Not Again. Yes, The Matrix Rant!

Let's overlook my long standing opinion that the Wachowski Brothers borrowed heavily from E.M. Forster's 1909 short story, The Machine Stops when they crafted The Matrix. Today I am taking issue with a scene in The Matrix where Agent Smith is explaining to Neo how the Matrix came to be. I know you remember this scene, it where Smith tells Neo that the original construct of the Matrix was modeled after a utopian world but the humans kept rejecting the program because of their inherently violent nature. As a result, the Matrix was modeled after society of the late 20th century.

The first thing I have to question about this scene is the fact that in the movie, humans are grown and plugged into the Matrix directly after birth. They have no memories of anything prior to becoming fleshy D Cells so why would they care whether or not their artificial reality is utopian or violent when they have nothing to compare it to?

And my major point of contention is this. Even if the humans needed a more violent setting in which to exist why did the machines choose a more technologically advanced setting such as the late 20th Century where they would be exposed to computers, advanced weapons and other technology. Wouldn't it have made more sense for the machines to craft an artificial reality set back in a pre-industrial setting? That way even if Morpheus and his band of merry hackers went around unplugging humans from the Matrix, these people would have no concept of what was or what had happened in the real world.

It would be far more difficult to convince a human who had thought he was living in the 12th century for example to rise up against the machines. They'd have no concept of this kind of technology and it would be much more difficult for Morpheus and the others to train these people to plug back into the Matrix to fight against the machines.

So now you know.


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