The Matrix

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:58 am Post subject: The Matrix

The following is an email conversation, in reverse chronological order

I, on the other hand, found all three Matrix movies fascinating. They have successfully introduced a new metaphor in to our culture... bule pill, red pill... which is a first rate accomplishment for any work of art. As far as suspending disbeleif? One almost always has to suspend disbeleif for movies, especially for any version of sci-fi. Of course I want any movie to be entertaining, because that's why I watch them in the first place, but the ones that make me think are the ones I consider superior. Whether I agree or disagree with their themes.

In the case of The Matrix, I'm not sure it really had a particular point of view to sell. It raised issues without offering solutions, and I think the story could be viewed on many different levels. One of Hollywoods most worthwhile accomplishments, in my opinion.

----------------------------------------------
If we cannot reconcile all opinions, let us endeavor to unite all hearts - Robert Owen

-----Original Message-----
From: Foxhole Atheist
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 6:47 PM
Subject: Re: [god Is A Myth v2.0] The Blue Pill People

I found the Matrix amusing. I didn't have much
choice but to view it as a comedy, since it
failed to suspend disbelief from the start.
Remember the scene where leet haxor dude Neo's
laptop is hijacked? What does he do? He stares
at it for a couple of seconds, presses the escape
key a couple of times and that's it. It's hardly
the response one would expect from anyone with
anything with half a clue about computers.

After that, it almost suceeded as a campy special
effects extravaganza.

OK, on to the article. It appears to be written
by a survivalist/militia type. Note the
reference to the income tax. Granted the
founding fathers didn't consider income tax as an
option, they funded the federal government with
import duties and tariffs.

Then there's a claim of a smallpox vaccine
composed of "mercury, monkey puss and aborted
fetal tissue". The author chose mercury to scare
the tree-hugging hippie environmentalists, and
the fetal tissue to scare fundies, but WTF is the
monkey puss for? Maybe it's just filler, like
most of the article.

Fox

--- Gigi Shared:

> The Blue Pill People
> by Hari Heath
>
> Dec - 2002 "Idaho Observer" -- There are none
> so blind as those who will not look. If you are
> one of those who will look, take a look around.
> You are surrounded -- surrounded by millions
> who will not look. These are the blue pill
> people. Who are these blue pill people and why
> won't they look?
>
> "The Matrix" may be only a movie, but it
> presents some scenarios with much relevance to
> our current situation. In the movie, Neo meets
> Morpheus and is offered an opportunity and a
> choice. Neo can take the red pill and see the
> truth for himself, or he can take the blue pill
> and return, comfortably unaware, to the
> illusion of the Matrix. There he can live out
> his life undisturbed by the truth. The truth
> depicted in The Matrix is an extreme version of
> modern socialism.
>
> In the futuristic scenario of the movie, a
> massive array of human beings are kept in
> self-contained pods that resemble artificial
> wombs. These "row-cropped" human entities are
> maintained in their pods, from their in vitro
> conception until they are no longer useful to
> the Artificial Intelligence (AI) entity. The AI
> entity needs certain things from these "humans"
> for its own sustenance, so it continuously
> breeds new human crops and extracts from them
> what it needs. In return, the AI entity
> supplies the humans' needs with several
> permanent intravenous connections and a neural
> link. The neural link provides the pod-bound
> humans with a complete illusion -- the Matrix.
> In the AI-created illusion the humans have a
> normal life in a real world. In reality,
> however, the civilized world was destroyed some
> time ago and humans have been harvested as
> crops for the benefit of the Al entity ever
> since. The Matrix is a complete digital
> holographic type "world" created by the AI
> entity to mentally contain its human crops
> while it extracts what it needs from their
> pod-bound bodies.
>
> In the movie, when Morpheus is about to offer
> Neo the choice between either the red pill or
> the blue pill, he explains:
>
> "You're here because you know something. What
> you know you can't explain -- but you feel it.
> You've felt it your entire life; that there's
> something wrong with the world; you don't know
> what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in
> your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling
> that has brought you to me. Do you know what
> I'm talking about?"
>
> "The Matrix," Neo asks?
>
> "Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is
> everywhere, it is all around us. Even in this
> very room. You can see it when you look out
> your window or when you turn on your
> television. You can feel it when you go to
> work, when you go to church, when you pay your
> taxes; it is the world that has been pulled
> over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
>
> And Neo asks, "What truth?"
>
> "That you are a slave Neo, like everyone else,
> you were born into bondage; born into a prison
> that you cannot smell or taste or touch; a
> prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can
> be told what the Matrix is. You have to
> experience it for yourself."
>
> Those few humans who were either born into
> reality, or have successfully taken the red
> pill, become the focus of the movie's story --
> their attempts to destroy the Matrix and
> liberate the mass of humanity that lives
> completely encapsulated in their pods and the
> illusions fed to them by the powers that be --
> powers that will go to any length to maintain
> the illusion.
>
> Extreme, but not much different than our modern
> system of corporate government and capitalistic
> socialism. The governing powers need things
> from us, not the least of which is our consent.
> To obtain our consent we are fed all manner of
> benefits. We are programmed from an early age
> to believe that such benefits are necessary. To
> obtain these benefits, a number of conduits are
> attached to each of us. Adhesion contracts like
> Social Security, a driver's license; voter
> registration for a pretended choice of social
> masters, bank accounts where credit is
> manufactured for our use and other memberships,
> registrations, licenses, deeds and permits to
> insure the conduct of our affairs will be
> confined within the "matrix" of corporate
> governance.
>
> We are given our own numbered "pod," a social
> net provided by the government. Educated
> according to mandates of the state, our belief
> system is further cultured by corporate media.
>
> There are various forms of "welfare" should we
> succumb to poverty or disease. If we are
> threatened or in danger we can call 911.
> Government's job of "securing" us is made
> easier by the massive database tracking our
> movements, our finances, the location of our
> homes and businesses and our tax records. When
> old age creeps up, we can rely on government to
> take care of us.
>
> The corporate/government/financial interface
> combines to create a massive illusion of
> benefits -- the American dream. For the price
> of a promise to indebt our future labors, pay
> our taxes and play within the system, there are
> seemingly limitless toys, castles, comforts and
> consumables for those who believe in this
> Matrix. For half our productivity taken in
> taxes (the other half in payments) and the
> deeds and title to whatever we think we own,
> government and its private affiliates will take
> care of us.
>
> To live in this Matrix, all we have to
> surrender is any genuine sense of independence,
> personal responsibility and our right to live
> freely and actually own the fruits of our
> labors.
>
> And, like in the movie, a contingent of agents
> are deployed to combat any renegade humans who
> have a will for freedom from the Matrix which
> surrounds us.
>
> As Morpheus expiained, "The Matrix is a system
> Neo, and that system is our enemy. When you are
> inside, you look around, what do you see?
> Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters, the
> very minds we are trying to save. Until we do,
> these people are part of that system and that
> makes them our enemies. You have to understand
> that most of these people are not ready to be
> unplugged and many are so hopelessly dependent
> on the system, they'll fight to protect it."
>
> Why will blue pill people fight to protect a
> Matrix that enslaves them? It's all they know.
> And all their toys, castles, comforts and
> consumables will be gone without the Matrix.
> Their whole illusionary existence will
> evaporate, leaving them naked and alone.
>
> What won't the blue pill people in our current
> "real" world look at? They refuse to
> acknowledge they are they are funding their
> enslavement to a socialist homeland police
> state. Last month, a few "red pill" people
> traveled to D.C. for an eloquent conclusion to
> Freedom Drive 2002, exposing the fraud of the
> l6th Amendment, the IRS, and the federal income
> tax. But the blue pill people remained
> comfortably in their coma, ever willing to pay
> a tax they do not owe. They fund Congress and
> the Nazi/moron president's implementation of
> America's new Third Reich, so they can feel
> "secure."
>
> And, so the blue pill people can finally
> understand what really happened the morning of
> September 11, 2001, Henry Kissinger, the angel
> of death and global tyranny, will investigate
> the facts and tell us the blue-pill truth. Will
> Americans really believe the Doctor of
> genocide?
>
> Hidden away on the 6th floor of the Department
> of Justice building is the secret FISA Court.
> U. S. attorneys have been going there for years
> to get secret search warrants from in-house,
> rubberstamp judges under the guise of "national
> security." This parallel "legal" system can
> order clandestine searches of citizens' and
> non-citizens' homes. From the "evidence"
> gathered, we can be secretly declared "enemy
> combatants" and held indefinitely at U. S.
> military bases.
>
> Remember the detainment camps those paranoid
> conspiracy theorists told you about years ago?
>
> U.S. officials claim they can detain and
> interrogate enemy combatants until the
> executive branch declares an end to the war on
> terrorism. This includes no access to lawyers
> or family members; investigations,
> interrogations, trials and punishments can be
> held without the protections secured by the
> Constitution. The Nazi/moron president's
> administration says there is ample precedent
> for what it is doing. Are we following the
> "ample precedent" of a man named Hitler?
>
> Meanwile, the Congress has passed the American
> Gestapo Authorization (Homeland Security) Act
> which defines a terrorist as:
>
> "The term "terrorism' means any activity that
> -- involves an act that is dangerous to human
> life or potentially destructive of critical
> infrastructure or key resources; and is a
> violation of the criminal laws of the United
> States or of any State or other subdivision of
> the United States; and appears to be intended
> to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
> to influence the policy of a government by
> intimidation or coercion; or to affect the
> conduct of a government by mass destruction,
> assassination, or kidnapping."
>
> As a test for social compliance, 838 blue
> pillers recently passed blissfully through an
> unconstitutional random roadblock in Pittsburgh
> without "seeing" the real "terrorists" in
> Homeland Security's new America -- the police
> state (See page 22). Is our present police
> state "dangerous to human life" and
> "destructive of critical infrastructure" like
> the Bill of Rights? Is it "against the laws"
> (18 USC 241; 242) to deprive a citizen of their
> right to travel and be secure in their persons,
> houses, papers and effects? Do random
> roadblocks, by design, "intimidate or coerce a
> civilian population?" What happens if you don't
> comply with the roadblock?
>
> The next test for blue pill compliance will be
> mass inoculations for smallpox. Will the blue
> pill population literally trample all over each
> other to get their shots as some officials
> predict? Has the vaccination "matrix" been so
> well entrenched in the blue pillers' minds that
> they will actually let mercury, monkey puss and
> aborted fetal tissue be injected under their
> skin based on an unproven theory that such
> things promote health and prevent disease?
>
> And what greater "matrix" is there, than our
> current "fiat;' financial system? We "believe"
> that a piece of paper with the picture of a
> dead president has the value of the number
> printed on it and that one dead president is
> more valuable than another. We don't even
> consider that the use of this dead president
> paper is the direct cause of our own
> enslavement.
>
> Have you ever seen your bank account? It's not
> there. Only the slight-of-hand practiced by the
> teller and the accountant behind the scenes
> makes this illusion look real to the blue pill
> people.
>
> How deep does the rabbit hole go? Near the end
> of the movie, the Matrix's agent Smith acclaims
> the virtues of the Matrix to the captive red
> pill people's leader Morpheus: "Have you ever
> stood and stared at it? Marveled at is beauty;
> its genius? Billions of people, just living out
> their lives -- oblivious."
>

If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Interbane · Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:39 pm Post subject: Re: The Matrix

That's a good laugh, and nothing more. Conspiracy theorists crack me up.

Doc: "In some way, it is a bit ironic that we must try to be more stupid to obtain salvation."

MA: "I can't think of a better way to convince a group of critical thinkers of the worthlessness of faith."

Doc Tiessen · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:29 am Post subject: Re: The Matrix

I must really say that Matrix is one of my favourite films. Despite all the action and overdosis of digital effects, it is the movie that has raised the deepest philosophical questions to the reality we are all confronted in our lives.

Alone the dialogues are fascinating... and the ideas that are behind, truely fascinating. I am a deep fan of the Matrix Trilogy. Besides "Luke, use the Force" of Star Wars, the story of Neo and the oracle has really imprinted my thinking. What is reality? What is free choice? How much determinism and how much free will do we have? How much power has that what we believe in? Is Neo only a random term that could not be accounted within the perfect mathematical formulas of the Architect? Is the love to Trinity the way to a superior being?

Diversity is Good!

capecodindependant · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 9:20 pm Post subject: Re: The Matrix

The second Matrix was horrible I thought

.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:10 am Post subject: Re: The Matrix

Needless to say the first one was unsurpassable.

I did not like the last one actually. They could have done so much better.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Timothy Schoonover · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:52 pm Post subject: Re: The Matrix

<fist in the air>

..i..


	FORUMS	ABOUT	BOOKS	VIDEOS	TRANSCRIPTS	LINKS	BLOGS	DONATE	CONTACT