Watch the episode, it’s a lot more clear than listening to a one line summary.
Imagine if every book you picked up had the exact story you were thinking of. There would be zero surprise, zero imagination in the writing. You wouldn’t learn anything because it’s only what you expect.
Now you want some food, it’s the most intensely rich, perfect food you want. But the exact same of your favorite food every time. No variation, no imperfections.
You go to play a video game and you win with no effort having only clicked the absolute minimum needed to solve every step of the way.
That’s what the story is about.
On the surface, it seems like it would be great, and maybe it would be for an afternoon, but very quickly it would become a nightmare.
Imagine if every book you picked up had the exact story you were thinking of. There would be zero surprise, zero imagination in the writing. You wouldn’t learn anything because it’s only what you expect.
So, what if I wanted to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy? Plenty of actually existing books out there I could ask for as part of ‘everything I wanted’. And the content of those books shouldn’t change. If they did, then those wouldn’t be the books I wanted. And if I get tired of the books I’m already familiar with, well, I sure could add ‘a list of all books in my old local library’ as a thing I want, and then I know a bunch more books to ask for.
And what kind of 3rd-rate dystopia is this if ‘everything I wanted’ can’t include a specific book I asked for?
Now you want some food, it’s the most intensely rich, perfect food you want. But the exact same of your favorite food every time. No variation, no imperfections.
Only one kind of food? That’s not ‘everything I wanted’ – I already want more than one type of food, and I haven’t even had my ‘perfect’ food yet!
No imperfections is fine, but ‘everything I wanted’ will have to include quite a bit of variation, because I want variety.
You go to play a video game and you win with no effort
Video games I’ll give you, I guess. In this kind of world, video games might be so easy they’re boring … even if I asked for a specific, already-existing game, there would still never be any challenge in beating it because I just magically play it perfectly every time.
But, hey, lots of boredom-abolishing entertainment out there that doesn’t require audience participation the way video games do. Not just books, but movies, TV shows, art, maybe even stage plays, the works. Pretty sure I could keep myself amused for decades at least, given free access to all of that. There’s no way to ‘instantly win’ reading a book or watching a TV show. The experience of it will have to be pretty much the same as it is now … except that I’ve got literally all the time in the world for it, and no barriers to access. Ooh – you know what? I think I’ll start with the lost Doctor Who episodes, the ones that have never been seen since they first aired decades ago. That should be interesting.
Honestly, seems to be trying too hard to make this scenario sound awful when, really, it could be pretty great for someone with a bit of imagination.
It’s tailored specifically to torture you. You can’t game it, you can’t use your imagination to make it better. The more you try, the more you lose by thinking you can win.
They control everything, because it’s literally magic designed to make you suffer.
Watch the episode, it’s a lot more clear than listening to a one line summary.
Imagine if every book you picked up had the exact story you were thinking of. There would be zero surprise, zero imagination in the writing. You wouldn’t learn anything because it’s only what you expect.
Now you want some food, it’s the most intensely rich, perfect food you want. But the exact same of your favorite food every time. No variation, no imperfections.
You go to play a video game and you win with no effort having only clicked the absolute minimum needed to solve every step of the way.
That’s what the story is about.
On the surface, it seems like it would be great, and maybe it would be for an afternoon, but very quickly it would become a nightmare.
So, what if I wanted to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy? Plenty of actually existing books out there I could ask for as part of ‘everything I wanted’. And the content of those books shouldn’t change. If they did, then those wouldn’t be the books I wanted. And if I get tired of the books I’m already familiar with, well, I sure could add ‘a list of all books in my old local library’ as a thing I want, and then I know a bunch more books to ask for.
And what kind of 3rd-rate dystopia is this if ‘everything I wanted’ can’t include a specific book I asked for?
Only one kind of food? That’s not ‘everything I wanted’ – I already want more than one type of food, and I haven’t even had my ‘perfect’ food yet!
No imperfections is fine, but ‘everything I wanted’ will have to include quite a bit of variation, because I want variety.
Video games I’ll give you, I guess. In this kind of world, video games might be so easy they’re boring … even if I asked for a specific, already-existing game, there would still never be any challenge in beating it because I just magically play it perfectly every time.
But, hey, lots of boredom-abolishing entertainment out there that doesn’t require audience participation the way video games do. Not just books, but movies, TV shows, art, maybe even stage plays, the works. Pretty sure I could keep myself amused for decades at least, given free access to all of that. There’s no way to ‘instantly win’ reading a book or watching a TV show. The experience of it will have to be pretty much the same as it is now … except that I’ve got literally all the time in the world for it, and no barriers to access. Ooh – you know what? I think I’ll start with the lost Doctor Who episodes, the ones that have never been seen since they first aired decades ago. That should be interesting.
Honestly, seems to be trying too hard to make this scenario sound awful when, really, it could be pretty great for someone with a bit of imagination.
You don’t get it. It’s literally hell.
It’s tailored specifically to torture you. You can’t game it, you can’t use your imagination to make it better. The more you try, the more you lose by thinking you can win.
They control everything, because it’s literally magic designed to make you suffer.
It’s fiction.