Animatrix' "The Second Renaissance" pt. 2 question

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-02-02 03:47am

"Hey, guys, if we're letting these humans live out in a horrid squalid bunker, what stops them finding some uranium and putting a few kilotons in our face?"

"I know, we'll make them think it's useless."

"And how do we do that genius, we flip over onto our backs like dead beetles at the first hint of EMP."

"We rig it so that all their records of the Great War say that all nuking does is make us really upset."

"That's retarded."

"Seriously. I bet you two thousand 01$ that they'll fall for it."

"Alright, you're on sucker..." [...] "I don't believe it."

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-02-02 04:25am

When I first saw that movie I thought the whole premise for keeping humans in bubbles as energy sources was fucking stupid. I mean, If you have to feed these humans to have them transfer the energy into heat, why can't they invent some magical machine that converts chemical energy into heat/electricity, put all the food they would be feeding the humans in there and be done with it?

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2008-02-02 05:27am

Darth Wong wrote: Solar could be pretty cool if you could fabricate unlimited amounts of panels and had no problem running the distribution network for them all. Or if you put solar satellites up in space and beamed the power down, assuming you could do so safely (or thought the risk was acceptable).

Actually, solar power satellites would be very safe. Pretty much every design for an SPS calls for the ground stations to be several square kilometers in area, which would mean that aircraft and birds could fly through without any probems. In fact, some plans call for turning the ground underneath the receiving stations into grazing land for cattle herds.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-02-02 11:32am

Jadeite wrote:
Darth Wong wrote: Solar could be pretty cool if you could fabricate unlimited amounts of panels and had no problem running the distribution network for them all. Or if you put solar satellites up in space and beamed the power down, assuming you could do so safely (or thought the risk was acceptable).
Actually, solar power satellites would be very safe. Pretty much every design for an SPS calls for the ground stations to be several square kilometers in area, which would mean that aircraft and birds could fly through without any probems. In fact, some plans call for turning the ground underneath the receiving stations into grazing land for cattle herds.

And if anyone pisses you off, you can make one of the satellites pull and Icarus and blaze away at whatever rogue state dares defy your imperium.

What? Too neo-con?

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-02-02 12:19pm

Zablorg wrote:When I first saw that movie I thought the whole premise for keeping humans in bubbles as energy sources was fucking stupid. I mean, If you have to feed these humans to have them transfer the energy into heat, why can't they invent some magical machine that converts chemical energy into heat/electricity, put all the food they would be feeding the humans in there and be done with it?

It is fucking stupid. The problem is that the Wachowskis wanted the machines to be rewiring human brains for use in massively parallel-processing neural networks (which makes slightly more sense), but the studio wanted it dumbed down - so we got the ludicrously suspension-of-disbelief-breaking "coppertop" thing.

ANGELUS · Post by **ANGELUS** » 2008-02-02 12:23pm

Note that the humans themselves must not be entirely convinced that the information of Second Reinasance is truth, especially since Morpheus tells Neo on the first movie that they don't know who attacked first and begun the war, while the records clearly show that the humans attacked first. So this might mean they don't entirely believe on those archives.

Of course this would make them even more stupid, because if they don't believe these archives then there would be no reason for them not trying to nuke the machines (supossing they can build nukes at all).

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-02-02 12:34pm

Molyneux wrote: It is fucking stupid. The problem is that the Wachowskis wanted the machines to be rewiring human brains for use in massively parallel-processing neural networks (which makes slightly more sense), but the studio wanted it dumbed down - so we got the ludicrously suspension-of-disbelief-breaking "coppertop" thing.

The studios need a crash course in thermodynamics then, because using humans as batteries is just plain retarded. I don't see how having human brains act as an easy to produce and cheap neural net processor is a totally impossible to grasp concept.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2008-02-02 05:11pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Molyneux wrote: It is fucking stupid. The problem is that the Wachowskis wanted the machines to be rewiring human brains for use in massively parallel-processing neural networks (which makes slightly more sense), but the studio wanted it dumbed down - so we got the ludicrously suspension-of-disbelief-breaking "coppertop" thing.
The studios need a crash course in thermodynamics then, because using humans as batteries is just plain retarded. I don't see how having human brains act as an easy to produce and cheap neural net processor is a totally impossible to grasp concept.

Plus, it would also explain why the humans need to be kept conscious in the Matrix world-simulation.
You can make up some story about the brains atrophying to uselessness if the humans aren't kept stimulated.

EVEN disregarding that the stupid battery concept is retardedly dumb on so many levels, even if you handwave the stupidity, why keep them conscious instead of lobotomizing them?

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2008-02-02 05:12pm

Cykeisme wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Molyneux wrote: It is fucking stupid. The problem is that the Wachowskis wanted the machines to be rewiring human brains for use in massively parallel-processing neural networks (which makes slightly more sense), but the studio wanted it dumbed down - so we got the ludicrously suspension-of-disbelief-breaking "coppertop" thing.
The studios need a crash course in thermodynamics then, because using humans as batteries is just plain retarded. I don't see how having human brains act as an easy to produce and cheap neural net processor is a totally impossible to grasp concept.
Plus, it would also explain why the humans need to be kept conscious in the Matrix world-simulation.
You can make up some story about the brains atrophying to uselessness if the humans aren't kept stimulated.

EVEN disregarding that the stupid battery concept is retardedly dumb on so many levels, even if you handwave the stupidity, why keep them conscious instead of lobotomizing them?

Edit: However, if the brains are being used as a distributed processing network, why wouldn't the machines just keep brains in tanks, rather than complete bodies?
I guess you can make something up about it actually being cheaper and easier to keep the brains alive in full bodies, or the brains going insane if they aren't connected to full bodies.
It still makes more sense than the stupid power generation bullshit.

bilateralrope · Post by **bilateralrope** » 2008-02-02 05:22pm

If the brains are being used as processing power, wouldn't the matrix itself be a waste of processing power in both the human brains, and the systems controlling it ?

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2008-02-02 05:50pm

It's possible that the processing power that the brains give the system exceeds that consumed by the Matrix.
If the processing done for the Matrix is also being run on the brains themselves, that helps explain why the heroes can "bend" reality in the Matrix"

However, considering the "resolution" at which the simulated reality runs at, it's very unlikely that the brains can provide more processing power than the Matrix uses.
So yeah, the distributed neutral processing idea.. doesn't make any sense either.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2008-02-02 06:36pm

bilateralrope wrote:If the brains are being used as processing power, wouldn't the matrix itself be a waste of processing power in both the human brains, and the systems controlling it ?

1. As already mentioned, the Matrix may be necessary for the brains to remain functional.
It's not a waste if WITHOUT it the entire system doesn't function to begin with.
2. Who says the Matrix is run on the human brains instead of some 'traditional' computing system somewhere, leaving the brain processing power available apart from the part needed for the humans to interact with the Matrix? Which, if we take a look at some of the people who manage to interact with the real world, can't be all that much to begin with.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2008-02-02 06:46pm

Cykeisme wrote:It's possible that the processing power that the brains give the system exceeds that consumed by the Matrix.

Especially if the Matrix ISN'T actually run on the brain network, but more conventional hardware.

If the processing done for the Matrix is also being run on the brains themselves, that helps explain why the heroes can "bend" reality in the Matrix"

I don't quite see how. Regardless of what it runs on, it's computer code. You either have the ability to alter the code or you do not.

However, considering the "resolution" at which the simulated reality runs at, it's very unlikely that the brains can provide more processing power than the Matrix uses.

Again, presupposes the Matrix runs on the brain network to begin with and what do you base this estimation on?

So yeah, the distributed neutral processing idea.. doesn't make any sense either.

It makes a truckload more sense even if it doesn't work, and so far I don't see how it doesn't.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-02-02 10:49pm

Making the humans into a vast distributed-process network wouldn't make much sense either. Think of the space consumed by each human, and the length of wiring required to hook up all the brains to this distributed processing network. It would be slower than hell, and the machines already have AI capable of equaling or exceeding the performance of humans. Their AI processors would undoubtedly have much lower space and logistical requirements than billions of humans in tanks, and the system would run much faster without the incredible space consumed by all that dead weight.

Hell, the humans weren't even packed in particularly close, which is what you would expect for some kind of supercomputing application. Or are most people blissfully unaware of the importance of wiring length in computing speed?

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-02-02 10:58pm

Somehow, I never put much stock into the machines actually USING mankind, so much as carefully keeping them alive and protecting them. They may have obliterated humanity's society and been part of a war that seemingly permanently screwed over the entire world, but it seems more likely to me they had a soft spot for their former masters, or some kind of inbuilt programming they hadn't discovered. So they decided to keep mankind, keep a resource drain, and try and make them ALL happy.

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2008-02-02 11:36pm

I rationalized it as "Morpheus and all the other Zion guys are dipshits, and dont know jack."

I mean seriously, they wake up from the Matrix, see that the world is total shit (environmental disaster or war?) and decide "I know, lets "free" everyone so we can live in this piece of shit world! LOLZ"

The only way I see that it makes sense is somehow humanity fucked up and fucked the world, or there was a big environmental disaster, the trusty AI kept the people alive till they can fix the world, and some people wake up, dont know whats going on and try to save everyone.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-02-03 12:07am

That's one of the (myriad) reasons the sequels to The Matrix were so unsatisfying. Really, the only way to explain the machines' behaviour is to conclude that they are actually benevolent, and that mankind created the Matrix in order to escape the horror of its reality. Anything else is crap and doesn't make sense. But the sequels failed to go that route. Instead, they built up Neo into a combination of Superman and Jesus Christ, and then they had to create a super arch-villain to fight him in the worst climactic battle ever.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2008-02-03 03:44am

Darth Ruinus wrote:I rationalized it as "Morpheus and all the other Zion guys are dipshits, and dont know jack."

I mean seriously, they wake up from the Matrix, see that the world is total shit (environmental disaster or war?) and decide "I know, lets "free" everyone so we can live in this piece of shit world! LOLZ"

That's why mustache dude betrayed them in the first movie. The real world just isn't worth it.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-02-03 11:05am

Adrian Laguna wrote:
Darth Ruinus wrote:I rationalized it as "Morpheus and all the other Zion guys are dipshits, and dont know jack."

I mean seriously, they wake up from the Matrix, see that the world is total shit (environmental disaster or war?) and decide "I know, lets "free" everyone so we can live in this piece of shit world! LOLZ"
That's why mustache dude betrayed them in the first movie. The real world just isn't worth it.

Cypher, played by the excellent Joe Pantoliano.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2008-02-03 01:06pm

Molyneux wrote:
Adrian Laguna wrote:
Darth Ruinus wrote:I rationalized it as "Morpheus and all the other Zion guys are dipshits, and dont know jack."

I mean seriously, they wake up from the Matrix, see that the world is total shit (environmental disaster or war?) and decide "I know, lets "free" everyone so we can live in this piece of shit world! LOLZ"
That's why mustache dude betrayed them in the first movie. The real world just isn't worth it.
Cypher, played by the excellent Joe Pantoliano.

"I guess someone up there is watching over me". Who's on the planets surface again

Axiomatic · Post by **Axiomatic** » 2008-02-03 02:00pm

How many humans could the planet even SUPPORT? It seems to me that if Zion actually saved all of humanity from the Matrix, they'd all get to enjoy a cannibalismfest before starvation and extinction, after which the machines would figure out that they could just, you know, stick their solar panels on metal struts so that they'd reach above the cloud cover.

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2008-02-03 02:08pm

Axiomatic wrote:How many humans could the planet even SUPPORT? It seems to me that if Zion actually saved all of humanity from the Matrix, they'd all get to enjoy a cannibalismfest before starvation and extinction, after which the machines would figure out that they could just, you know, stick their solar panels on metal struts so that they'd reach above the cloud cover.

Or develop nuclear power, which would you know, probably be easier.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-02-03 03:53pm

If we're going by the assumption that the machines needed humans, then using them as processors is the only real way to explain what they did. Yes, it's still less than perfect, but given the alternative, I'd much rather they stuck with that idea.

The whole premise does seem more like the machines wanted to save humans from themselves because they misunderstood the AIs they created. There's hints of that in the Animatrix shorts and in the end, the Matrix itself indicates such as well. Quite why anyone would want to leave, even on the principle of being truly free, is beyond me.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-02-03 04:22pm

Ideally, it would have turned out that humanity wiped itself out through some global cataclysm, and a small number of survivors created The Matrix in order to have some semblance of a happy life. One of the revelations would have been that Morpheus is wrong; there are not billions of humans in tubes. There are only a few million, all that is left of the human race. The vast majority of people in the Matrix are actually just AI characters. All of the Matrix world's most horrible areas such as Africa are actually entirely populated with AI characters, created to manufacture a plausible world for the small number of real inhabitants while still ensuring that they get to live in a fairly comfortable existence (and feel happy for their good fortune). People who have sociopathic tendencies are given positions as ruthless despots in third-world countries, so they can exercise their sociopathic tendencies but won't harm other inhabitants who are mostly clustered in the Matrix world's wealthy nations.

After all, how do any of us even know that most of the real world exists, or that there is such a place as, say, Africa? Few of us have been there; most of us only know it exists at all because we've been shown pictures and videos, or read books about it. So much of our reality is based on information which is fed to us already; in the Matrix, this would only be carried to a greater degree.

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2008-02-03 05:03pm

Darth Wong wrote:Ideally, it would have turned out that humanity wiped itself out through some global cataclysm, and a small number of survivors created The Matrix in order to have some semblance of a happy life. One of the revelations would have been that Morpheus is wrong; there are not billions of humans in tubes. There are only a few million, all that is left of the human race. The vast majority of people in the Matrix are actually just AI characters. All of the Matrix world's most horrible areas such as Africa are actually entirely populated with AI characters, created to manufacture a plausible world for the small number of real inhabitants while still ensuring that they get to live in a fairly comfortable existence (and feel happy for their good fortune). People who have sociopathic tendencies are given positions as ruthless despots in third-world countries, so they can exercise their sociopathic tendencies but won't harm other inhabitants who are mostly clustered in the Matrix world's wealthy nations.

After all, how do any of us even know that most of the real world exists, or that there is such a place as, say, Africa? Few of us have been there; most of us only know it exists at all because we've been shown pictures and videos, or read books about it. So much of our reality is based on information which is fed to us already; in the Matrix, this would only be carried to a greater degree.

This one makes more sense, since I always found it stupid that the Agents can take over people that, and they can switch back in case that person is killed.

If most of the people ARENT real people as you suggest, it makes more sense. Since the Agents would only take over dumb AI programs and not a real person, who is then usually killed thus losing one human from the Matrix.