The Matrix (1999) Series: Morpheus Teaches History
Last updated: June 23rd 2023
(Excerpted from my forthcoming The Matrix (1999) analysis.)
Morpheus teaches history
Turns out the year is actually 2199 (ish) in the real world.
There was a war that erupted as Humans proudly gave birth to AI and "a singular conscience that spawned an entire race of Machines."
(ZN: Morpheus doesn't tell us what exactly sparked the war. Why?)
(ZN: Human technological progress and economic growth leading to our demise.)
Humans scorched the sky #
"We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky."–Morpheus.
In an attempt to destroy the Machines, Humans destroyed the atmosphere to block out the Sun, because Machines were solar-powered.
(ZN: Us brutes straight-up scorched the sky! Do we even deserve saving?)
(ZN: Seriously, a world without sunlight? Sunlight is both the main source of our vitamin D and the main natural disinfectant of the environment. So we would be instantly depressed and surrounded by an ever growing persistent pathogens and microbial proliferation.)
(ZN: Not to mention the death of all plants and animal life. Would you want to live like that? How long until you snap and go full Cypher?)
Machines turn us into batteries #
In response to the lack of sunlight for their solar panels, the Machines switched to Humans as an energy source.
(ZN: Weird binary choice. Solar Power or Human Bodies?)
(ZN: Yes, Morpheus says human bodies "combined with a form of fusion," I know. But does that make it better?)
(ZN: Like using a donkey "combined with a type of Lamborghini" for racing.)
(ZN: There's oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, or even wind power, "combined with a form of fusion" if you want.)
Aside: Solar is a pipe dream #
As I write this, there is an average of 238,000 airplane flights every day (132,000 of which are commercial), according to FlightRadar24.
Just wanted to mention that to those who dream of a "solar-powered world."
It's never gonna happen. Not without destroying centuries of progress of civilization, that is.
"Big ball of abundant energy!" #
I know, The Sun is real big.
But it's not about how big an energy source is. It's about how reliable our process of gathering its energy and turning it into power is.
The thing with the Earth is that it rotates, and has clouds and weather which makes gathering solar energy impossible to do reliably.
The economics of solar power is cringe #
You've seen more (supposedly) solar-powered things recently. Particularly in the US.
This has more to do with the 82 federal subsidies per unit of electricity. Plus things like tax credits for homeowners who buy solar panels. So of course you're gonna see more solar panels. And more solar plants. It's nothing to do with solar tech getting any more practical or economically viable.
Solar power plants #
"This project will help the city achieve its goal to reduce our carbon footprint and stabilize city costs for the next 25 years,"
–Nathan D. Johnson, City Manager. Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
That was the announcement on February 2019 of a solar plant that had a 25-year expected lifetime. That lifetime was cut to down to less than 4 years when the plant was destroyed by bad weather on June 2023.
Speaking of solar plants, they will set birds on fire as they fly overhead.
That's 28,000 birds in some years, set on fire by one solar plant in one city. Are you sure you wanna have solar plants all over the world?
Solar shitshows #
Despite the tons of subsidies, you still have shitshows such as Tesla's "Tesla Roof."
Musk unveiled it in an August 2016 presentation. It was later revealed that the shingles were fake. By 2020 they were "still tinkering" and it was too expensive to make in volume. On April 2021 they sent out a message to many customers who had pre-ordered their roofs (some over a year prior) informing them of a cost increase of about 30%. To this day (June 2023) it remains unprofitable.
"We want real electricity, not fake electricity!"
–Villagers protesting in Bihar, India.
That's from that time Greenpeace environmentalists brought "Clean Energy" to a tiny village in India.
The Greenpeace saviors went there, set up the solar panels, took their PR photos and self-congratulated for bringing electricity to the third world. And they went back home.
Unfortunately, according to the villagers, the problems started almost immediately. To the point where the pissed off villagers started protesting, feeling scammed, and the government ended up switching them to coal power to appease them.
(If anyone knows what happened to the solar panels afterwards, let me know. Maybe they're using them to hunt/cook birds?)
Solar is a fractal shitshow #
It's not just rotation and weather, it's everything.
All the subsidies in the world can't compensate for the physical, economic, and geopolitical problems inherent to solar.
(Geopolitical problems such as eg. Germany's own shitshow: First a switch to expensive and unreliable "Clean" power, followed involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war, which meant no more fossils from Russia.)
And each of these problems arise within each phase: Mining, transport, materials, maintenance, etc. Ie. It's a fractal shitshow.
So if you think solar is "The Future," just because of the Sun is super big, you're basically retarded.
Batteries are dumb and explode #
Batteries can serve as backup for some basic setups (in practice it's actually "fossil" fuels that serve as backup to any non-trivial solar-powered infra.)
But we're not gonna have battery-powered airplanes. Certainly not Lithium batteries, which suffer from "thermal runaway,"
"a cascading effect in which they reach very high temperatures and emit smoke and toxic gasses that can fuel a fire or an explosion, especially if they’re packed tightly with other lithium batteries." – LithiumSafe.com
As you make them larger, or make larger arrays of them, Lithium batteries basically become bombs waiting to go off.
By the way, in your Solar-Powered World, when are the solar panels supposed to work on recharging the batteries?
That's right: The only time solar panels work at all. During the day. Ie. When they should be powering you. It's a fractally retarded power system.
Anyway, let's get back to the film. I have some questions about those Human Farms!
References #
- (Text/HTML) Statistics @ FlightRadar24
- (Text/HTML) Why are these batteries so dangerous? @ LithiumSafe
- (Text/PDF) Federal Energy Subsidies 2010 – 2020 @ LifePowered
- (Text/HTML) New Community Solar Project Coming to Scottsbluff @ Nebraska.solar
- (Text/HTML) Baseball-Sized Hail Destroys Scottsbluff Solar Farm @ CowboyStateDaily
- (Text/HTML) Solar plant sets birds on fire as they fly overhead @ CBC
- (Text/HTML) Homeowner’s Guide to the Federal Tax Credit for Solar @ Energy.gov
- (Text/HTML) Tesla Energy @ Wikipedia
- (Text/HTML) Coal Trumps Solar in India @ Scientific American