Matrix which pill did he take

And I wouldn't either. In fact, I won't even try to argue for that because I honestly worry "that guy" from my freshman Phil class in undergrad will show up—still dressed in his trench coat! But here's the thing: In reality, life is not as simple as "knowledge means power" and "ignorance means slavery.

But IRL, you just don't know everything or nothing. Everyone lives somewhere in the middle. You know some stuff, not all of it. And moreover, just because you are awake to one problem doesn't mean you aren't causing the others. And even people who verge on complete ignorance can still have power, and vice versa. Consider the dumb, rich child kings of history, born into a position of absolute power and lacking knowledge of, really, most things!

Or the deeply knowledgeable social reformers who are out there working day in and day out to right the wrongs of society. They know a lot! They'll tell you they are seeing behind the screen and they are still in the cave, shackled to a system. A system that can't be undone just by suddenly seeing it exists. In the movie, as soon as you take the red pill you're supposedly partially freed up from the systems that enable those lies.

The red pill lets you literally fly and hack the code that powers the world. Should a red pill exist IRL, that wouldn't be the case. There's no code to hack. To me that's the biggest argument against the red pill, which makes it seem like if you just could—zap!

It's not an argument in favor of the blue pill as the movie defines it, but it's a reason to think red pilling is, well, impossible. Emma Grey Ellis: Hang on, Emily, are you saying that knowledge and truth actually aren't power? I hear you on the oversimplification—anybody who's ever been milkshake ducked knows the pain of rooting for something or someone who seems good and righteous, but winds up being deeply flawed.

Those betrayals might shake your faith in activism or institutions, but I don't think individual failings mean that the pursuit of knowledge is a doomed exercise. To me, problems like brilliant Nobel Prize winners somehow missing that they, and the institution that honored them , are wildly sexist are issues of people feeling that their education is somehow complete as-is.

If we take Morpheus at his word, the red pill, in all its science fiction glory, is a sweeping dose of unalloyed truth—something akin to a complete education. That doesn't exist in the real world, but empathetic, lifelong learners, people who acknowledge their own inevitable ignorance and strive to reduce it, do.

Imagining a world without them, or considering their efforts useless, is bleak enough to make me want to reach for that blue pill. I think you're onto something with uncoupling knowledge from freedom, though. In a way, I think Neo and company model the way good, thoughtful people are forced to operate within a bad system even after they're awake to its faults.

Their knowledge gives them the power to navigate the Matrix, and, at times, bend it to their will, but while they're inside, they're still shackled to a chair by their headjacks, the same technology that used to be the primary tool of their enslavement.

That continued dependency is deeply unpleasant, way less glamorous than dodging bullets or suddenly knowing kung fu, and somebody under the influence of the system might come along and rip out your brainstem. But recognizing that you still have to work within the system in order to create systemic change is part of being someone who favors the red pill. And I don't disagree. IBM currently involved in a class-action lawsuit for firing 20, employees older than 40 in the last six years , Google which has faced multiple privacy, advertising, intellectual property, and discrimination lawsuits over the years , Facebook which will be in court for the next decade fighting state, federal, and international privacy and consumer protection lawsuits and explaining data abuse related to Cambridge Analytica and various other hacks that seem to be announced weekly , Apple which also has an impressive portfolio of lost lawsuits , and Microsoft which was in court for over two decades battling against, and mostly losing or settling, antitrust allegations and patent infringement cases and is currently embroiled in a backlash over the use of their technology in military weapons.

Many of us use products created by these companies every day despite their transgressions. Note: not the world or your family, but their brands and bottom lines. Who needs to build Skynet when we're happy to hand over our the information that makes up our very beings to these companies now? So why are we continuing to build more sophisticated AI? Well, partly because engineers want to see if they can.

There seem to be three main approaches to dealing with fears about increasingly sophisticated AI: 1 Stop worrying about it; 2 Hire some ethicists and call it a more responsible approach, and 3 Build a diverse panel of experts and give them the power to truly approve or reject research proposals. We could absolutely use some more support for the 3 rd , but none of these are likely to make an impact without serious international cooperation - precisely the kind humanity has proved incapable of in the early 21st century.

The good news is that The Matrix is fiction, not the future. In the film, humans only got one chance to take the pill. We get a new chance every day. Our votes, our dollars, our voices, our support of advocates, our efforts to understand the world better , even our choice of social media all give us an opportunity to support or reject the future other people are trying to decide for us.

This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. These power stations are so vast in size and number, that it would be almost impossible for Morpheus' crew to match an avatar encountered in The Matrix to their corresponding physical body in the real world without the tracker enabled by the red pill.

This is referenced by Morpheus during his description of the two pills in The Matrix itself. However, it seems the red pill does more than just serve as a location beacon. After lighting up the correct pod, the pill's " disruption " interferes with Neo's life support system, releasing him from an inert state. Taking the red pill causes a pod shutdown, which is evidently a dangerous process, as Neo enters fibrillation shortly before emerging from the pod fluid. The Wachowskis describe the red pill as a form of virus, and the effects certainly have the hallmarks of a classic computer attack - cracking open the Machines' technology to let the a third party in.

Over the past 2 decades, the meaning of The Matrix 's red pill has shifted considerably in wider culture. Strangely, right-wing politicians have tried to take ownership of the term to push their own agendas, earning a quick and strong rebuttal from Lilly Wachowski, whose views couldn't be further removed from the public figures now trying to twist the red pill concept.

The revelation that The Matrix was written as a transgender allegory adds a new spin to the red and blue pill scene. Rewatching Morpheus' monologue in , the " a prison for your mind " line takes on a whole new meaning, and the pills themselves perhaps represent hormone therapy.