the agent's argument in the matrix
the agent's argument in the matrix
He said to Neo that humans are like a virus, breeding and infecting the world with our "stick" and general disgustingness.
I look around the world, at the state of society, the environment, international conflict and the enshitification of humanity - I've gone through my life blindly accepting that life for life's sake is beautiful, and worth it.
But as I see the state of it all, our perpetual need to destroy each other over ideas and resources, I struggle to come to grips with it. Societies around the world are facing population shrinkage... Do they all know something I don't?
Is human life beautiful, and objectively worth perpetuating? Or are we a blight? Why should we be?
Looking at global statistics the world is getting better. Not in global warming. But violence, freedom, wars, health. It's hard to see because nobody talks about it. It's easy to get stuck doom scrolling. But it's not the whole picture. We as a global society agree slavery is bad. That is a pretty new concept in the history of our species. We went from the first powered flight to space in 50 years. That is insanity. Yes, there are lots of fucked up things we caused, but ultimately I believe in our ability to figure it out eventually. Everything we do and have done, is natural. We are a product of evolution just like every other living thing on this planet.
I think our world is amazing, and that includes humanity.
51To add to this population decline is just something that happens when people are in developed countries after they industrialize. when you don't need to farm as much and can have time to do some leisure and entertain yourself and frankly after wormen get more rights and are not seen as properly. population levels out naturally but can decline faster when people are not given the means to support themselves children become a burden rather than the gift they should be. You put unions back to +60% like they were in the 50s and you will see a mini boom of children.
Also the world is wonderful. Most people are good even if some are misguided by fear and impulse. It was just a few dicks that ruined it knowingly for the rest of us everything else. we could have solved if we had more time.
If you want to pull back the curtain read up on the National Association of Manufacturers and a man called James W. Fifield Jr. More than half of our problems were caused by those men and the other by Henry Kissinger's short sightness.
16Leisure. Just in case you didn’t know.
-1
Smith's argument conflates humanity and society as being the same thing, because as a machine he has no concept of individuality - to him, humans as a single unit blighted the planet, and therefore are a plague, because he can't conceive of the idea of free will.
Things can be fucked up on a macro level, with war and selfishness and greed and destruction, while still being comprised on a micro level of essentially good, unique, interesting people who care for each other. Smith doesn't see this, because in his eyes humans are all the same - just like him. He is arguing against his own existence
37This perspective is really interesting to me
I have admit,I tend to agree. I make comments like "individual people are smart, but people at large.. they're idiots" it's the way I can rationalize how we're facing a rematch of Biden v Trump in the US the year.. And other things that defy reason
But in weighing the positives and the negatives of the totality of our impact - how many good small acts does it take to overcome a Khmer Rouge? What about when those loving families are torn apart by religion, patriotism, morality etc and the angels fight? Conflict, like death and taxes, seems undeniable - maturity, much less so
6how many good small acts does it take to overcome a Khmer Rouge?
Ok, take the counter argument then - if I am an average person in, say, Russia right now, how much personal risk am I morally obliged to take in order to fight against the Russian state and the war in Ukraine? Stacking up the abstract evil being done elsewhere against the very concrete reality of my own mortality, if the angels are fighting and nothing I can do can have any real impact, then what good is it me getting in the middle of it?
I've kinda stretched this beyond the absurd, and tbh I do think that individuals have some responsibility to not stand idly by and watch evil happen.
To actually address your original question, I don't think Smith's characterisation of humans as a virus is terribly apt - viruses are mindless, selfish and greedy; they arrive in an area and consume and consume until there is nothing left, even if it kills them. Humans behave like this some times, but they are also capable of peace and cooperation and can learn - the fact that you have access to the internet using equipment and systems that took the collective efforts of hundreds of millions of people working across centuries, the fact that you didn't die of smallpox or TB as a child, and the fact that on average you as less likely to die violently than you ever have been in history proves this.
6
while still being comprised on a micro level of essentially good, unique, interesting people who care for each other.
So as long as you find someone decent you close your eyes to the rest of the bullshit that is happening? I don't think that's a good enough reason to be honest.
4
The older I get the more I agree with Agent Smith.
28We're both. We're capable of great beauty (art and incredible scientific achievements) and terrible harms (I don't need to give examples). You're probably awesome. Some others are complete shit. Try to focus on the good and know that the bad exists. Do what you can to make the world a better place.
15He said that, and then went on to replicate himself out of control; just like a virus.
15I'm his defense it was after neo infected him so he has a point.
15he doesn't have an objective point, he's just expressing the limitations of his own understanding.. he's a good model for a fascist that way.. he assumes that his understanding is universal and should be applied to everyone..
1
We're just animals. We have so much ego we pull ourselves out of the animal basket
Dinosaurs were animals, ruled longer than us. Sharks even longer. We're not that special.
12There isn't any evidence that any previous "rulers" of the Earth also took entire ecosystems down wity tyem when they died out.
Humans are special. We're likely the first to be the cause of our own extinction, probably the first to destroy most of the other higher life forms in the bargain, and almost certaimly the first to make certain no life form following us has a chance to rise above the stone age, due to our exhaustion of easily accessible minerals and energy-dense resources.
We'll be the first to murder ourselves, everyone else, and stifle any advanced society in the future! That's pretty darned special, if you asked me.
3Actually not true.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
There is no reason to think we prevented any life ahead of us from anything. Radiation from us will even one day fade.
3Not the first. The cyanobacteria that first figured out photosynthesis put so much oxygen into the atmosphere so fast that it cause mass extinction of much of the anaerobic life (and most things were anaerobic life back then). They also caused a literal rust belt (since many metals up to that point were now able to be oxidized en masse), and that rust layer can be seen in really old rocks ("banded iron formation").
3Agree completely on a planetary scale. The chances are that we are very ordinary on a galactic scale, and that millions of other lifeforms on millions of other planets have risen to roughly this level of sophistication, and thereby become too powerful for their overwhelming stupidity, and died.
See: the Copernican Principle, the Great Filter, and Dissipation-driven Adaptation (in ascending order of how much time you've got)2
Exactly, it's still a somewhat survival of the fittest world, especially politics. Certain psychopaths get in as they have the skill to take down their opponents at whatever the costs.
Then these people with their morals and ethics have the power to make global decisions.
1
Trees also spread all over the planet and changed the atmosphere. Were just returning the favour.
8Early life pumped the atmosphere full of toxic oxigen, changing its composition forever and making it super toxic for itself, leading to a mass extinction. We're not even original with the way we're fucking up the planet.
6
Good humans suffer from the evil of others because they're too forgiving. That's tragic, but not damning.
8Smith was right
8Great, but why are you convinced?
3We have driven 70% of all species to extinction since we evolved. 150 different species everyday permanently deleted.
What organism is worth that cost?
2
I find my perspective changing a bit as I age. As a species I still think we are a net negative, at the very least since industrialisation started. But no cog in the wheel individual holds responsibility for the species. The big decision makers, the big polluters, yes that's different. And I think it's our duty to hold them accountable as much as we can. Obviously the system is stacked against accountability. Difficult position to be in and no easy answers.
On an individual level tho there are also a LOT of humans who do a lot of good. Collecting plastic, renaturalising wilderness, combating the various poverty related issues, improving medical procedures, advocating for human rights, inventing new ways to connect and learn... There's a very long list.
For myself, I'm chronically ill. I can do some limited waste reduction, attempt as ethical a consumption as possible and love my rescue cat. I don't have the energy for much more. But I've found it helps to follow people and focus on projects that do good rather than what can't be helped. If you have the ability and capacity to volunteer or donate all the better. Holding yourself accountable and living the best life you can life is really all you have control over after all.
6his argument is never very good.. viruses are incomplete beings in every sense we care about.. the human being shares almost nothing in common with them conceptually.. we cooperate and care about each other in ways that are obviously not virus-like.. even when we fight, it's much more interesting than virus combat..
6There's no reason why we should be, we just are. Like everything else.
5humans are only species that is trying to use birth control to midigate the issues. Only wanted children should ever be born. GOP are the blight trying to cause mass growth for no end. Societies shrinking is not a problem as automation will replace the humans doing the menial work like it has for last hundred years. No need to replace manpower that is not needed longterm. We are just getting to our proper steady state to be more balanced. Any pack animal will wage war over resources. Look at ants, those things even farm and enslave.
5“Objective worth” is a bit of an oxymoron, because worth is up to your value judgment.
If you’re questioning the “evolutionary imperative” that organisms want to pass on genes - one fairly human trait is that a lot of us can consciously diverge from that instinct, either fulfilling that need by passing on our legacies socially rather than genetically, or just not looking to pass anything on at all.
Something we have in common with other mammals is we prioritize whatever experience is in front of us. Anyone who’s directly affected by catastrophes and strife will have different beliefs than people who aren’t.
So if objective worth has no neat answer, what’s left?
I’d say it’s interesting to have so many different subjective experiences in one world, with a language-based society able to communicate and share many more varied experiences than most animals. Interesting isn’t inherently good or bad, but if nothing was good nor bad then nothing would be interesting.
So yea. Human life is entertaining. We’ve got that going for us!
P.S. If you’ve ever lived in a city whose infrastructure is strained by overpopulation, you don’t necessarily view declining/shifting populations as a bad thing.
5This is true only if you look at the news and look at it from an anthropocentric point of view. Humans being horrible for the environment doesn't mean we can actually erase all life on Earth, it means we can change it enough that it will no longer support US, but life continues at its own rhythm, we are oarr of that rhythm, not separate from it.
Same with things like aggression. Aggression is the base behavior for carnivorous animals, but it is not for humans. One of the ways I'm which we mark the age of humanity is by looking at the oldest remains of a human which a healed leg fracture, a human that could could not contribute to their band and only could have survived with the help of other humans, compassion for unrelated others is a himan-only trait.
Are agent's Smith's words true? Yes, but incomplete, he is taking a few humans to characterize us all, but there is more to humanity than its animal behavior. This is what the movies are about.
4it means we can change it enough that it will no longer support US, but life continues at its own rhythm, we are oarr of that rhythm, not separate from it
We are not the first instance of life forever changing the environment to the point of mass extinction. When early cyanobacteria figured out photosynthesis, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere they produced as waste killed off massive numbers of other species for which oxygen was toxic.
However, we are the first instance of life capable of understanding our place in the ecosystem enough to do something about how we as a species affect the biosphere and the pressure we are putting not just on other life forms but on ourselves as well. We are not mindless cyanobacteria pooping out oxygen to the detriment of all others; we can and MUST do better.
A huge part of that is understanding exactly what you pointed out: we are part of the ecosystem, not separate from it. I just wish someone could get the mega-wealthy and fossil fuel CEOs and politicians to understand it. There is no safety for them; their money and power will not save them.
4
@cmeu there's a book you might like called The World Without Us that you might find helpful.
It's a thought experiment written by a journalist about what exactly would happen to everything in the world if humans disappear tomorrow.
3I think there was a documentary (or several) about this too. It looked interesting, but I never got to watch it in the end.
2@resketreke good to know, will keep an eye out for it.
1Miniseries on Discovery called Life After Humans
1
We're worth it.
The universe is a dazzling beautiful place and we exist to observe it. We should definitely focus on living in a more compatible manner but even in our current shitty state we're a net positive.
3I agree that existence is truly a wonder.
Yet I don't see how everything else being great around us means we're so great for just seeing it all.. I'd ask, a net positive to what group? Our own, of course, because we procreate. But.. at what cost? Does the cow share your zeal for humanity, you know
Is the point of existence merely for wonders to be observed?
10All meaning is constructed meaning, and, to quote Shakespeare, “there’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
We decide, collectively, and as individuals, what is positive and what is negative. We invent for ourselves, whole cloth or adopting from our elders, meaning in life, the universe, and everything.
That doesn’t mean they are without worth. The world is altered daily through the things people imagine. Money is an invention, its value existing in the collective imaginations of those who use it. Maps are not the lands they represent, but their cartography influences where people live, work, and travel. Numbers and maths are inventions— languages invented to describe the universe and its movings, but the universe moves without needing to know them…
… nevertheless, with those invented languages we orbit distant planets with artificial satellites, and create the wonderful bit of nonsense that allows us to communicate here.
We choose to find meaning in the world, and then we choose the meaning we find there. Ultimately everything else can be winnowed away, but that. I believe we have value because I choose to believe we have value, and I weigh the good of the world with the bad because I actively choose to continue to see both. It isn’t easy all the time, and it doesn’t have to be one way or the other. But it’s what I want for the world, and what I want for me.
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All of life does that same thing, we are just more powerful than most species. We are also more responsible and restrained than most species. If you think life is a good thing, well, that's what life does.
And none of that is a excuse for us to not improve, of course. With great power, and etc.
2Do you think it's inherently human nature to be this way or do you think there are other ways for humans to be? Maybe you're conflating human nature with something else, like capitalism.
2I don't know what human nature truly is, or if there can be a singular definition.
However, judging by the historical record, we seem to be quite good at exploiting things and beings for our own benefit at their expense, which doesn't really make a compelling case for worthiness
2Worthiness begs the question of a judge of worthiness. The Agents may not have liked us as part of a balanced ecology, but they found us worthy batteries, for example. But they're made up, as I'd argue most other external judges or values are. Even if a human is making that judgement, worthy of what and why? More worth than X? To who? Why is their judgement worthy?
It's a big can of worms and the deeper you go, the less clear it's going to be. Maybe focus on a smaller bite for now.
4
Whom created capitalism, or any economic strategy?
1Who. For nominative case, it's who.
I'm not sure what your point is, though. Are you suggesting that humans are destined to capitalism, in which case there is no choice and you can't really put a moral judgement on it anymore than you can salt crystallizing. Or do you mean humans end up choosing capitalism, in which case can't they choose something else and it's not human nature after all?
6
Not really understanding your question. A virus isn't alive. Life does not instinctively seek balance, it always act selfishly. Of all the life forms that have existed on this world only one got the idea that some moderation is called for.
1Again with this defeatist attitude huh.
0Have you taken your meds today?
-1Capitalism is the virus, not humanity as a whole (yes, some humans created capitalism, but significantly more people suffer under it than benefit from, or have any control over it)
https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145-2How many megafauna did we hunt to extinction long before written language, let alone capitalism?
2