• Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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    15 days ago

    You couldn’t make The Matrix because no one would believe human batteries would be happy and content living in a simulation of 2024 (also no telephone booths)

    Rewatch the movie. Smith says, slightly paraphrasing, “We tried to make the Matrix a paradise, where none would suffer, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. Many wouldn’t accept the programming, entire crops were lost.”

    So they simulated life as it was, complete with shitty apartments and asshole bosses.

    • fireweed@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      He also talks about how they chose 1999 very intentionally for the simulation, as it was the peak of human civilization before the era of the machine. But nowadays instead feels like we’re already entering the era of the machine: we spend most of our time on devices and are surrounded by surveillance and now AI is entering the mix. Plus the 2020s also has featured a variety of other dystopian features like pandemic, inflation, extreme inequity, growing monopolies, the rise of fascism, and a very real chance of WWIII from multiple directions among them.

      You have to remember 1999 was in fact an exceptionally peaceful and optimistic time in western society (at least in the US, which is where the film focuses on), but the year still had its “everyday woes,” making it the setting with a perfect balance between an ideal life and a crappy one. 2024 is way too far in the crappy direction.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      15 days ago

      Yeah, but 2024 sucks way too much for the premise that it’s as good as the human brain will accept.