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Sunday, March 10, 2013

Metal Gear Solid 2


Colonel  : To begin with -- we're not what you'd call -- human. 
           Over the past two hundred years -- A kind of 
           consciousness formed layer by layer in the crucible of 
           the White House. It's not unlike the way life started 
           in the oceans four billion years ago. The White House 
           was our primordial soup, a base of evolution --

           We are formless. We are the very discipline and 
           morality that Americans invoke so often. How can 
           anyone hope to eliminate us? As long as this nation 
           exists, so will we.

Raiden   : Cut the crap! If you're immortal, why would you take 
           away individual freedoms and censor the Net?

Rose     : Jack, don't be silly.

Colonel  : Don't you know that our plans have your interests -- 
           not ours -- in mind?

Raiden   : What?

Rose     : Jack, listen carefully like a good boy!

Colonel  : The mapping of the human genome was completed early 
           this century. As a result, the evolutionary log of the 
           human race lay open to us.

Rose     : We started with genetic engineering, and in the end,
           we succeeded in digitizing life itself.

Colonel  : But there are things not covered by genetic information.

Raiden   : What do you mean?

Colonel  : Human memories, ideas. Culture. History.

Rose     : Genes don't contain any record of human history.

Colonel  : Is it something that should not be passed on? Should 
           that information be left at the mercy of nature?

Rose     : We've always kept records of our lives. Through words, 
           pictures, symbols... from tablets to books...

Colonel  : But not all the information was inherited by later 
           generations. A small percentage of the whole was 
           selected and processed, then passed on. Not unlike 
           genes, really.

Rose     : That's what history is, Jack.

Colonel  : But in the current, digitized world, trivial 
           information is accumulating every second, preserved in 
           all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible.

Rose     : Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, 
           slander...

Colonel  : All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, 
           growing at an alarming rate.

Rose     : It will only slow down social progress, reduce the 
           rate of evolution.

Colonel  : Raiden, you seem to think that our plan is one of 
           censorship.

Raiden   : Are you telling me it's not!?

Rose     : You're being silly! What we propose to do is not to 
           control content, but to create context.

Raiden   : Create context?

Colonel  : The digital society furthers human flaws and 
           selectively rewards the development of convenient 
           half-truths. Just look at the strange juxtapositions 
           of morality around you.

Rose     : Billions spent on new weapons in order to humanely 
           murder other humans.

Colonel  : Rights of criminals are given more respect than the 
           privacy of their victims.

Rose     : Although there are people suffering in poverty, huge 
           donations are made to protect endangered species. 
           Everyone grows up being told the same thing.

Colonel  : "Be nice to other people."

Rose     : "But beat out the competition!"

Colonel  : "You're special." "Believe in yourself and you will 
           succeed."

Rose     : But it's obvious from the start that only a few can 
           succeed...

Colonel  : You exercise your right to "freedom" and this is the 
           result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect 
           each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by 
           different interests continue to churn and accumulate 
           in the sandbox of political correctness and value 
           systems.

Rose     : Everyone withdraws into their own small gated 
           community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside 
           their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits 
           them into the growing cesspool of society at large.

Colonel  : The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. 
           No one is invalidated, but nobody is right.

Rose     : Not even natural selection can take place here. The
           world is being engulfed in "truth."


Colonel  : And this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang,
           but a whimper.


Rose     : We're trying to stop that from happening.

Colonel  : It's our responsibility as rulers. Just as in
           genetics, unnecessary information and memory must be
           filtered out to stimulate the evolution of the
           species.


Raiden   : And you think you're qualified to decide what's
           necessary and not?


Colonel  : Absolutely. Who else could wade through the sea of
           garbage you people produce, retrieve valuable truths
           and even interpret their meaning for later
           generations?


Rose     : That's what it means to create context.

Raiden   : I'll decide for myself what to believe and what to
           pass on!


Colonel  : But is that even your own idea?

Rose     : Or something Snake told you?

Colonel  : That's the proof of your incompetence, right there.
           You lack the qualifications to exercise free will.


Raiden   : That's not true! I have the right --

Rose     : Does something like a "self" exist inside of you?

Colonel  : That which you call "self" serves as nothing more than
           a mask to cover your own being.


Rose     : In this era of ready-made 'truths', "self" is just
           something used to preserve those positive emotions
           that you occasionally feel...


Colonel  : Another possibility is that "self" is a concept you
           conveniently borrowed under the logic that it would
           endow you with some sense of strength...


Raiden   : That's crap!

Colonel  : Is it? Would you prefer that someone else tell you?
           Alright then. Explain it to him.


Rose     : Jack, you're simply the best! And you got there all by
           yourself!


Raiden   : Grrr...

Colonel  : Oh, what happened? Do you feel lost? Why not try a bit
           of soul-searching?


Rose     : Don't think you'll find anything, though...

Colonel  : Ironic that although "self" is something that you
           yourself fashioned, every time something goes wrong,
           you turn around and place the blame on something else.


Rose     : "It's not my fault. It's not your fault."

Colonel  : In denial, you simply resort to looking for another,
           more convenient "truth" in order to make yourself feel
           better.


Rose     : Leaving behind in an instant the so-called "truth" you
           once embraced.


Colonel  : Should someone like that be able to decide what is
           "truth"?


Rose     : Should someone like you even have the right to decide?

Colonel  : You've done nothing but abuse your freedom.

Rose     : You don't deserve to be free!

Colonel  : We're not the ones smothering the world. You are.

Rose     : The individual is supposed to be weak. But far from
           powerless -- a single person has the potential to
           ruin the world.


Colonel  : And the age of digitized communication has given
           even more power to the individual. Too much power
           for an immature species.


Rose     : Building a legacy involves figuring out what is
           wanted, and what needs to be done for that goal. All
           this, you used to struggle with. Now, we think for
           you.


Colonel  : We are your guardians after all.

Raiden   : You want to control human thought? Human behavior?

Colonel  : Of course. Anything can be quantified nowadays.
           That's what this exercise was designed to prove.

Rose     : You fell in love with me just as you were meant to,
           after all. Isn't that right, Jack?

Colonel  : Ocelot was not told the whole truth, to say the
           least.

Rose     : We rule an entire nation -- of what interest would a
           single soldier, no matter how able, be to us?

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