Men In Matrix
Aug. 16th, 2017 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastSetting: Waterfront park in New York. The bench faces the ocean.
Camera focuses on the profile of a distinguished, older man, wearing black suit and tie, speaks.
Agent K:Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one, either. They're happy, they think they have a... good bead on things.
The other person from off camera.: Why the secrecy? People can be smart, certainly enough to adapt to a new normal.
Agent K: A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat.
Other person: That is a modern myth. The size and shape of the earth had been mathematically verified thousands of years prior.
Agent K: And, fifteen minutes ago, you knew that people were alone on this planet.
Other person: Similar level of inaccuracy.
Agent K: Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
Wot leans forward, from behind Agent K's profile: You do realize your entire speech, there, was an argument for letting people know. Even though it was inaccurate.
Agent K: What are you talking about?
Wot: I'm talking about people adapting to new information that alters how they view the world. The Ancient Egyptians weren't less happy when they found out that the world was round. When Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue, Europeans were ecstatic that there was this entire additional continent... the natives, perhaps less happy of the meeting.
Still Wot: I'm not saying it would be perfect. But, you'd have better law enforcement of the various aliens than you have right now. It would be, for instance, a lot more difficult for an alien to kill a man, wear his skin like a loose-fitting body-suit, and effectively pass as the same human if people knew there was a species of hyper-sized insect that, for reasons unknown, feels a kinship with earth insects that just, by evolutionary coincidence, kind of resemble it... sort of.
Agent K: This is New York. When the people of New York are aware of various people sharing the island with them, who simply have different skin colors and/or different cultural practices, they get scared and violent.
Wot: Arguably, they get violent and scared because that allows them to feel superior without having to admit that, even here, there's a lot of implicit bias at work. But, I'm not saying it would be perfect. And, in these big cities, it's harder for that kind of bigotry to last, when you meet up with the very people you believe wrong things about on a daily basis.
Agent K: Listen, I'm asking you to join an organization that defends humanity from the scum of the-
Wot: Not really.
Agent K: Do you know how many times the Men In Black save the world from utter annihilation?
Wot: Do you know how many people die because neither they nor the authorities have any idea of what's going on and are denied any option to respond accordingly?
Agent K: Do you want mass panic?
Wot: Okay, this movie is pre-9/11, but it's post bombings and Pearl Harbor. The people of Earth have dealt with, as per your little speech, learning new things that alter how they see the whole world, before. They've even dealt with horrific disasters before, without devolving into mass panic.
Wot: You are not so special a human being that your capacity to know this and not go insane is unique.
Agent K retrieves a silverish cylinder from his pocket.: Apparently, this was a mistake.
Wot snatches the neuralizer from his hand.: Oh, that reminds me of another issue. The frequent mind-rapes.
Agent K: Excuse me.
Wot: You, absent consent, effectively perform brain surgery on perfectly healthy people in order to take away parts of their very minds. If aliens were openly here, you wouldn't have to do that. Not to mention the comic books, in which these are the ways you force teenagers to commit suicide.
Wot drops the neuralizer and stomps on it, breaking the delicate machinery.
Agent K: What comic books?
Wot: Okay, maybe I should cut to the chase. Right now, you know that you are one of the special humans, capable of handling the knowledge of aliens in New York. What if, in just a few minutes, you learned that that was just a fantasy pulled over your eyes, a story of importance to make you want to stay here?
Agent K: I don't know.
Wot: I can make an educated guess. While it's not as unique as you seem to think, I think you really do have a capacity to adapt to new information. I think that, rather than waiting and hoping that a woman has been waiting for more than thirty years for you to appear out of nowhere
Agent K: Is this some kind of test? Trick?
Wot: Kind of a test, maybe sorta. But, no it isn't a trick... although, it does involve a level of solipsism that means that... you know what? We don't need that level of metaphysics right away. I'm offering you a different world, one where you can still be important if you want. But, also one where you don't have to.
Agent K: And, if I choose not to?
Wot: Well, I'm not going to neuralize you or anything like that. If you wake up tomorrow thinking this was all a dream, it will be because you tried, really hard, to believe it. The invitation will still be open.
Wot: In fact, the invitation to return, if you want, will also be open. But, I encourage you to consider this other world. You can be important if you want. You can dress like this if you want. Or, we can open up any number of other options... A Hawaiian shirt, for instance?
Wot holds out his hand.
Camera focuses on the profile of a distinguished, older man, wearing black suit and tie, speaks.
Agent K:Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one, either. They're happy, they think they have a... good bead on things.
The other person from off camera.: Why the secrecy? People can be smart, certainly enough to adapt to a new normal.
Agent K: A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat.
Other person: That is a modern myth. The size and shape of the earth had been mathematically verified thousands of years prior.
Agent K: And, fifteen minutes ago, you knew that people were alone on this planet.
Other person: Similar level of inaccuracy.
Agent K: Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
Wot leans forward, from behind Agent K's profile: You do realize your entire speech, there, was an argument for letting people know. Even though it was inaccurate.
Agent K: What are you talking about?
Wot: I'm talking about people adapting to new information that alters how they view the world. The Ancient Egyptians weren't less happy when they found out that the world was round. When Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue, Europeans were ecstatic that there was this entire additional continent... the natives, perhaps less happy of the meeting.
Still Wot: I'm not saying it would be perfect. But, you'd have better law enforcement of the various aliens than you have right now. It would be, for instance, a lot more difficult for an alien to kill a man, wear his skin like a loose-fitting body-suit, and effectively pass as the same human if people knew there was a species of hyper-sized insect that, for reasons unknown, feels a kinship with earth insects that just, by evolutionary coincidence, kind of resemble it... sort of.
Agent K: This is New York. When the people of New York are aware of various people sharing the island with them, who simply have different skin colors and/or different cultural practices, they get scared and violent.
Wot: Arguably, they get violent and scared because that allows them to feel superior without having to admit that, even here, there's a lot of implicit bias at work. But, I'm not saying it would be perfect. And, in these big cities, it's harder for that kind of bigotry to last, when you meet up with the very people you believe wrong things about on a daily basis.
Agent K: Listen, I'm asking you to join an organization that defends humanity from the scum of the-
Wot: Not really.
Agent K: Do you know how many times the Men In Black save the world from utter annihilation?
Wot: Do you know how many people die because neither they nor the authorities have any idea of what's going on and are denied any option to respond accordingly?
Agent K: Do you want mass panic?
Wot: Okay, this movie is pre-9/11, but it's post bombings and Pearl Harbor. The people of Earth have dealt with, as per your little speech, learning new things that alter how they see the whole world, before. They've even dealt with horrific disasters before, without devolving into mass panic.
Wot: You are not so special a human being that your capacity to know this and not go insane is unique.
Agent K retrieves a silverish cylinder from his pocket.: Apparently, this was a mistake.
Wot snatches the neuralizer from his hand.: Oh, that reminds me of another issue. The frequent mind-rapes.
Agent K: Excuse me.
Wot: You, absent consent, effectively perform brain surgery on perfectly healthy people in order to take away parts of their very minds. If aliens were openly here, you wouldn't have to do that. Not to mention the comic books, in which these are the ways you force teenagers to commit suicide.
Wot drops the neuralizer and stomps on it, breaking the delicate machinery.
Agent K: What comic books?
Wot: Okay, maybe I should cut to the chase. Right now, you know that you are one of the special humans, capable of handling the knowledge of aliens in New York. What if, in just a few minutes, you learned that that was just a fantasy pulled over your eyes, a story of importance to make you want to stay here?
Agent K: I don't know.
Wot: I can make an educated guess. While it's not as unique as you seem to think, I think you really do have a capacity to adapt to new information. I think that, rather than waiting and hoping that a woman has been waiting for more than thirty years for you to appear out of nowhere
Agent K: Is this some kind of test? Trick?
Wot: Kind of a test, maybe sorta. But, no it isn't a trick... although, it does involve a level of solipsism that means that... you know what? We don't need that level of metaphysics right away. I'm offering you a different world, one where you can still be important if you want. But, also one where you don't have to.
Agent K: And, if I choose not to?
Wot: Well, I'm not going to neuralize you or anything like that. If you wake up tomorrow thinking this was all a dream, it will be because you tried, really hard, to believe it. The invitation will still be open.
Wot: In fact, the invitation to return, if you want, will also be open. But, I encourage you to consider this other world. You can be important if you want. You can dress like this if you want. Or, we can open up any number of other options... A Hawaiian shirt, for instance?
Wot holds out his hand.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-04 01:30 am (UTC)In the original comic book that inspired the movie, I gather, the Men in Black are overtly villainous, with an agenda that doesn't really have the greater good of humanity at heart and a playbook that includes violence as a first resort and repeated blatantly inappropriate uses of the pocket mind control device. J's arc after getting recruited in the first issue involves realizing he's on the wrong side. What it says about the people involved that that turned into the movie we got...
no subject
Date: 2017-09-04 06:23 am (UTC)I don't know how they're sold as necessary, but there it is.
I saw a couple episodes of the cartoon which were... amusing enough. But, yeah... that... oh... I don't know if I want to watch that or not.
Seed of Bismuth
Date: 2019-10-05 07:18 am (UTC)So the men in black mostly fight the Satanic Panic, which was all true. Yes the MiB literal get away with killing goth teens because they are fighting literal Satanic Baby-eaters.
Re: Seed of Bismuth
Date: 2019-10-05 12:04 pm (UTC)No, I hadn't learned that. That... Why would the killing of goth teens be necessary for that?
I get how you get to justify anything by your enemy being bad enough, but still.