Stranger then Fiction: Atlas Shrugged, Bioshock, and Reality

Hello and welcome to Tea ‘n History, with your hostess, Felicia Angel.

Now, I will admit to being a fan of Keith Olbermann, who is a semi-far left journalist and sports journalist who is now on Al Gore’s Current TV, still keeping the old MSNBC show name of “Countdown”. Granted, I got into the show when I came home, and I don’t always agree with everything he says, but it can be fun to watch.

A number of weeks ago (August 17th), Olbermann reported on his “Worst Persons” segment about PayPal founder Peter Thiel and his donation of $1.25 billion to a group called the Seasteading Institute, a group who promote “the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities” and “enabling innovations with new political and social systems”.

Being a minor-gamer, the first time I heard of seasteading, I thought of a game known as Bioshock. Trust me, this leads into a long circle of logic that, sadly, Olbermann didn’t see…though considering he’s only a year or so on Twitter, I’d say he probably hasn’t heard of the game.

First, we’ll deal with where the idea of Bioshock comes from, for those who don’t know, which is a book known as Atlas Shrugged. Written by Ayn Rand and considered her opus, as well as debated on if it’s a good book or not (I’m reading it currently, and am in the ‘meh’ category), Atlas Shrugged deals with a universe where many of the top innovators and thinkers, as well as the few capitalists as we think of them (be it for good or ill) are either disappearing, attempting to keep their creativity afloat, or just giving up. With the loss of jobs from disappearances of both employers and, sadly, their loss of actual places to work. The main focus is on a woman named Dagney Taggert, one of two children who inherited Taggert Railways, and who is perhaps the only competent person in the entire book (in my opinion, and I’m a bit biased). Dagney is helped by another industrialist, Rearden, who’s created a new type of metal that she wants for her railroad but, due to various attempts to make things “better for the community”, though it’s apparent this is only for a few people, both go on the defensive. Throughout the novel is a sort of mystery over a man named John Galt, the phrase “Who is John Galt?” now becoming a sort of meme that indicates people are uncertain what’s right or wrong  or even what’s best for them.

The main point of the book is a 60-page monologue (that I haven’t gotten to but I hear it’s about that long) on a philosophy created by Rand called “Objectivism”, which states that “human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)), as well as promoting the pursuit of only your own happiness and a laissez faire capitalism. For those who don’t know what laissez faire capitalism is, picture your job. Now, picture that your boss can pay you whatever he wants, including lower then minimum-wage, and there is no such thing as unions, worker’s comp, safety instructions, minimal working hours, or anything else. If you see a need and are able to get a loan for a new factory, you too can engage in this type of behavior, but for now, you’re stuck working 16 hours a DAY and having money cut from your paycheck if you fall asleep on the job, take too long to eat lunch, get hurt, or take a break so you can go to the bathroom.

It’s a good and bad thing. Good in that it promotes ideas as needed and creates new markets and items for consumption, bad because most don’t like regulations of business.

This brings us to Bioshock.

Released by 2K Boston (now Irrational Games) in 2007 for the XBox 360, and later released in 2008 for the PS3 by Digital Extremes and in 2009 for the Mac OS by Feral Interactives, BioShock took away so many awards and good reviews when it came out that it’s considered a must-own. The first-person shooter (FPS, for those who aren’t savvy), revolves around the main character entering a world created by a man named Andrew Ryan which holds the objectivist/libertarian viewpoint of no regulation of business, art, or science. When you reach the underwater city, situated in the North Atlantic, you soon realize something is very wrong and, in classic form that many gamers know, you go in to mess up whatever there is and to help the few survivors by killing the dangerous ones.

The story itself is full of twists that should not be spoiled (though probably are, we are on the internet) but the basis is you, through the character of Jack, slowly learn what went wrong in this underwater city called Rapture. The two small spoilers I’ll give are two people you either help or go up against: the first, Dr. Steinman, speaks often of his “goddess” and wishes to see what he can do as a surgeon. This mostly means he’ll kill most of his “subjects” while trying to create a new beauty, a la a Cubist painter. In other words, not a nice man.

The next is an artist, Cohen, who will give you change for a $10 with three $3 and a dollar, and who’s idea of ‘art’ would make Jeffrey Dalmer a bit happy. He wants you to help him with his newest piece of art, which requires you to kill his old protogees and bring back pieces.

 

Now, back to our seasteading and Peter Thiel. Thiel’s idea is to set up a libertarian utopia, hence his donations over the years. He even states he was inspired by Atlas Shrugged.  Considering also that one article says the idea is to “start from scratch–free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place” for these floating islands (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html), some people would raise objections due to various points, which include the sea-cities being a crackpot idea, the lack of urban planning, and even with some residents of San Francisco who live on the water or waterfront “wishing them luck” and pointing out that “it’s not always easy” (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/01/MN1T1JB0FJ.DTL&tsp=1). The founder and many of those who buy into the seasteading feel they should have a “consumer-oriented” place, as well as wanting to have either a libertarian or objectivist viewpoint for their new ‘countries’. He appeared as part of Olbermann’s “Worst Persons” due to wanting to create the libertarian “utopia” and with Olbermann objecting due to the point that most of the ideals of many libertarians and objectivists don’t, to him, seem realistic. Also, they would apparently be in “Doctor Strangelove”… Again, I don’t always agree with him.

So yes, sometimes the truth is stranger then fiction, and if I have to go and save one of those platforms from itself, I and the rest of the gaming community will probably either find that very funny, or very sad.

Or both.

 

 

 

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE – A Comparison of Dystopias

A Comparison of Dystopias: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World

Welcome to Tea ‘n History, I’m your blogging host, Felicia Angel.

When asked about dystopias, often two sets come to mind: some sort of government or corporation has control over the society and everyone is generally miserable, or one where some sort of government or corporation has control over society and everyone doesn’t care because of drugs or conditioning to make them not. Often, a dystopia is a cautionary tale of what will happen if you allow something to take over, and with the ‘something’ being anything from a certain type of ‘ism’ to it’s counter, and thus you have everything in film and movies that involve some sort of dystopia fall into one of the two ideas put up above: it’s there and everyone is miserable but that’s how things are, or it’s there and everyone’s fine with it because that’s how things are.

Dystopias in general are a relatively new form of fiction, though, having had their start in the 1800s while the word itself, coined by Thomas More, appears in 1516 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia) *note: I said I would cite, so don’t be surprised*. The basics, again according to the Wiki and with an additional an online dictionary (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dystopia) is that dystopias are Not Good.

However, two particular dystopias stand out, mostly on the fact of being banned often as well as taught and either loved or hated, but also as templates of what I addressed earlier. As this is dealing with history, we’ll go with the one written first, and with the publish date of 1932, that’s the one where we are controlled by sex, drugs, and pop music!

I’m serious.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Warns You Of: Americanization, the Industrial Revolution, sexual promiscuity, ‘talkies’ (movies), the impact of the First World War and the Russian Revolution of 1917, the loss of identity, and others

 Brave New World is an odd addition as it’s very much both prophetic and downright depressing at times, as well as being one of the first dystopia novels written by Huxley. The story revolves mostly around a society in the future where everyone is happy. They also don’t have a right to choose anything for themselves, be alone, be exclusive with one partner, not buy stuff, live past 50, have a family, be of a lower or higher social status then others they grew up with, read what they want, study what they want, know about history, another language or languages, know about another culture, have parents, and various other things. If you can get past the first few chapters without hating the way it’s written or getting confused, you could easily enjoy some parts of it.

The characters we follow are Bernard Marx, who is original in the fact that he is unhappy and lonely in the world, and also shorter then most in his caste, and wishes to be more ‘mature’ then his fellow citizens. However, he also wants to be like them so he’s generally a sometimes unlikable character; Lenina, a Beta who follows social norms and so is the one we see how most people in society think, and Helmholtz, Bernard’s friend who is also miserable, but because he’s just too good and has gotten bored with life.

These are NOT our protagonists. We don’t meet him until Bernard asks Lenina to go to a Savage Reservation, one of the (possibly) many in the world where those who didn’t want to become like the outside world now life and die. This particular one is in America, and while there they meet John, a Savage and the son of a Linda, a Beta who was stuck on the Reservation because she had John. Bernard soon realizes that John’s father (a dirty word in the society, almost as bad as saying ‘mother’) is a head of Hatcheries and technically Bernard’s boss who dislikes him and will probably fire him, so he gets John and Linda off the Reservation.

John is what I like to consider a grab-bag of psychological issues, having grown up in a society that is nearly the anti-thesis to the one he’s brought into or heard about. His early knowledge of sex and drugs makes him adverse to both, and his life on the Reservation, as well as his reading of Shakespeare, does not help him mix with the ‘brave new world’ he originally was happy about seeing, but now mutters the line with sarcasm. Sadly, this particular social test does not end well for anyone.

One of the things about Brave New World is that many of the ideas, then, were proven somewhat true (he predicted Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), but in general, the whole story sometimes leaves a bad taste in your mouth. The society given is one of stagnation and it appears to be unable to change. Many suggest that the way to ‘revolution’ lies with those on the Reservation, but with them stuck behind electric fences, as well as apparently unwilling to try to make that change, and also not seen by many of the population outside of films, it seems that something larger must happen, and is probably never going to happen.

Moving on to our world of the often quoted…

Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell
Warns You Of: Socialism/Communism, as from Soviet Russia

One of the most-read high school books, as well as the most banned, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is also one of the most influential, creating various tag lines and ideas that appear in songs, other literature, movies, and even news. Helping in cast the term ‘Orwellian’, this book is indeed a great deal different from our last one.

Set in (possibly) 1984, the story itself centers around an actual protagonist named Winston Smith, a member of the Ministry of Truth, or Minitrue, with the job of ensuring the Party is always right. As Wikipedia and others have examples of how well Soviet Russia did this before there was even Photoshop, I’m going to leave it to you to find.

Despite being a member of the Party, Winston is still driven to rebel in his own ways, mostly by keeping a journal and going off to the ‘Prolies’ area for sex. He does notice odd things, such as the ‘decrease’ of sugar rations becoming an ‘increase’, as well as others because, well, he has to notice that. He also gets in with a young woman, Julia, who despite her wearing of a red band saying she is not about to have sex ever, is a…well, a liar. A ‘rebel from the waist down’, if you will.

As anyone who can guess by the way dystopias work, things don’t end well for Winston or Julia, as they are found out and tortured by the Ministry of Love, or Miniluv. The book ends on a down note, but at the same time is, in my historical mind, a bit happier then it’s earlier counterpart.

While Nineteen Eighty-Four has is down moments and envisions a world in perpetual war and chaos in order to control the majority of the population, it’s salvation seems more likely then that of Brave New World. Whereas Huxley’s vision of a dystopia keeps the world happy and with those who would or could lead a rebellion on islands (or in charge and under scrutiny by nine others of similar minds and problems), Orwell’s vision is based on a real-world or similar government that has to either change or fall due to various reasons. Those in charge of the Party, as well as Big Brother himself, will possibly fall one day due to lack of funds and food, which is the quickest way to a rebellion of the masses. With the ending of both, while there is no hope or little for our protagonists, there is some for the world by the end of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but little for Brave New World.

Both are highly recommended for dystopian literature, though only one has a very good movie attached to it (which is also recommended for those who watched V for Vendetta). Both are some of the more influential works of literature, and more often looked at with comparisons to other dystopian literature or films.

Well, with that heavy-lifting and somewhat depressing item done, time to move on and out. Thank you for your time, and I hope to see you again!