cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19628702

image transcript

screenshot of this bluesky post (which you can read without logging in here) from ‪@comraderobot.bsky.social‬ (“Notorious RBMK”) saying:

my friend who still lives in palo alto gave me permission to share this mailer he got.

there’s unhinged and then there’s tech unhinged

image in post has two photos of people wearing EEG electrodes, one xray of a human head, an EEG data plot over a silhouette of a head, and this text:

REM sleep is the next Al

The upcoming era of physical reality integrated with dream worlds advanced by the REMspace startup

  • Controlling a smart home from dreams
  • Transferring speech from dreams
  • Controlling virtual cars from dreams
  • Interacting with dream worlds using brain implants
  • Social media for sharing dream journals
  • Smart sleep masks powered by Al
  • Many other breakthroughs from our lab (videos and tech)

Don’t miss the pitch of the year for potential partners and investors

Aug 29th Palo Alto

Above the image is an (inaccurate) BlueSky label saying “Possible tumblr screenshot” with a “hide” button.

–

the guy behind this startup:

    • call_me_xale@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Or the original plot of The Matrix, before the studio execs decided audiences were too stupid.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        I mean, to be fair, they were.

        What started as an allegory for the path of a trans person realizing they’re trans and taking “the red pill” to find the reality of their world and escape “the Matrix” that forces them into a confined box in which they don’t actually fit…

        …turned into the dumbest bro’d out bullshit from people who think the “red pill” means you’re the strongest smartest man who is has figured out society and you’re a superman like Neo who can fly and shit.

        Honestly, I’m on the side of executives on this one. Most people are too fucking stupid for it.

        • kinkles@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          From what I’ve read, The Matrix wasn’t created as a trans allegory, it’s just that you can apply the fundamentals of its story to many concepts. One of the most popular interpretations happens to be gender identity because its creators transitioned years after the original trilogy ended.

          • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Part of the script that got cut by Hollywood was literally Switch being a different gender inside the Matrix and outside.

            That’s literally why they were originally named “Switch.” Switch is in the original film and dies in the original film. Not the sequels.

            But sure, not a trans allegory.

            The part that gets said is a “trans allegory” but isn’t is the red pill as a stand-in for estrogen.

            • kinkles@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              I went back and looked at the articles I had read and dug a little deeper to get to an interview with Lilly Wachowski herself:

              Continuing on The Matrix**, you confirmed a couple years ago that it was a trans allegory —**

              No, I didn’t.

              You didn’t? Tell me more.

              Yeah, so that came from an interview I did for Disclosure. They had a bunch of Matrixquestions. And the question they asked me was about Switch, who was originally written as a trans character who was male in the real world and female in the matrix. And they took that response and attached the question that everyone now references that it’s a trans allegory. And so it was slightly out of context, but I don’t sit here and put a stink up about it, because it is a trans allegory in that it was written by two closeted trans women. And so all of the things that are in it are super-duper trans. The idea of transformation, even the whole “My name is Neo, Mr. Anderson —” that idea of claiming identity, it’s undeniable.

              https://www.them.us/story/lilly-wachowski-mentoring-the-matrix-interview

              To be honest, her statement doesn’t seem like either a denial or confirmation to me so 🤷‍♂️

              • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                0·
                3 months ago

                Yeah, it sounds to me like she has issue with just that specific thing being treated as a trans allegory rather than the whole thing, the film, The Matrix, itself, as trans allegory as a whole, and the idea that it was purposeful rather than happenstance.

                It sounds more like “we were closeted at the time, and we unconsciously were putting in trans allegories to our own paths and ideas” which still means its trans allegory, even if it was unintentional at the time, because they still hadn’t “come out” to even themselves yet.

                And so all of the things that are in it are super-duper trans. The idea of transformation, even the whole “My name is Neo, Mr. Anderson —” that idea of claiming identity, it’s undeniable.

                In other words, it’s undeniably trans allegory, but perhaps that wasn’t consciously on their mind at the time they wrote it.

                Thanks for the link, I hadn’t read that one. Definitely clears it up a little.

    • watersnipje@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Glad to see I’m not the only person on earth who has played it. Such a remarkable, funny and weird game. Still trying to get that damned Seepage song out of my head.

        • watersnipje@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          That was one of the (many) things that mad me go “Yes! That’s what it was like! That’s what the internet was really like in 1999!” And those download accelerators, which we then recklessly installed on the family computer and gave it virusses.