Film/TV Jul 29, 2015 at 4:00 am

Eerie Parallels Between Capital and Sentinel in the Real Desert of the Real

Your resistance is all part of the plan.

Comments

1
It makes sense in the sense that only certain types of "controlled" rebellion seem to be allowed in this dialectic, in the same way that conflict between two football teams is allowed so long as they both play by the same rules, which are somewhat ceremonial and rarely result in changes in the balance of power.

Kayaker can block bridges with colorful ropes. Drilling ships can stand mute in bays to taunt them. Both sides generate lots of web posts. But in the end, we all know that the situation will continue as normal. Society doesn't want the rebellion to end, as you write. But the rebels often don't want society to change much either because then their JAHBS would also disappear.

As in the case of so much of society today, these battles are wages as spectator sports, by groups paid to participate. Those hoping for a solution, an outcome, a change of any sort, are sure to be disappointed, or ignored.
2
Beautiful. I've been wondering for quite awhile what the end game is going to look like, since what we have now isn't even capitalism: It's a corrupt, predatory wealth transfer scheme run amok. Once all the jobs have been replaced by robots and AI, and the 1% have reduced us all to mass poverty, there won't be any consumers remaining to buy the products of capitalism, thus no reason for the robots and AI and capitalism itself to exist.
3
Just a couple of notes:
0.) Dead humans are generally a terrible food-source for live humans.
1.) Even if it were a great source, the system as described is doomed because of inefficiencies in metabolism and reclamation.
2.) Humans are terrible sources of electrical power; given how hard it would be to go from 0.) to 1.), energy inputs likely to swamp any gains would be needed.
2.a.) It would have been a lot better if the humans were needed for their brains' processing power; this would make the whole thing an even better metaphor, as the root of the problem always boils down to 'us' (well, 'us and physics', pretty often).
3.) In the U.S., "The Matrix" is a trope on the Right, I think for the false reality in which people are made to believe so that they don't recognise their domination by Mud People, the Space Masons, and Mystery Babylon.

Of course, Morpheus is an oppressed person the machines have tried to keep ignorant, so why shouldn't he accept the first reasonable-sounding explanation he ever heard? (Yet another reason http://www.spectacle.org/0802/hogan.html .)
4
@3, not to mention the last free humans made a point of blocking the only ACTUAL REAL source of energy on our planet: the Sun. So, yeah, thermodynamically, the plan would have made no sense, since a human body consumes more energy than it can generate and they had carefully blackened the skies, so no (food) plants would grow, nor (food) animals that eat the plants. Also, the "battery" of millions of human bodies would still probably be very low wattage, certainly not something you could base a civilization on, or even a super-computer that simulated a civilization. The whole plan would have fallen apart after one generation. Hey, I loved the Matrix movies, but I was deeply annoyed by the careless science. Also, while I do agree that restlessness is generally a good quality in humans, the matrix did not make that point for me. Or maybe I'm not remembering it well: did their mental activity make them better sources of energy? Please someone remind me of how that worked. I do know that without the newfangled camera arrangements and massive new (at that time) computing power to synchronize the cameras down to the millesecond, the Matrix would have looked like any other dystopian scifi futurescape.

I very much agree with this, "the only hope lies in disturbance and disruption of capital's drive toward total dominance." If the 1% would look past their selfish asses they would realize that we are all connected economically and that (for example) government regulations that protect and sustain us consumers also protects our buying power.
5
@3, also, sorry for repeating some of your points. You made them well.
6
@2 thank you !!! i'm happy to meet someone who is still able to think !!!!
@3 well actually we kind of drink humans... "purified water" is just our sewage/waste converted into transparent liquid. What's wrong with purified water ? well what's wrong with the way we treated our natural water... why isn't it available anymore...
8
This makes my head hurt...

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