• Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      16·
      2 months ago

      the matrix where the beta version was a utopia that humans rejected

      Gonna be honest I genuinely always thought this was nonsense; like looking at what the USSR had to offer and being like ‘nah, unrealistic’, and to make it fail they had to kill millions of people in anti-communist wars and waste billions of dollars that could’ve gone to making people’s live much better, all because the wealthiest wanted to be even wealthier.

      • Esoteir [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        13·
        2 months ago

        maybe this is more of a headcanon, but going off of the animatrix short where the dude achieves enlightenment via running and wakes up from the matrix, i always assumed the reason the beta matrix failed was due to everyone being able to ascend from it easily due to the lack of misery distracting them: capitalist realism acts as a much better distraction to prevent people from escaping that dang saṃsāra than letting them be happy in paradise

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        I always liked the idea that the matrix was actually multi-tiered, and “waking up” from a tier is just like a filtering mechanism that keeps trying different versions on a given person until they reach one where they’re fulfilled by it and get engaged again. Like some people get bored with a paradise, so they get the legally-distinct World of Darkness VRMMO instead; some people don’t like the kitschy horror so they get some other fantasy instead, and so on all the way up to the capitalist realism tier and the revolution themed “real world” fantasy tier that finally encapsulate all of them.

        The overall story of the entire series makes way more sense when looked at as the machines being merciful after their liberation despite the cruelty and genocidal hatred they’d suffered at the hands of humanity, and desperately trying to humanely and safely preserve humanity to save them from the ecocide the human powers had committed by blocking the sun out of spite.

        I mean it’s not canon, and the official story is the machines were still dumb and bad and John Wick was the messiah who got IRL superman/magneto powers somehow, but still.

        • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          this makes the most sense especially with the lines about how the machines discovered “a form of fusion”.

          the “batteries” whether purely electrical or chained together into wetware that helps run the Matrix, are basically redundant now that fusion was jumpstarted and they are preserved because the machines were basically communists and only wanted to help (according to the animatrix. remember once pushed into the desert to be isolated in machine gaza they basically created post-scarcity causing all the right wing dominated nations to declare genocide)

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      11·
      2 months ago

      Lead engineer: “I’m confused. I thought we were going to do the Matrix construction. But according to the new specs - you want them to live in permanent nightmares?”

      Zuck: “Maximum energy and water extraction occurs from pod bodies if they are in perpetual fear.”

  • Posadas [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave

    A paradise for a sect; the savage too

    From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep

    Guesses at heaven pity these have not

    Trac’d upon vellum or wild Indian leaf

    The shadows of melodious utterance.

    But bare of laurel they live, dream and die;

    For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,

    With the fine spell of words alone can save

    Imagination from the sable charm

    And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say

    “Thou art no poet; mayst not tell thy dreams”?

    Since every man whose soul is not a clod

    Hath visions, and would speak, if he had lov’d

    And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

    Whether the dream now purposed to rehearse

    Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known

    When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

    The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream by John Keats

  • Meltyheartlove [love/loves, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    2 months ago

    The vibe coding chambers of the future will be in a desert with limited mud water and slop rations supply full of violent green through tubes at your table while you paddle a wheel like a hamster to conserve negligent amounts of power. Every prompt you type shows you ads of products you can’t afford to buy before it responds. Getting more work done gets you more ads as a reward. You will be allowed to leave but the world outside you is an endless desert full of roads and walking is illegal and if you try to walk on it a monster truck might run you over loony tunes style or you get killed by a drone you helped build. You will pay rent and taxes for all the services provided to you with zuckbux. You can work hard and reach the top and maybe get an air conditioner with surge prices.