with). Nonetheless, we still have nature - a whole (bio)mechanical ecosystem - with which there is no negotiation. Nature is chugging along, regardless of whether everyone goes extinct. The robot god is, himself, caught up in a greater "inorganic body". So, as we've seen, ecology is crucial to the whole series. Like, before we get to the matrix itself, the foundational premise of the films is that humanity sought to control the biosphere and ended up blotting out the sun. That is super-questionable as a deliberate military tactic to end solar power, but nonetheless 'makes sense' as a metaphor for the thoughtless ecological devastation wrought by capitalists - illustrating their essential belief that the economy is boundless, capable of limitless expansion independent of nature, etc.. Again, the absurd notion of the perpetual motion machine must be done away with if we're going to be performing even a rudimentary ideological critique. We've already seen how wildly different interpretations of the film's alien universe grow out of weird presumptions about how things like nature work. Like, Trollologist posted:How does the Matrix generate power at all, like aren't people (blah,blah,whatever)? We know, from the MOVIES that even while plugged in, your body and muscles are still twitching and convulsing (there's shots from outside of people grabbing the chairs, reacting to getting shot, convulsing from being punched), "Your body makes it real". And in pods, people have hoses and connections at major muscle groups and along the spine. This isn't for show, it's where the power comes from. While fully plugged in (pod) every action, movement, muscle twitch and brain impulse gets harvested a bit to make power. "you've never used your muscles before" As noted above, this doesn't make sense because of thermodynamics. So, what you're actually saying is that the matrix is a totally useless "make-work program" for otherwise-unemployed machine intelligences. But this isclaiming a lot about the machine economy: "human farming" is a dead industry (was never even viable as an industry), unable to compete on the broader energy market - yet the machine government is nonetheless pumping shitloads of aid into it (instead of just supporting the unemployed)...? Implicitly, we're talking a Theranos-style massive fraud case or something, with all the various elements involved in that. The more we investigate this, the more complexity we need to introduce for it to make sense. Likewise, with Ferrinus, we have the claim that humans are actually graphics cards converting food energy to information. But this is making a concrete claim about computing: that the operation of a reactor is something you can 'brute force' with sheer computing power, and that human brains can provide this. With 6 billion people, using their whole brains, we're talking something like 36 billion petaflops*... to do what, exactly? If you do away with the whole 'fusion reactor' thing and just conclude that it's literally Bitcoin mining, then you have basic questions like why the Big Robot Head would even need a "decentralized" currency. In any case, people hooked up to the matrix are already using their whole brains, simply by existing in the matrix. And the machines are, of course, using their own massively-powerful computers to generate the whole simulation in the first place. Without recourse to the "you only use 10% of the brain" myth, the matrix is again massively wasteful. And, while you can say something like, "of course capitalists are wasteful", that's obscurantism without a whole lot of elaboration. *i.e. 36,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 calculations per second SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jan 30, 2022 |
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Jan 30, 2022 22:06
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:As noted above, this doesn't make sense because of thermodynamics. So, what you're actually saying is that the matrix is a totally useless "make-work program" for otherwise-unemployed machine intelligences. But this isclaiming a lot about the machine economy: "human farming" is a dead industry (was never even viable as an industry), unable to compete on the broader energy market - yet the machine government is nonetheless pumping shitloads of aid into it (instead of just supporting the unemployed)...? Implicitly, we're talking a Theranos-style massive fraud case or something, with all the various elements involved in that. The more we investigate this, the more complexity we need to introduce for it to make sense. Just real quick, I can't think of a single sci-fi series that doesn't viciously spit in the face of thermodynamics or relativity at some point so at least with regards to "what's the exchange rate of kcal to watt/hr? It's dumb!  " I hope we can call that suspension of disbelief.On the make work: Yes. It is. The matrix is, at least as shown in the film, profitable for the machines in regards to power. And given that it requires a proxy war to maintain, is still the safest way to extract power. The real meta analysis of the trilogy is the relationship between Zion and 01. Zion, as stated at multiple points in the films is a whole cloth creation of the machines and acts as kind of a dump for all the rejects. Why? What purpose can this possibly serve? If the machines value machine life, why force a proxy war where sentinels die? Is the proxy war itself a make-work machine project? Couldn't you just shoot the rejects into a grinder and pump the nutrients back into the pods? It's stated that this is a function of the matrix currently. If there is a capitalism or libertarian analogy, it's between Zion and 01 not between humans and the matrix.
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Jan 30, 2022 23:44
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Trollologist posted:Just real quick, I can't think of a single sci-fi series that doesn't viciously spit in the face of thermodynamics or relativity at some point so at least with regards to "what's the exchange rate of kcal to watt/hr? It's dumb! Claiming that Matrix is a universe where the laws of physics don't apply is 'just' the fantasy of immersion into simulation. Suspension of disbelief, as a contrast, is when you approach a movie as something more akin to theatre - as an artwork So, like, cars typically don't explode into a fireball when the gas tank is shot. The fact that this happens when Morpheus kills the haunted SUV is something to interpret. All of this was done with special effects, but we nonetheless understand the idea of destroying something with a gun. We understand that gasoline is flammable, and so-on. It's a type of realism - at least a psychological realism. We can go even further and talk about how the scene employs the logic of videogames and ties it in with the concept of exorcism, whatever. (In Matrix, the filmmakers even have the built-in excuse that belief shapes reality inside the sim: bullshit like spoon-bending actually works, so perhaps the gas tank explodes because Morpheus believes it will.) Likewise, with the function of the pods, I am simply talking about the interpretation of an image (or a set of images). Were shown fetuses in wombs - and is this good, or bad, or what? That's where you come in, with your understanding of reality - because that's ultimately what's at stake. So, you might claim that these robo-mothers are sucking nutrients out of their unborn babies. But, y'know, that's not how pregnancy works? So you might claim that it's an image of some kind of reverse- or anti-pregnancy. Online people have a lot of terms for that particular kind of image, but it's ultimately just death - and there are many easier ways to kill people. So, like, maybe they're being made to work. (Ok, what kind of work? Etc.)
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Jan 31, 2022 02:18
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Claiming that Matrix is a universe where the laws of physics don't apply is 'just' the fantasy of immersion into simulation. Suspension of disbelief, as a contrast, is when you approach a movie as something more akin to theatre - as an artwork I'm not saying the laws of physics don't apply, merely that in science fiction the analogy for human society is masked with what is essentially magic described as technology to allow the analogy to function. Star Trek, a series that is ostensibly about testing utopian ideals in fringe cases against competing ideas doesn't have to answer questions like: How are Phasers Powered? What is Dilithium and where does it come from? How does the warp drive....function? can you botch a transporter and end up with 2 copies of the same person? What's loving going on in the holodeck? We eschew these concerns to explore the greater ideals at play. In the Matrix, the thermodynamic plausibility of a power generator is immaterial to the greater story about Man vs Machine in a construct of machines' design that is itself a greater system of Machine Design. The Oracle, in birthing Smith, made him into a virus by design, or was smith simply the opportunity she had to create a virus? What force does Smith represent in relation to the Psyche?
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Jan 31, 2022 02:44
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So first off, the role reversal/lines-blurring between nature and machinery is something explicitly outlined by Marx himself in the more technical parts of Capital. Because a machine A) lowers the value of whatever it produces and B) transfers less and less of its own value to each of its products as its durability and efficiency increase, a machine so hard-wearing as to be functionally inexhaustible is in effect a gift of nature, as free a source of wealth as blowing wind or flowing water. In the world of The Matrix, various classical gifts of nature have been totally foreclosed on (most notably the sun) but on the other hand the pace of technological advancement has effectively created a new natural context for mankind to struggle to survive in. The machines that heat and power Zion might well have been so well-made, either by the men of the Time Before or by the machines, that they're both self-sustaining and practically without need of repair, such that founding Zion on top of them is no different in economic terms from settling next to a river. Now, a couple weird problems stick out to me about your post and I'm going to point out two. One: quote:"So we need nature and it needs us?" Obviously not, Neo. Nature does not need humanity. The relationship is entirely one-sided. Remember when you quoted that exact same line to me earlier in this thread in order to make the same argument, i.e. that the machines do not need humans? Remember when I then pointed out to you that it was being shouted by A) an angry baby and B) immediately reversed by that baby's actions, which proved that the machines did in fact need Neo, such that there was, in fact, negotiation with the machines? Another: quote:Likewise, with Ferrinus, we have the claim that humans are actually graphics cards converting food energy to information. But this is making a concrete claim about computing: that the operation of a reactor is something you can 'brute force' with sheer computing power, and that human brains can provide this. With 6 billion people, using their whole brains, we're talking something like 36 billion petaflops*... to do what, exactly? If you do away with the whole 'fusion reactor' thing and just conclude that it's literally Bitcoin mining, then you have basic questions like why the Big Robot Head would even need a "decentralized" currency. Okay, so humans are beings are being used to control a fusion reaction... as is explicitly told to us in the movies. But wouldn't that be weird? What if, instead, we were to do away with the whole 'fusion reactor' thing? Well then this would be pretty dumb, right? It'd be about Bitcoin or something. Unfortunately, the movies actually are about the use of humans to generate energy. You can either note the obvious socio-economic valence of human life-force being the irreplaceable X-factor that allows the machines who've entrapped us to stay alive... or you can just consciously enjoy more and more of the plot in order to, I don't even know, actually. Even Zizek acknowledges that the presence of humans in the future depicted in the Matrix makes sense as part of a depiction of capitalism! I don't get why you're so insistent on making these stories about all the characters' bad thoughts and stupid brains, like the machines are keeping people quarantined in VR because they're so scared of the humans' nasty capitalist ideas but actually the machines themselves don't have any choice because they aren't even people but Sorcerer's Apprentice brooms. It's weird.
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Jan 31, 2022 03:43
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Trollologist posted:I'm not saying the laws of physics don't apply, merely that in science fiction the analogy for human society is masked with what is essentially magic described as technology to allow the analogy to function. Star Trek, a series that is ostensibly about testing utopian ideals in fringe cases against competing ideas doesn't have to answer questions like: How are Phasers Powered? What is Dilithium and where does it come from? How does the warp drive....function? can you botch a transporter and end up with 2 copies of the same person? What's loving going on in the holodeck? We eschew these concerns to explore the greater ideals at play. "Next Generation" Star Trek's eschewing of concerns around labour and production in order to 'explore greater ideals' is how it masks its ideology. Star Trek's Federation is a capitalist prosumer economy, backed up by some curious theocratic elements. Episodes tend to touch on such issues as the extreme segregation and slavery within Federation borders. There is overt discrimination against ‘prewarp’ noncitizens, holo-replicants, clones, the genetically enhanced, time travellers, LGBT+ people, most robots, people with “non-severe” disabilities.... Dilithium crystals and other minerals are supplied by mining corporations, like Dytalix. Mining is still necessary in the future because "replicators" are immensely wasteful luxuries. Critique of a sci-fi story doesn't entail approaching it as a simulation, but it absolutely does involve asking how things work.
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Jan 31, 2022 03:44
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Trollologist posted:I'm not saying the laws of physics don't apply, merely that in science fiction the analogy for human society is masked with what is essentially magic described as technology to allow the analogy to function. Star Trek, a series that is ostensibly about testing utopian ideals in fringe cases against competing ideas doesn't have to answer questions like: How are Phasers Powered? What is Dilithium and where does it come from? How does the warp drive....function? can you botch a transporter and end up with 2 copies of the same person? What's loving going on in the holodeck? We eschew these concerns to explore the greater ideals at play. Ironically enough, Star Trek would inevitably answer most if not all those questions over the various series.
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Jan 31, 2022 11:00
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Alchenar posted:I think those shots also really draw out how the 'return to the Matrix' action sequences are a tier below the earlier sequences. Everything visually interesting is happening in the first half. That's a good point - when I think back to the movie I think "there was some pretty cool action in it even though it gets a bad rap" but it's all in reference to those earlier scenes. I did quite like the Smith/Neo fight. It's just a shame that, whether it be due to Covid scheduling/filming conditions or otherwise, the climactic parts were the ones that suffered most.
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Feb 1, 2022 13:37
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PTizzle posted:That's a good point - when I think back to the movie I think "there was some pretty cool action in it even though it gets a bad rap" but it's all in reference to those earlier scenes. I did quite like the Smith/Neo fight. It's just a shame that, whether it be due to Covid scheduling/filming conditions or otherwise, the climactic parts were the ones that suffered most. Action sequences are storyboarded, scripted, practiced and perfected. Covid would not have stopped any of that because it’s done before the camera has film in it. Lana just had everyone show up and ‘wing it’. Covid does not make bad movies, checked out directors do.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:25
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Ferrinus posted:Okay, so humans are beings are being used to control a fusion reaction... as is explicitly told to us in the movies. Explicitly? Like, there's a line of dialogue or something? Because I don't recall this. Can you refresh my memory?
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Feb 1, 2022 22:47
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Ferrinus posted:Remember when you quoted that exact same line to me earlier in this thread in order to make the same argument, i.e. that the machines do not need humans? Remember when I then pointed out to you that it was being shouted by A) an angry baby and B) immediately reversed by that baby's actions, which proved that the machines did in fact need Neo, such that there was, in fact, negotiation with the machines? This is getting things mixed up again, because we're not examining whether the Robot Head needs things, but what the Robot Head specifically needs. We're both shown and told that he does not need the billions of humans, but that he does need protection from Smith. Given that Smith effectively 'is' the billions of humans at the end of Matrix 3, we can simplify this further: the Robot Head needs to kill Smith and is willing to kill all humans in the process of accomplishing that goal. Neo is able to negotiate for 'peace' because the Robot Head is afraid that killing all humans won't be enough to stop Smith. He wants to increase his chances of survival - but killing all humans remains the backup plan if Neo fails. To be clear, this is specifically the deal: "The longer Smith is alive, the greater the risk to you. I will go to kill Smith for you and, if I succeed, you'll spare Zion. If I fail, you lose nothing." This is a totally sensible arrangement for both Neo and the Robot Head, but there is absolutely nothing in this deal about protecting the matrix and its inhabitants. The peace-pact is between Machine City and Zion, and the fact that the billions of matrix-dwellers survived at the end is effectively a happy accident. So: Oracle: What about the others? Architect: What others? Oracle: The ones that want out. Architect: Obviously, they will be freed. The point of this dialogue is that nobody expected the matrix to survive, so they are now confronted with the question of how this truce applies to these billion extra people. Architect's solution is simply to consider "the ones who want out" as de facto citizens of Zion. (This is a little under 1% of the matrix population, or around 60 million people.) The rest remain under the domain of the machines. This is why a close reading of the text is important. There's a huge difference between "needing six billion humans in a matrix" and "needing Neo to kill Smith". It's why I've been emphasizing that you need a clearer picture of the machine economy, the machine society, and even just the basic species-being of the machines. It's not enough to repeat "energy = life force" or just bluntly asserting that the species is capital itself. It may be helpful to look at a different series. So, in X-Men, whatshisname Cyclops is able to expel pure kinetic energy from his face whenever he feels like. So, you can then say "ah, that is a representation of wage labour". Like, ok, you mean how much Cyclops is being paid by Charles Xavier to work for his 'school'? That's something we could totally look into.... But, no, you're insisting that the part where the character is paid to work doesn't count as wage labour, and the actual wage labour is when Cyclops gets attacked by a tiger. Y'see, Cyclops fires his kinetic energy beam at the tiger and the tiger's body, when struck, absorbs that life-force. The tiger is therefore capital, set in motion by the capitalist (i.e. God), and the whole Cyclops/Tiger/God relationship is a representation of capitalist society. To this, I'm asking questions like, "how does God profit from the tiger being shot? What precisely is he obtaining? Does God believe that the value of the tiger's corpse increases as more energy is blasted into it? Is planning on selling the dead tiger to another God?", and so-forth. And you're like "look, it's very simple: 'the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles'" - a technically factual statement that doesn't really address these concerns at all. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 22:57
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Sir Kodiak posted:Explicitly? Like, there's a line of dialogue or something? Because I don't recall this. Can you refresh my memory? From Morpheus: The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need
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Feb 1, 2022 23:17
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there's nothing there about humans controlling a fusion reaction
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Feb 2, 2022 00:22
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Agreed that it doesn’t explicitly say humans are used to control fusion. Currently fusion reactions both need initial start up energy and then energy to maintain the magnetic fields to contain reaction. So humans could be used to power such magnetic fields perhaps. But yeah the movies really don’t talk about fusion or power generation. It’s just established as a way to talk about forms of control and relationship between humans and machines. If humans are just put in a simulation that machines need for entertainment then the movies really don’t change beyond a few lines. Or could say humans are being used to find solution to some super computer virus infecting machine city. Either way, humans are grown and imprisoned for machines needs.
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Feb 2, 2022 02:41
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