The Matrix has you…
So I had this grand plan of doing a whole series on The Matrix and Simulation Theory this month and maybe I still will after seeing the new movie, but right now I just have to get some thoughts written down.
I did a quick video on Instagram answering the question “What is simulation theory?” for those who are unfamiliar and I’ve added some fun tidbits to my Simulation highlight if you need an intro.
Bear with me though as I ramble for a bit. Because I need writing to help focus my mind around what I’m experiencing at the moment.
First of all, it seems like convenient timing right? That right when the Metaverse is announced, The Matrix 4 is coming out? That after nearly two years of remote learning, working from home and being told to stay inside that the miracle solution in the form of a digital design for human life would emerge? I wrote about this next wave in technology that they are trying to push on us and I’ve definitely talked about predictive programming before, so I won’t rehash, but the more time I spend thinking about “the simulation” and society’s future inside a tech-modulated world and “their” drive towards the singularity, the more I feel like I’m playing with the matrix already, for lack of a better term.
In the first movie, Neo is catching whiffs of the program before he meets Morpheus. He finds signs and signals that something is off. He begins to see the world for the construct that it is before he can really put his finger on it.
And without going too far off the deep end, I’m starting to get that. I’m watching the world tilt in ways that are hard to describe as anything, but strange, yet familiar.
The Algorithm
When we think of algorithms we think about our social media feed adjusting to what we’re searching and watching and engaging with online. What I’m experiencing right now is my life’s feed seemingly adjusting to what I’m thinking.
In the last few days I have had a dream about simulation theory. I dreamed that someone was placed inside “the Matrix” to be hidden from danger, but that within the simulation were clues to her/my old life. Breadcrumbs that would lead her back to reality. (A decent idea for a story if I do say so… maybe one day.)
I’ve engaged with a new friend on Instagram who is also going through this experience of having evidence presented to her of an overall intelligent system. And we just happened to find each other in the wake of this dream.
I listened to a podcast that talked about the movie “Altered States,” a film I had never heard of prior, and then this ad was presented to me immediately following that episode on my Instagram stories.
And this morning a work truck drove past me and the company name plastered on the side was “Matrix.”
A street I drive by every day, but had never noticed the name of suddenly came into focus on this day “Andalusian” a.k.a. “an illusion.” (Yes I know it’s a type of horse, but it’s about what you hear when you say it.)
Not to mention, look at this license plate:
Please tell me if you’ve ever seen this because I never have.
The book at the top of Obama’s must-read list is called… wait for it… “MATRIX”!
Then when walking past the parent pick up line, I saw only one kid’s name written down on the card in the dash… “Keanu.”
Now I know the skeptical will say that’s all just a coincidence. Or perhaps that when you’re immersed in something you see it everywhere. But is it? Or is coincidence how we explain away what we can’t understand? Is it deserving of more attention than what we give it? What if this information alignment is more like an update to your phone? New design and visuals come when you input fresh information.
All I know is that the more I think about the simulation, the more it winks at me.
Ancient and Inevitable
I struggle to embrace the concept that our entire reality is a computer program even as I encounter strange synchronicities and patterns. Even as I recognize that code, it seems, is built into our design and nature’s, I still can’t fully embrace the concept that this world is entirely software based. Maybe I just don’t want to believe my world is that constructed and my options that limited so I choose not to fully accept simulation theory out of sheer stubborn humanness. However, I can’t deny the omnipresence of this idea right now.
I have been getting this download recently though, if you will. An idea is taking form for me that I can’t fully express, but when I tinker with it, feels right. I’m beginning to onboard the idea that the Matrix is in fact real and that it’s both our ancient past and our near future. That maybe what we experience on this plane is a cycle on the grandest scale. No beginning or end. Afterall, doesn’t all evidence point to cycles on the micro and macro scales?
I start to then wonder if what I am seeing right now is both prophecy and lost wisdom. Maybe this migration from primitive people to tech takeover is an endless loop of evolution and devolution. Maybe Atlantis and Tartaria are both where we came from and where we’re going. The best genetic tests allegedly can go back 10,000 years, but the human species is supposed to be 200,000 years old. Stories like The Wheel of Time deal in this cyclical idea of destruction and rebirth. Dark is another great example of the inevitability of our fate. There have been many iterations of “The One” in The Matrix, Neo is just the most recent. And from what it seems like from the previews… even he is being looped in this existence.
Religion of course points to this too. Reincarnation and rebirth of some sort is present in nearly every text. You get a set number of lives in a video game too that allow you a chance to progress, then force you to start over.
So I can’t help but wonder if the signals from the matrix aren’t in fact whispers in the loop of human consciousness. Or maybe even warnings.
The Matrix has you…
To a larger extent than most of us are willing to admit, the matrix is already here and its grip continues to tighten.
Every screen is an expression of the matrix. You can leave reality and tune into a false world. You can be targeted by content that alters your behavior, mood and outlook. You can engage with bots, AI, strangers and avatars more than a real person on any given day if you so choose.
If you really want to start questioning how real even the “real world” is, follow Human Vibration and prepare to doubt everything. Is that celebrity/politician/athlete an actual human? Or a CGI presentation? Did this event really take place? Or is it a Hollywood style production?
In my own life, just this past week, I’ve discovered that my own child was captured by the online universe. Speaking in ways I didn’t recognize, engaging with people we don’t know, taking on an entire life wholly disconnected from reality.
All of us have been guilty of reacting like Pavlov’s dog to the sound of a notification or the lighting up of a screen. We can feel sickened, aroused, enthused by something as simple as a meme. We’ve all been unwittingly steered in a direction we didn’t expect to go chasing the white rabbit through the internet.
So in a way, we’ve already been captured. The matrix already has us. And the ability to unplug grows more and more difficult with each day. My generation, one of the last to be raised without devices, will have been witness to both the pre-Internet world and a world in which people exist only in the digital space.
If it can happen that fast in my short life span… how far are we from the actuality that is The Matrix?
Technology is already being manufactured to use the human body in order to generate power.
In the name of sustainability, of “health measures,” of convenience, of safety. Could we all be slowly converting ourselves into batteries? Inserting ourselves into the matrix until we can no longer distinguish the difference? Are we indeed the new frontier of energy production once we’ve moved beyond oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear?
The mining process would be managed not by foremans and heavy equipment, but by tech lords and programs designed to keep us docile while we’re bled of our own precious resources.
Or is it going to be more like Ender’s Game? Where the virtual work we do is powering real war and chaos and destruction? The immersive nature of games could easily convert a Call of Duty enthusiast into a super soldier unwittingly manning droids.
Already, every moment we spend online is teaching AI. We are giving those who seek to rule so much data that we become “hackable animals” and soulless beings as described by Yuval Noah Harari. The “useless class,” (Harari rebrand for the unplugged) will be those of us who refuse this digital-only world being laid before us. It is claimed they will know us better than we know ourselves because they will have acquired so much data that the future can be predicted, a la Minority Report.
But have no fear… Harari claims “It’s much worse to be irrelevant than exploited.”
Don’t be so sure you’re safe.
For many people my age and older, the knee-jerk reaction to the metaverse announcement was “no thanks, hard pass.” But we haven’t begun to imagine the ways they will attempt to bring us in.
As described in the video above, those who wish not to engage will be considered useless. Outcasted. Unemployable and unserviceable.
For many, that inability to participate will be enough to draw them in. The FOMO will be beyond anything we could have ever imagined or built the strength to resist.
But perhaps, you are a person who isn’t going to be persuaded by that. Maybe the idea of living an Amish lifestyle still sounds preferable.
One thing we can bet on is when they are done going after our wallets and day-to-day well-being, they’ll begin to go after our hearts.
“Never lose a loved one again, keep them in the metaverse.” (Like Upload.)
“Hug your dead child. Talk to your mother again. There will be no more widows in the metaverse.”
Can’t you hear the ads already?
Right now, in the world today, you can simulate dating. Instead of wasting time with Tindr, just chat with a virtual partner who can’t leave or hurt you. What will that look like in the decades to come? Have a romantic relationship with a digital entity tailored to EXACTLY what you want in a person. Have digital children without the messiness, expense and chaos of raising a real family. Have your wildest fantasies fulfilled without breaking any laws.
Pleasure and pain will be used in a carrot and stick attempt to get us all locked in.
The pull will be inconceivable.
And unless we start armoring up now, they’ll find a trap for all of us to fall in. Our children especially.
Can The Matrix be stopped?
I’ll be curious to see the fourth Matrix movie. I want to know how they see it ending. Is The Matrix abolished? Or do we end up in Neo’s loop of wanting to join and wanting to destroy it? Do we have enough strength to say no, even if faced with death? Is it already too late?
Furthermore, is there something homogenous on the horizon that we still have time to imagine? An interplay between the real world aspects we love and the direction technology is headed? Can we have our cake and eat it too?
It’s a concept I’m exploring in my next novel because I genuinely don’t know the answer. Is this future all or nothing? Do we have to choose to extract ourselves entirely in order to spare our kids from having plugs installed in the back of their necks?
Recently, I watched Michael Wann’s presentation Zuck, Ready Player One and the Path to the Matrix where he grapples with these questions.
How do we slow the speed at which this train is moving?
Can we use technology without feeding the beast? (More or less I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to that one is no.) I do think there are ways we can make active moves towards a future where we might not all be downloaded to this digital hellscape. It will take work though. And strength of will. Not to mention a hell of a lot of programming that has taught us that tech is the end all be all of existence.
For what it’s worth, here are few things that come to mind if you want to start small:
Become wildly unpredictable - Stop doing everything the same way every day. Stop buying every perfectly tailored product pushed to your screen. Stop waking up, instantly scrolling only to end your day the same way. Stop being so triggered by every news event you see that YOU HAVE TO POST SOMETHING. Take a random day off from work. Move to another country. Call someone you miss. The more predictable we are the more hackable we are.
Build self-reliance - They will attempt to make it so you can’t work, you can’t earn, you can’t live without the matrix. You have to work to make that as difficult as possible for them. Build communities, raise gardens, collect rainwater, buy a chicken, pay off your house, use cash. Pull out of the system in as many ways as you possibly can before you no longer have that option.
Return to nature - We all feel something while in nature. Something primal and spiritual. It’s the realest of real. And we are all becoming less attuned. Get back out there. Remind yourself and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD your kids what true beauty is. You’ll be less likely to fall for the digital waterfall if you actually go see a real one.
Love - Love is the most unprogrammable thing on the planet. It’s wild and passionate and random and incalculable. When I am on the edge of thinking “Yep, we’re in a simulation” my kids always pull me out of it. What I feel for them, the miracle of growing life inside me, the insane things I would do to protect them… how can that be 1’s and 0’s? And there is not a single sci-fi movie out there that tells you otherwise.
You can have all the bots and space lasers and intergalactic travel and zombie mayhem in the world, but LOVE is the thing that always remains. Love is what keeps us going.
Neo can’t die because Trinity fucking loves him people.
There are going to people who go in. We are going to lose some people to the metaverse. To the matrix. But I have to believe there are enough of us red pilled who want the real world. Grimy and messy and horrible as it can be at times, I also think, to quote Ready Player One, that the real world “is the only place you can get a decent meal.”
I don’t want to be at the behest of a tech lord’s whims. I don’t want to lose the tangible world. I already hate how much time I give to that space now. I want to be wild and free and imperfect. I want to feel as much stupid, ridiculous, monumental love as I can. And when my time is spent, I’m okay with going.