“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – The Matrix
What happens if they try to get a new actor to play John Wick? Keanu leaves.
The movie The Matrix is a classic. Too bad they never made a sequel or three. I’m sure they would have been fantastic. Imagine taking the adventures of Neo™ beyond that big battle with Mr. Smith®!
Regardless, The Matrix did include several ideas that have made their way into the main stream, and stayed there. The biggest, perhaps, is the idea of The Red Pill and The Blue Pill. In the movie, Neo© is given the choice of taking The Blue Pill, which will allow his version of reality, the things he knows, to remain, even though they are founded on pretty little lies.
I’ll admit, The Blue Pill is attractive. It’s comfortable. But it is, in the end, a lie. I imagine that since you’re here, lies aren’t the thing that motivates you and more than they motivate me.
If Bill Cosby had played Morpheus, I think he would have pushed the blue pill.
The alternative is The Red Pill. The Red Pill is the The Truth. The problem with The Truth is that it’s ugly. The world we want to believe in is in The Blue Pill, because those lies speak to us so clearly. When I first took the Red Pill on a particular subject, I felt betrayed. Here was an entire line of propaganda that I had been fed since I was a child – it was a part of my base programming.
That’s the problem with The Red Pill. Once I took it, I began to question everything. Like a potato chip, you can’t have just one. And once I began looking, I found even more to question. That was difficult, because I had to reevaluate where I was wrong. And what ideas I had were built around those incorrect ideas.
The Red Pill is demoralizing. It’s not pleasant to have to reevaluate basic beliefs, especially those that comforted me and that I now know are wrong. In part, this website is about that. It’s looking at the things I think I know, and trying to distill what is true. On more than one occasion, a post was nearly complete when I found an inconvenient fact.
In algebra class, people always thought I was plotting something.
That meant I was wrong. That meant my post was wrong. In one sense it sucks because it kept me up later to write something else. But it never upset me, because I had learned something new, and was a bit closer to The Truth.
A key to getting through The Red Pill is to embrace The Truth, and improve. However much. A little each day is enough.
I suppose you could call that The Green Pill. Or, for weightlifters, The Iron Pill.
So, which one makes me The Hulk if I’m angry?
It’s the idea that instead of being upset that the world isn’t the way that I want it to be, I don’t focus on that, at all. Instead, I try to focus on improving myself. Not a lot, just a little each day. Can this post be better? Can I get stronger? Can I get in better shape? Can I learn another useful skill?
Life is nothing without difficulty. There is no honor in fighting weak opponents. I mean, I could spend my day boxing three-year-old kids. But my arms would get tired. Unless there weren’t that many, or if they were all especially weak three-year-olds. Like vegan-weak.
No, for a victory to have meaning, the challenge must be sufficient. It would have to at least be boxing six-year-olds. Or, maybe helping the world, or even one person, see what they normally would never have seen.
I had a globe on my desk, and met the guy who made it. It’s a small world.
I have to have a quest. The grander, the better, and I even live with and am comfortable that I won’t live to see the ultimate impact that I have on the world. That’s fine with me. Small pushes, over time, change the world.
Never let The Red Pill get you down. The real choice, even in a world gone mad, is to keep our virtue, and never to give up in making ourselves better, and to improving what we can, even if it’s only a little.
The Red Pill is difficult to swallow, but it is a gift, and victory in finding and spreading The Truth is the challenge that fuels me, and is way less tiring than fighting either endless streams of toddler or endless streams of Agent Smith.
Dang. Sure wish they had made a sequel to The Matrix.
If you’re Vladimir Putin, no one ever offers you a red pill. They don’t want to be anywhere nearby when you figure out the truth. They don’t want to be anywhere near a window in a tall building, that is.
Yeah, we make internet noises about hangman’s nooses, Mobark for pedos and Air Pinot for commies but IF someone actually defenestrates a thief of military supplies.
We go reeeeeeeeee, Vlad is so evil.
PLEASE
Gravity: Not just a good idea, it’s the law.
Yeah, that’s the Russian Way, since 1919.
My All-Time Favorite Red Pill, hanging on my study wall right now…
https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/opus-hubble-deep-space.jpg?w=584&zoom=2
I wish they’d made a sequel to The Matrix, too. The closest I’ve found is the brilliant Alex Garland’s eight-episode TV miniseries Devs. It lacks dazzling special effects and proceeds at a slow hypnotic pace, but deftly probes the deepest questions there are. Well worth watching if you’ve got Hulu or are willing to spend $13 ticket at Amazon.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/devs/s01
Love his work.
Will give Devs a look . . . sometime.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye fret.
This sort of thing is why I despise most modern “Science”. Physics has always interested me, and to see how even what should be pure research has been twisted for monetary gain and political favor makes me… upset. so I try to spread the truth of reality.
Quantum computers are a scam. The same effects can be achieved through hydraulics, gears, and a true random number generator.
The Bell Inequality is an elaborate logical fallacy showing that waves act like waves, and things that are not waves don’t act like waves.
The most recent Nobel Prize in Physics went to intelligent men who labored mightily to prove… nothing.
String theory was proven to be unprovable 25 years ago.
General Relativity proves that gravity is not a force, so why are high energy physicists still searching for the graviton, the proposed force carrier for gravity?
Same question to string theory, which claims to have a force of gravity materialize out of the math of tiny dimensions.
Special relativity is nothing but the very careful application of the Pythagorean theorem.
Spacetime is a potential energy field from which all other fields draw their energy, which governs momentum.
Space is Euclidean. Time is imaginary (square root of -1). Spacetime is hyperbolic, because the Pythagorean theorem (right triangles) always holds true.
There are two different times – the universal clock which allows light to move and change, and the internal clock (“proper time”) that everything else experiences (along with the universal clock).
Proper time is a type of spin. Conjecture: anti-particles spin through time in the opposite direction.
Blue and red shift can be explained through simple trigonometry.
There is no such thing as negative energy. (There are opposite types of energy, and energy moving in opposite directions.)
There are no infinities. There are no singularities. There are no contradictions.
Black holes are hollow shells of maximal density surrounding… nothing.
Modern Physics is a gigantic, beautiful crystal with a very deep internal flaw in it someplace that nobody has yet found.
Don’t despise Science because of the human flaws of those scientists who seek to advance it. They’re all doing the best they can, given their ape limits as they dance around The Monolith.
Science is merely the sum of what we have learned so far. This knowledge all came from humanity’s ongoing attempt to learn the One True Language Of The Universe. We are still at the baby-talk stage of this effort.
As a species we have only learned the concept of “language” once – acoustic and written symbols WE CREATED OURSELVES to describe the things we observed around us and ONLY THEN found it advantageous to communicate to others.
Learning One True Language Of The Universe is much tougher. We don’t invent its Symbols ourselves – THEY EXIST INDEPENDENTLY OF US. We have to discover these Symbols through using logic by making advances in mathematics first. New Symbols that come from things like non-Euclidian geometry and Cantor infinities and the Langlands program. Only after some new Symbol is found can we start using it like a new jigsaw puzzle piece to try and fill in the holes of what we call “Physics”.
It’s a slow process. We’ve been working on it for literally thousands of years. It will likely go on for thousands more.
Where we stand today…this is the stuff currently getting ground up and put into the next Red Pill of math and science. I don’t understand it, I only know of its existence and importance. Someday somebody is gonna swallow a Red Pill of this stuff and then quantum theory and general relativity will look oh so quaint….
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-the-langlands-program-20220601/
Key line from above: “If this doesn’t seem like a spectacular miracle to you, you’re not looking hard enough.”
https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201806/rnoti-p663.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langlands_program
Anybody can join the fun if they wanna. There is no DEI in math.
https://www.math.stonybrook.edu/~aknapp/pdf-files/china1.pdf
And as I have recommended here before for people that would just like to read a really good Red Pill book without any equations, one somehow connected to where Langlands is headed:
https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Creation-Mystery-Prime-Numbers/dp/1782797815
McChuck, I love these. Several (most) are intuitive or I was already on board, and several would require a bottle of wine and a dry erase board . . . .
If you want an entertaining show exploring the nature of reality, the blue/red pill choice, and the consequences of choosing, see the 2009 remake of “The Prisoner”.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043714/
Utterly unaware that they made this. Will give it a look.
Your site is the one that I look forward to, 3 days a week. I always get some new insights on the human condition.
I don’t worry about seeing the impact I make in my lifetime – it’s a slow process. Like the seeds of trees we plant, our work extends beyond our lifetimes. That’s the one Truth I want to pass along to our children – don’t aim for fame/success in your own lifetime. If it happens – great! But, likely, you won’t fully see the changes before you die.
But, your grandchildren will benefit.
If my grandparents had just looked to the short-term, they would not have been happy. By the time they died, America had deteriorated massively. The culture was vulgar, and getting worse exponentially. Many of their descendants were getting off-track in their personal lives. And large parts of the popular culture were rude, crude, and contaminating the young.
Changes didn’t happen instantly. We had to live through the Clinton years, the Bush years, the Obama years. Eventually, people stopped looking for the Great Leader, and took responsibility for their own lives. Enter the Tea Party.
That was the start of Citizen Leadership. From that point onward, America saw the growth of people who would NOT bend cringingly to orders from the Elite.
We’re not on the Winning Side – not yet. It’s going to be a long fight, and may continue for as long as we live. But the changes that participants are making in their lives will persist.
We are leaving serfdom behind.
Linda, thank you! That comment makes my day. But we can only win – because the things that the other side want only end in death. And, really, are evil.
These days my choices revolve around the blue pill (Aleve), or the red pill (stool softener).
Sigma what about the blue pill shown above? Never mind I have my own answer.
The Good Book clearly states we will have trials and tribulations. As I have said before, adversity is the greatest teacher.
Yes, the truth will set you free and the half of the total bell curve needs some truth but alas they will never believe it. Only way is through so onward my friends.
But what about the Clear Pill? (Vitamin D)
Your posts are very educational. I’ve had to scrap a few articles. Others are still in my Drafts waiting to be figured out. As hard as being red pilled is, I’d rather have the truth. Questioning some things right now that make me very uncomfortable, but it is what it is. Soldier on!
PK, thank you! Yes, we have to question it, and (for me) that’s the payoff – when I see the man behind the curtain.
Um, I might be missing the joke, but there were sequels to The Matrix. And they were pretty good. Not as good as the original, but pretty good nonetheless.
There’s two things about lightning. Groundbreaking, classic movies like Star Wars and Matrix and Indy are lightning in a bottle. And lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. (Altho The Empire Strikes Back is very, very good!)
From: https://decentfilms.com/articles/matrix_trilogy :
“Public disappointment with the sequels suggests that the films, however meaningful they may be to diehard fans immersed in the rest of the franchise, are not able to stand on their own the way the first film was. The strength of the first film lay in part in its ability to communicate powerfully on a popular level to mass audiences, including casual viewers. The sequels, by contrast, seem much more an insider fan phenomenon, rather like the Star Wars prequels in relation to the original trilogy.
Because the virtual world — the Matrix — is not real, Neo learns that its artificial rules can be bent, even broken, like a computer program being hacked. What’s more, Neo himself appears uniquely gifted with the potential to transcend utterly the Matrix’s rules and controls, turning the tide in the war against the machines and ultimately bringing about the liberation of mankind.
Now, however, the sequels have failed to deliver on this promise. After seemingly transcending the Matrix’s rules and controls at the end of the first film, in the sequels Neo became quite limited again. The story seemed to get bogged down in a parade of red-herring plotlines and irrelevant supporting characters, mostly programs; and, despite emphatic and repeated foreshadowing about the impeding end of the war, a decisive, satisfying resolution was not forthcoming.
In popular consciousness, then, the first film will probably remain the major cultural touchstone, and popular discussions will probably continue to focus primarily on the concepts outlined in that film, more or less disregarding the sequels.”
Yeah, the unspoken joke at our house is that the first one was so good, that the others disappoint. Which they did.
John – – Your one dimensional thinking graph reminded me of this :
Written on a high school math teacher’s board:
“Dear Algebra, Please stop asking us to find your X.
She is never coming back. Don’t ask Y”
(Shamelessly stolen from: rwmalonemd@substack.com)
Don’t ask me how a naked model in National Lampoon helped me to ace trig.
Life is nothing without difficulty. Or, as the first noble truth holds, Life is Suffering. Also loosely translated as, Embrace the suck.
Yes, by all means, hoist that iron. Climb that mountain. Tackle War and Peace. Discuss critical race theory with a leftist family member (uh…no, don’t do that). Choose the road less traveled and discover what you are truly capable of.
And speaking of cinematic singularities, I love the smell of self-improvement on a Friday morning at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. Smells like victory.
Discuss critical race theory will ALL family members. Especially the Woke.
Then do the other stuff.
Yes! Oh, and I did do the CRT thing. Makes Thanksgiving more . . . spacious.
Thank you.
From Wikipedia:
The Matrix is an American media franchise consisting of four feature films, beginning with The Matrix (1999) and continuing with three sequels, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions (both 2003), and The Matrix Resurrections (2021).
… and the ones that Mother gives you
don’t do anything at all …
Funny, that skips the Animatrix, but also . . . don’t remember any of those.
Here in Charleston, we see hope. It’s SEWE Weekend (Southeastern Wildlife Expo). Black Tie last night with $10+MM of wildlife artwork for sale. 99% white. We bought some art. High testotesterone level. Hot poontang rating off the chart. Dock dawgs jumping today at Brittlebank Park. One lab did 28+ feet. It was a 3-4 acre outdoor mancave. Met the head of DU, we had mutual friends.
It’s America circa 1960 for 4 days.
Excellent. It will spread.
Thank you from all the red pillers out here too despondent to comment. We’ve found it helps to take the blue pull once a week and hang out with people who don’t mention the existence of any pill. Enjoy good music and good food together.
Is that the green pill? 🙂
It’s . . . sheepherding? The Green Pill is fixing yourself. I often (when dealing with folks that aren’t yet awake) just drop little bits. Let them figure it out, or not.
Never take the blue pill. That’s going backwards.
I was born with a red pill in my diaper and I used to make Pappy laugh by pointing a mirror at other mirrors on the wall and making a vortex.
The girl in the red dress is a construct of the white male patriarchy?
Isn’t that Smith rant about humans being the virus somewhat creepy?
They made the Ciper character a real shit weasel but I love his quote about the PSYOP news and craving a steak.
There is no spoon and the spoon is afraid of the unbearable lightness of being.
Being a glitch in the Matrix feels good!
Yup. We all want the steak. But we can’t have it.
Amusing note: The Wachowski Brothers who made The Matrix had their own sequel and are now the Wachowski Xisters.
Yup, I knew that. I’m thinking that as directors they got too used to yelling, “cut”!