He said to Neo that humans are like a virus, breeding and infecting the world with our “stick” and general disgustingness.
I look around the world, at the state of society, the environment, international conflict and the enshitification of humanity - I’ve gone through my life blindly accepting that life for life’s sake is beautiful, and worth it.
But as I see the state of it all, our perpetual need to destroy each other over ideas and resources, I struggle to come to grips with it. Societies around the world are facing population shrinkage… Do they all know something I don’t?
Is human life beautiful, and objectively worth perpetuating? Or are we a blight? Why should we be?
his argument is never very good… viruses are incomplete beings in every sense we care about… the human being shares almost nothing in common with them conceptually… we cooperate and care about each other in ways that are obviously not virus-like… even when we fight, it’s much more interesting that virus combat…
Do you think it’s inherently human nature to be this way or do you think there are other ways for humans to be? Maybe you’re conflating human nature with something else, like capitalism.
I don’t know what human nature truly is, or if there can be a singular definition.
However, judging by the historical record, we seem to be quite good at exploiting things and beings for our own benefit at their expense, which doesn’t really make a compelling case for worthiness
Worthiness begs the question of a judge of worthiness. The Agents may not have liked us as part of a balanced ecology, but they found us worthy batteries, for example. But they’re made up, as I’d argue most other external judges or values are. Even if a human is making that judgement, worthy of what and why? More worth than X? To who? Why is their judgement worthy?
It’s a big can of worms and the deeper you go, the less clear it’s going to be. Maybe focus on a smaller bite for now.
Whom created capitalism, or any economic strategy?
Who. For nominative case, it’s who.
I’m not sure what your point is, though. Are you suggesting that humans are destined to capitalism, in which case there is no choice and you can’t really put a moral judgement on it anymore than you can salt crystallizing. Or do you mean humans end up choosing capitalism, in which case can’t they choose something else and it’s not human nature after all?
How does this Wikipedia argument address whether or not we’re a blight, or if we should be?
It raises the question on whether we’re a net positive (or, well, argues that we are). Humans do a lot of shitty things but on the whole it’s worth it.
the baby is humanity, capitalism the bathwater.
Smith was right
Great, but why are you convinced?
We have driven 70% of all species to extinction since we evolved. 150 different species everyday permanently deleted.
What organism is worth that cost?
Looking at global statistics the world is getting better. Not in global warming. But violence, freedom, wars, health. It’s hard to see because nobody talks about it. It’s easy to get stuck doom scrolling. But it’s not the whole picture. We as a global society agree slavery is bad. That is a pretty new concept in the history of our species. We went from the first powered flight to space in 50 years. That is insanity. Yes, there are lots of fucked up things we caused, but ultimately I believe in our ability to figure it out eventually. Everything we do and have done, is natural. We are a product of evolution just like every other living thing on this planet.
I think our world is amazing, and that includes humanity.
To add to this population decline is just something that happens when people are in developed countries after they industrialize. when you don’t need to farm as much and can have time to do some lezure and entertain yourself and frankly after wormen get more rights and are not seen as properly. population levels out naturally but can decline faster when people are not given the means to support themselves children become a burden rather than the gift they should be. You put unions back to +60% like they were in the 50s and you will see a mini boom of children.
Also the world is wonderful. Most people are good even if some are misguided by fear and impulse. It was just a few dicks that ruined it knowingly for the rest of us everything else. we could have solved if we had more time.
If you want to pull back the curtain read up on the National Association of Manufacturers and a man called James W. Fifield Jr. More than half of our problems were caused by those men and the other by Henry Kissinger’s short sightness.
Leisure. Just in case you didn’t know.
Smith’s argument conflates humanity and society as being the same thing, because as a machine he has no concept of individuality - to him, humans as a single unit blighted the planet, and therefore are a plague, because he can’t conceive of the idea of free will.
Things can be fucked up on a macro level, with war and selfishness and greed and destruction, while still being comprised on a micro level of essentially good, unique, interesting people who care for each other. Smith doesn’t see this, because in his eyes humans are all the same - just like him. He is arguing against his own existence
This perspective is really interesting to me
I have admit,I tend to agree. I make comments like “individual people are smart, but people at large… they’re idiots” it’s the way I can rationalize how we’re facing a rematch of Biden v Trump in the US the year… And other things that defy reason
But in weighing the positives and the negatives of the totality of our impact - how many good small acts does it take to overcome a Khmer Rouge? What about when those loving families are torn apart by religion, patriotism, morality etc and the angels fight? Conflict, like death and taxes, seems undeniable - maturity, much less so
how many good small acts does it take to overcome a Khmer Rouge?
Ok, take the counter argument then - if I am an average person in, say, Russia right now, how much personal risk am I morally obliged to take in order to fight against the Russian state and the war in Ukraine? Stacking up the abstract evil being done elsewhere against the very concrete reality of my own mortality, if the angels are fighting and nothing I can do can have any real impact, then what good is it me getting in the middle of it?
I’ve kinda stretched this beyond the absurd, and tbh I do think that individuals have some responsibility to not stand idly by and watch evil happen.
To actually address your original question, I don’t think Smith’s characterisation of humans as a virus is terribly apt - viruses are mindless, selfish and greedy; they arrive in an area and consume and consume until there is nothing left, even if it kills them. Humans behave like this some times, but they are also capable of peace and cooperation and can learn - the fact that you have access to the internet using equipment and systems that took the collective efforts of hundreds of millions of people working across centuries, the fact that you didn’t die of smallpox or TB as a child, and the fact that on average you as less likely to die violently than you ever have been in history proves this.
while still being comprised on a micro level of essentially good, unique, interesting people who care for each other.
So as long as you find someone decent you close your eyes to the rest of the bullshit that is happening? I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to be honest.
We’re worth it.
The universe is a dazzling beautiful place and we exist to observe it. We should definitely focus on living in a more compatible manner but even in our current shitty state we’re a net positive.
I agree that existence is truly a wonder.
Yet I don’t see how everything else being great around us means we’re so great for just seeing it all… I’d ask, a net positive to what group? Our own, of course, because we procreate. But… at what cost? Does the cow share your zeal for humanity, you know
Is the point of existence merely for wonders to be observed?
I think that’s precisely it. The universe is beautiful and we’re the portion of the universe that exists to appreciate that beauty.
It’s a very humanocentric view (or sentient-centric more accurate) but I think it’s fair and accurate. We definitely need to get our shit together though.
@xmunk I really don’t understand this argument.
I’s like a cockroach in my house claiming that it exists to appreciate my beauty.
Dude I don’t need you to appreciate my beauty and meanwhile you’re contaminating everything in my kitchen.
All meaning is constructed meaning, and, to quote Shakespeare, “there’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
We decide, collectively, and as individuals, what is positive and what is negative. We invent for ourselves, whole cloth or adopting from our elders, meaning in life, the universe, and everything.
That doesn’t mean they are without worth. The world is altered daily through the things people imagine. Money is an invention, its value existing in the collective imaginations of those who use it. Maps are not the lands they represent, but their cartography influences where people live, work, and travel. Numbers and maths are inventions— languages invented to describe the universe and its movings, but the universe moves without needing to know them…
… nevertheless, with those invented languages we orbit distant planets with artificial satellites, and create the wonderful bit of nonsense that allows us to communicate here.
We choose to find meaning in the world, and then we choose the meaning we find there. Ultimately everything else can be winnowed away, but that. I believe we have value because I choose to believe we have value, and I weigh the good of the world with the bad because I actively choose to continue to see both. It isn’t easy all the time, and it doesn’t have to be one way or the other. But it’s what I want for the world, and what I want for me.
He said that, and then went on to replicate himself out of control; just like a virus.
I’m his defense it was after neo infected him so he has a point.
That seems like a convenient excuse for him to bear less, or none of, the guilt for his actions.
Does Agent Smith have autonomy?
No, he’s a program. A sentient program perhaps, but a program nonetheless and subject to the limitations set forth in that program. His software was corrupted by Neo though, which changed his directives as such.
While I did find the Smith virus speech interesting, I felt it was a minor part of the overall plot and didn’t pay too much heed to it.
Far more interesting is the Merovingian. His whole speech about the power of why was great. So many people (myself included, I expect) do things automatically without ever having a true idea of why. Never stop asking why.
Again with this defeatist attitude huh.
There’s no reason why we should be, we just are. Like everything else.
The older I get the more I agree with Agent Smith.
@cmeu there’s a book you might like called The World Without Us that you might find helpful.
It’s a thought experiment written by a journalist about what exactly would happen to everything in the world if humans disappear tomorrow.
I think there was a documentary (or several) about this too. It looked interesting, but I never got to watch it in the end.
Miniseries on Discovery called Life After Humans
Trees also spread all over the planet and changed the atmosphere. Were just returning the favour.
Early life pumped the atmosphere full of toxic oxigen, changing its composition forever and making it super toxic for itself, leading to a mass extinction. We’re not even original with the way we’re fucking up the planet.
Capitalism is the virus, not humanity as a whole (yes, some humans created capitalism, but significantly more people suffer under it than benefit from, or have any control over it)
https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145How many megafauna did we hunt to extinction long before written language, let alone capitalism?
“Objective worth” is a bit of an oxymoron, because worth is up to your value judgment.
If you’re questioning the “evolutionary imperative” that organisms want to pass on genes - one fairly human trait is that a lot of us can consciously diverge from that instinct, either fulfilling that need by passing on our legacies socially rather than genetically, or just not looking to pass anything on at all.
Something we have in common with other mammals is we prioritize whatever experience is in front of us. Anyone who’s directly affected by catastrophes and strife will have different beliefs than people who aren’t.
So if objective worth has no neat answer, what’s left?
I’d say it’s interesting to have so many different subjective experiences in one world, with a language-based society able to communicate and share many more varied experiences than most animals. Interesting isn’t inherently good or bad, but if nothing was good nor bad then nothing would be interesting.
So yea. Human life is entertaining. We’ve got that going for us!
P.S. If you’ve ever lived in a city whose infrastructure is strained by overpopulation, you don’t necessarily view declining/shifting populations as a bad thing.
Good humans suffer from the evil of others because they’re too forgiving. That’s tragic, but not damning.
