The machines are the proletariat: "Matrix" as a counterrevolutionary story

MAOIST.WS

2008 January

MIWS is going to keep this shorter than what one might expect, because MIWS guesses that nobody would be able to say anything truly substantive in support of the thesis that the "Matrix" story as a whole is revolutionary. MIWS believes that most approval of the "Matrix" movies by alleged radicals comes from a First World view of revolution (militant left-wing parasitism), from visceral enjoyment of the popular movies' aesthetics and superficially revolutionary theme, or from simply not having seen the "Second Renaissance" shorts in the "Animatrix" anime collection or not having considered the "Matrix" story as a whole. "The Second Renaissance" is the part of "The Animatrix" (2003) that explains how the Matrix simulation and the machines' use of humyn bodies for energy came to be.

MIWS has already explained how "The Matrix" (1999) is petty-bourgeois. In the big picture, "The Matrix" is part of one big individualist bourgeois mass in the First World movie culture and has limited usefulness for party-building or Maoist science education purposes. "The Matrix" is similar to other movies about mundane/tranquil/neurotic daily life, dreaming or drug-induced hallucination, reality, perception and consciousness that draw from petty-bourgeois discontent. At the same time, clearly bourgeois movies such as "The Bourne Ultimatum" (2007) could be better than "The Matrix" for agitation in the First World. In "Blue Thunder" (1983), for example, a Los Angeles cop helicopter pilot uncovers what amerikans would call "corruption" and ends up in a conflict with the u.$. military -- while both are fantasy, this is relatively more realistic than the situation in "Running Man" (1987), a seemingly revolutionary movie that looks like a Liberal's nightmare about totalitarianism in the united $tates. In "Running Man," the reluctant hero character (a former cop helicopter pilot) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to single-handedly defeat totalitarianism by awakening the consciousness that hundreds of millions of sadistic reality TV-viewing amerikans are supposed to have. Today, "Running Man" may annoy or amuse "Survivor" and "American Idol" fans, but may not have much more impact than that. It is possible that a movie just about conspiracy and corruption could be more effective in dividing the First World exploiters than a supposedly revolutionary movie. People who do not understand the difference between party-building and agitation, or have an idealist, rather than materialist, approach to evaluating culture, separately from its objective effects, will disagree. It is not that MIWS upholds "The Bourne Ultimatum" or "Blue Thunder" as models for storytelling under socialism among the oppressed. In different settings, in different contexts, and in different stages of struggle, different standards are called for, all arrived at by Maoist science. Even compared with other petty-bourgeois movies, "The Matrix" isn't clearly better.

MIWS now draws from the "Matrix" story as a clear negative example, an example of political ideas that are incorrect, and an example of the kind of story that could be counterrevolutionary while appearing revolutionary. MIWS previously suggested that "The Animatrix" could be ignored for the purpose of reviewing "The Matrix" alone, but the fact is, many people have seen both. There are millions of people who have seen all of the "Matrix" movies and "The Animatrix" and perhaps even played one of the video games; so, the "Matrix" story should be evaluated as a whole and not equated with just the movies or just "The Matrix." "The Animatrix" provides some crucial historical "background" that many "Matrix" fans may not have seen, or may be aware of but haven't explored.

MIWS questions treating the "Second Renaissance" story as mere background, because from a materialist standpoint that story is more important than the individualist story about Neo in "The Matrix," and "The Second Renaissance" as culture may influence how people understand real-world events after watching "The Matrix." MIWS has said that "The Matrix" is petty-bourgeois, which means that it contributes to political vacillation, at best, in articulating the interests and outlook of the petty-bourgeoisie, which includes most people in the united $tates. A movie could be petty-bourgeois without rising to the level of being counterrevolutionary. It could just be some decadent movie glorifying the exploits of people trying to steal money from a casino. "Blue Thunder," a more overtly political movie, may be petty-bourgeois, but there is nothing particularly counterrevolutionary about the idea of a cop's being forced to fight the u.$. military after learning about plans to use a helicopter to kill people in inner cities in the united $tates; MIWS would have a problem if in a certain context, such as a struggle against police, people took that to mean the police weren't repressive, and there are other reasons why MIWS might oppose the showing of "Blue Thunder." "The Matrix," in the context of "The Animatrix," is counterrevolutionary because the oppressed are portrayed as the enemy. The fact that the oppressed appear as machines in the movie, as if it were a freakish Frankenstein movie about science and technology gone wrong, would only make the reactionary message more subtle.

A movie can be a way for amerikans to express anxiety about being invaded or dominated by poor, non-white or Third World people. It could be a movie about aliens, such as "War of the Worlds" (2005) or "The Invasion" (2007). It could be a movie about robots, such as "I, Robot" (2004) or "Transformers" (2007). It could even be a movie about zombies. (Other movies about aliens or monsters, such as the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) and "Godzilla" (1954) and its sequels and derivatives, may be allegories for communism and anti-communism, nuclear warfare, inter-imperialist war, militarism, or environmental destruction.) Most amerikan viewers aren't actually afraid of aliens, monsters, robots, zombies, mutants, and giant animals; although, MIWS will talk a little bit about robots as a special case later. In "The Second Renaissance," we see that people treated artificially intelligent worker robots, who looked like humyns, as second-class humyns. Eventually, people became scared of the robots and tried to destroy them. "The Second Renaissance" shows what can only be described as a genocide of the humanoid worker robots, and a sadistic mob orgy of destruction, opposed by some humyns. Artificially intelligent machines formed their own country and became an economic threat to humyn populations, their currency, credit rating, and market share and power. Humyn countries blockaded the machine country, trying to capture the market by dividing the world. Humyns finally went to war against the machines and ruined the atmosphere in a last-ditch effort, led by the united $tates, to take away the machines' energy supply. To survive, the machines started to breed and harvest humyns for energy. Construction of the Matrix was necessary to give the humyns the sensory stimulation they needed to survive and be useful to the machines.

There is an idealist story in "The Second Renaissance" about one robot who triggers the events, but what's important are the humyn social forces that the story suggests. If more prominence had been given to the history behind the Matrix in the story, and the Zion humyns fighting the Matrix had been portrayed as regretful and willing to cooperate with the machines to develop another energy source, "Matrix" could have been just petty-bourgeois in an average way. But the fact is the machines are demonized, and the Zion humyns and their struggle against the machines are glorified. It isn't that the Zion humyns are in between the nasty genocidal humyns and the machines and just got caught up in the war, which would be a typically petty-bourgeois view of war involving oppressors and oppressed people. No, there are only the Zion humyns, the humyns stuck in the energy farm, and the machines, and only the machines are portrayed as the enemy; at the same time, there are no clear examples of machines that aren't the enemy, the Oracle, Rama-Kandra and Sati notwithstanding.

The current reviewer watched "The Matrix" before watching "The Animatrix," but had suspicions before seeing "The Animatrix." There is Morpheus' memorable comment that it was the humyns who "scorched the sky," not the machines. "The Matrix" still entertains even after watching it several times, but part of analyzing movies scientifically is opposing subjectivism. MIWS would not recommend "The Matrix" just because it liked it viscerally, enjoyed the kick-ass action and special effects and bad-ass sound track of a refreshingly "revolutionary" movie with selfless, hardened protagonists, etc. Readers should consider the "Matrix" story in the context of what Maoists call "the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations," which is on track to determine the fate of First World oppressors after they are defeated. Amerikans would say that any dictatorship in which they are not in power is totalitarian or oppressive. There is nothing specifically anti-imperialist or communist about the "Matrix" story; thus, it serves to reinforce individualism and white nationalism just as easily as it would serve to inspire thinking about daily routine life, culture, power struggle and social systems in general. Add in "The Animatrix," and one has a distinctly anti-proletarian story that barely conceals its references to rising Third World countries and so-called cheap labor. MIWS does not suggest anything about the intentions of the Wachowski brothers, who wrote parts of "The Second Renaissance" and "The Animatrix," but it is clear that any progressive potential was overwhelmed by the anti-machine content of the movies. Most of the philosophical, metaphysical, religious and spiritual content that idealist writers talk at length about may be lost on viewers, leaving a reactionary story about amerikans' fighting oppressed people in power -- a oppressor minority, holding onto the decadent imperialist past, fighting an oppressed majority. In the second and third "Matrix" movies, there are various hints that humyns and the machines may end up cooperating or at least coexisting, but these are decisively overridden by the viewer's memory of the stark images of the machines' energy farm and the humyn fields, and also by the dehumanizing images of mechanical insect- and squid-like machines (swarms of "calamari").

In this context, the ambiguous ending of the movie trilogy, where the humyns don't have final victory over the machines (the oppressed), is almost the "Matrix" story's redeeming value -- almost, because the ending could be bourgeois pessimism about a dystopian future in which the bourgeoisie is not in power.

Economics

In the "Second Renaissance" shorts, there are possible allusions to enslaved Blacks, Jews in fascist Europe, interned Japanese people, and obviously the Million Man March. MIWS has drawn a parallel between the Third World and implicitly Third World migrants, and the machine nation Zero-One and the machines. If 01 is supposed to be Israel, as some have suggested, then there would need to be another discussion. Another candidate would be Japan. However, those comparisons may not hold up for economic and political reasons.

There aren't always going to be perfect parallels between a sci-fi story and the real world; the fantastical situations in science fiction suggest an outlook that needs to be examined in its own right. But as rhetoric about racial and ethnic "healing" and unity in the united $tates increases (with and following Obama and Condoleezza Rice, and even Joe Lieberman still), or imperialism actually becomes more ethnically integrated within imperialist countries, what MIWS is saying will become more relevant. The Third World will become even more the focus in people's thinking. MIWS does not suggest that people will understand or interact with the "Matrix" story in one way only. It should be obvious that the analysis of movies and other culture needs to include class analysis and demographics, without the infinite division of Liberalism into individuals. MIWS opposes all approaches to theory and analysis that either attach central importance to the individual or to the humyn species as an undifferentiated whole.

In the context of considering the machines in the "Matrix" story as a representation of Third World people, or of proletarians, who are concentrated in the Third World, the portrayal of the machine nation Zero-One and its role in the economy reinforces chauvinism. By saying that the machines are the proletariat, MIWS in no way means that machines produce value; that would be a totally wrong interpretation of what MIWS is saying here that completely misses the point. But to the extent that the machines can be said to play a humyn role in the story, that common idea that the Third World threatens the market share and trade balances of First World countries ignores the parasitic aspect of imperialism. In the real world, the Third World loses labor to the First World. The image "The Second Renaissance" conjures of the Third World's dumping attractive, but cheap, products on the market, produced by brown and yellow people on assembly lines or in labs, goes with a white nationalist analysis of "globalization," not a scientific analysis of imperialism and trade.

Things are connected in other ways. Even the theme of possible coexistence throughout the "Matrix" story is not without problems. Liberalism on a world scale is coexistence between the oppressor First World and the oppressed Third World, to the benefit of the First World. Amerikans like to imagine that they are self-reliant and could do without the Third World.

In order to fully understand why the depiction in "The Second Renaissance," and many claims about the adverse effects of Third World exports for the First World, are misleading, there needs to be a theory of unequal or at least "non-equivalent" exchange. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin, contrary to some empty-headed people claiming to uphold him today, very clearly talked about the importance of studying trade statistics scientifically and related trade to the export of capital, but it is important, for the sake of advancing theory and understanding the understandable limitations of Imperialism for studying certain economic topics that MIWS has raised, to understand that Lenin focused on imperialist countries' exports and how the imperialist countries dumped their products on the market by monopolistic underpricing -- whereas unequal exchange theories typically deal with overpriced imperialist country exports and underpriced oppressed nation exports in terms of value and exploitation. Individual imperialist countries benefit from monopolistic underpricing in certain circumstances, but oppressed nations lose overall from price distortions, because they do not recapture the value of their exports. It is not possible to understand the flawed economics of the "Matrix" series without appropriate economic ideas. Among ridiculous so-called Leninists who treat Lenin's Imperialism as scripture and interpret it in a vulgar way, Zero-One, in the "Matrix" story, may even end up looking like an imperialist country, because 01 is shown flooding the world with high-tech and electronic products. The economics of "Total Recall" (1990), which depicts a colony forced to export natural resources in exchange for overpriced necessities, are better by contrast.

One thing that "The Second Renaissance" suggests, in a distorted way, that is correct is that exports of manufactured and processed goods from Third World countries has increased. So, the difference isn't just between First World manufactured goods and Third World primary goods or fuel, though those differences are still important and not correctly understood by most people or most communists. Labor aristocrats and social-imperialists who talk about the high "productivity" of First Worlders in manufacturing to justify exploitation of Third World workers have increasingly little ground to stand on even as far as superficial appearances.

Ideology and AI caretakers

MIWS will now talk about "Matrix" in its own terms as speculation about the future. When MIWS speculates, it is for the sake of discussing a hypothetical situation or strategic scenario; MIWS doesn't make predictions about the distant future except in a general and contingent way. It is still a kind of speculation, because MIWS wants situations and scenarios that are realistic and within the realm of possibility, but it isn't contemplative, because there is a narrowing process involved that is connected to a scientific or strategic goal. Many things are possible, but MIWS sorts out what is probable by looking at the structural limits of development and the state and direction of development of things. The focus needs to be on what is likely, not on just what is possible. That something would be technically possible doesn't make it likely. MIWS disagrees with some methods that have been used to predict technological developments that either ignore political economy or use it incorrectly.

In addressing the realism of a work of science fiction, it is easy to be contemplative. As a quick guideline for avoiding the problems of contemplative thinking, MIWS would tentatively suggest beginning with known facts and restricting the scope of analysis to one's lifetime. Scientific communists should be thinking about strategies that may have to be implemented decades from now within their own lifetime and developments and technological practices that they may need to prepare for.

That could be a very long amount of time. "The Second Renaissance" takes place in the early 22nd century. Relatively soon, there may be a new generation of communists who will live to see 2100. For all anyone knows, MIWS could be around in 2070 or 2080 without making big assumptions about medical advances etc. MIWS does not have a 25- or 50-year plan, but MIWS's longest time horizon could easily be 25 or 50 years for planning purposes. For analytical purposes, the period should be the same for everyone so there is a common ground for discussions and people don't have to bring up persynal information: life expectancy minus the average age of humyns, or life expectancy at birth. The underlying idea here is that communists need to prepare for a long-term struggle and be mindful that what they are doing now may affect future generations and those generations' own readiness for struggle.

With a time horizon or period of analysis that may be fifty years or more, it is important that people not dismiss advances in technology as irrelevant. At the same time, attention to technology needs to be separated from notions belonging to the Theory of Productive Forces. Computers and the Internet, the so-called computer, Internet and communications revolutions, for example, offer some benefits for revolutionary work, but the Internet isn't going to lead to revolution in the First World without outside humyn forces. Technology doesn't make imperialist country people revolutionary or more advanced than other people. For that matter, MIWS's situation isn't ideal in some ways; MIWS exists partly as a way of circumventing certain kinds of repression and spying, not because MIWS thinks unique Internet ways and styles of communicating are going to solve the problem of the overall lack of revolutionary material in the First World. MIWS does not do e-mail and does not have a blog, MySpace page or Facebook page with daily posts or updates with little scientific substance, because those things are wastes of time and security risks for MIWS's purpose.

In connection to time horizons, much knee-jerk white nationalism is related to historical ignorance. When people ridicule the idea of the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations, they ignore not only the defeat of German imperialism and the occupation of Germany by originally geographically external forces, but also the numerous major border and territorial changes throughout world in the past century and in recent decades, the united $tates included. The united $tates isn't some kind of exception. Relatively, historically speaking, fifty years is a short amount of time, but the idea of a former united $tates of amerika is too much for social-patriots too stomach. Everything changes, but people can know concretely by studying history that the imperialist country status quo isn't permanent. MIWS has to say all of this, because it seems that some errors in the communist movement are partly related to having only short term horizons, into which communist goals are squeezed. MIWS is working toward goals it may not even see realized, and even if the JDPON were to be formed in the First World soon, MIWS would not expect to be treated as anything other than spies at first if it were in the First World, because the proletariat may not have the luxury to discriminate.

There is some disagreement among writers as to whether the "Matrix" series is about the future or the present, or perhaps contains a timeless universal philosophical or spiritual doctrine. MIWS would argue that the series is counterrevolutionary whether it alludes to the future or the present, but if one makes some assumptions, such as an assumption about the class symbolism of the machines, or modifies the story to ignore the fantasy history references and treat the machines as imperialism, the "Matrix" series has some usefulness in discussion of the future. MIWS would like to talk about the "Matrix" story as a prediction about artificial intelligence and also as a prediction about ideology. In both contexts, there is a question relating to the state.

In terms of ideology, MIWS has already said, "The Second Renaissance" aside, that the character Cypher's betrayal isn't just a matter of spies; there is a question of pushing, inviting or searching out people to be revolutionary before they are ready. In the real world, most people who become political in the First World end up causing or perpetuating problems or becoming prone to being used by the state, because there is no situation that exists that would lead First Worlders in a revolutionary direction and confine them to the revolutionary path. Failure to understand the fundamentally reactionary nature of most amerikans' political activity, beneath any rhetoric, could lead to serious problems for a revolutionary movement. A variety of amerikans have impressive rhetoric and flowery poetry, but communists need to have a sense of where that's all going. "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003) reveals part of Neo's role as a savior in freeing minds from the Matrix. The best way for an Agent to undermine an inexperienced Neo would have been to send a lot of political deadweight his way and people vaguely enthusiastic about the idea of revolution and militant heroic struggle, but without a substantial track record of practice and scientific ability, knowing that destructive contradictions would result. Not all state activity would take the form of fancy Agent fighting moves or the machines' sending Sentinels after the Nebuchadnezzar. Not all feds or potential spies come with suits either or paper trails leading to a government agency or department, but MIWS is mainly referring to sincere parasites who appear in an inappropriate organizational setting. Morpheus' statement that nobody can be told what the Matrix is until he or she joins the underground resistance and receives the truth there, in a context suggesting that life outside the underground is just sedated and apolitical, fundamentally does not apply in the real First World. People are already scientists before they become part of the organized vanguard; those without the required abilities, communist goal and sufficient drive, to carry out uniquely communist tasks in the First World in a sustained way, can participate in a united front.

Even more generally, it is possible that a group of people, even oppressed people, who have not had recent first-hand experience of violent class struggle may not have enough momentum to carry the struggle against oppression through to the end. The Maoists in China tried to solve this problem with cultural revolution and acknowledged the need for more than one cultural revolution.

If there is any doubt about the efficacy of successive cultural revolutions, it may be on account of the difficulty of mobilizing people to stay on the path to communism while there is no war situation, but a period of relative stability. There is where "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003) -- and the "Matriculated" short in "The Animatrix," with a humyn instead of the robot -- become relevant, because they would suggest that the proletarian state needs to design and maintain an ideology, a figurative "Matrix," for the whole population, to control contradictions until the transition to communism is completed -- a constructed ideology, existing for an extensive length of time, with an underlying material and coercive foundation. Liberals would call this "authoritarian." MIWS would call the path suggested by "Matrix" incorrect for other reasons, because there would still be a problem of a new bourgeoisie arising within the state.

There is a different question when dealing with the First World oppressor population. The dictatorship of the proletariat is going to have to be authoritarian toward the oppressors regardless, because it is not possible to carry out mass line with a group of oppressors, only investigation to determine how to best defeat, expropriate, educate and repress the oppressors. In this case, a "Matrix" for First Worlders may be called for, unless they are relocated and dispersed. Interestingly, Agent Smith in "The Matrix" tells Morpheus that the first Matrix was a simulation of a utopia ("where none suffered, where everyone would be happy") that the sleeping humyns rejected. What the utopia is, communism, "Brave New World," or whatever, is unclear; Smith just says it was planned by the machines, which have logical limitations, according to the Architect in "Reloaded," and may have "lacked the programming language" to describe humyns' perfect world, according to Smith. On the one hand, the vague comment about rejecting a rationally envisioned society reinforces the idea that communism is against humyn nature, but it is true that First Worlders would reject communism if they were suddenly thrown into it. (To say humyns are all inclined to accept communism at this time would be another form of the theory of humyn nature.) MIWS does not mean that there would literally be a constructed computer virtual reality, but the dictatorship of the proletariat will determine ideology in the former imperialist countries, and it may be contrived in part, not always a simple reflection of reality or the truth.

There is also a question related to bureaucracy. Science or no science, there may always be ideology in broad sense, for reasons that Louis Althusser discussed, but a large state machinery deliberately shaping ideology without mass participation would contain the potential for bureaucracy. There may even be a danger in having a socially isolated proletarian state machinery surrounded by settlers and parasites in the First World, distant from the real masses. The land of the First World may need to be re-populated by oppressed nation people to support the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations.

In terms of artificial intelligence, the "Matrix" story offers another prediction, about an independent state-like entity, embodied in powerful artificially intelligent machines, standing above the whole population. Before MIWS talks more about this specifically, MIWS will talk the economic basis for robots to arise in general, that look like the robots in "The Second Renaissance."

The robots in "The Second Renaissance" are androids, a feature of many different sci-fi stories. There are various sci-fi explanations for androids, but for MIWS, androids, or autonomous or at least unattended mobile robots less specifically, would arise only for specific economic reasons. Since MIWS recently put up documents about ecology, MIWS, without pretending to offer a comprehensive explanation of how certain advanced technologies and uses of them could come about, will ground this discussion in a random ecology-related paper it found that is relevant, just to show how one could start thinking about future technology rationally.(1) MIWS doesn't agree with everything in this paper or all of its proposals, or its overall approach and politics, but the paper offers some interesting observations about materials use, services, and wages. Specifically, the paper notes a decline in the materials intensity of the global economy in per-dollar terms between 1970 and 1995, but explains the decrease partly in terms of what are typical unproductive sector industries -- "banking, insurance, health, education, and other nonextractive and non-manufacturing industries," retail -- and states that total materials use increased. To reduce materials use, the authors propose, among other things, extending the life of existing products by repair and rebuilding.

Importantly, the authors not only suggest that high incomes allow wasteful materials use, but also argue that high wages are an obstacle to the proposed repair and rebuilding, because repair and rebuilding are labor-intensive, and the labor would have to be local or regional to be economical. This would suggest the need for a mobile and highly flexible, but skilled, labor force whose function could be emulated by the robots seen in "The Second Renaissance."

MIWS finds it interesting that a proposed solution for reducing materials use could mean potentially more exploitation of foreign labor, because of the larger First World unproductive sector employment that the solution implies. That local repair technicians would still be consuming. They may consume less material, but not necessarily less labor. The transformation of the economy may not be able to take place without class struggle. The ways in which the high incomes of bourgeois First World workers play a role in changes leading to increasing or perpetuating parasitism is an important area for exploration in general.

Because of the inherent contradictions of imperialism, MIWS in general has theoretical reasons to doubt the political and economic ability of a leading imperialist country to reduce material use to a minimal level. But, as the white nation population in the united $tates continues to decline and the population ages, and as oppressed nation migrants are shut out, repressed and deported, the appearance of artificially intelligent or highly programmable mobile service-providing robots becomes a greater possibility, even if a perfect, approximate or superior emulation of humyn reasoning and knowledge (the kind of capability commonly associated with AI machines and programs in science fiction, e.g., "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), "Star Wars" (1977) (C-3PO), and "Artificial Intelligence: AI" (2001)) is never attained.(2) There are structural constraints and countervailing pressures, but otherwise the potential for the introduction of such robots is increasing.

People who do not understand the social nature of value and its relation to class struggle often contemplate machines as creating value; the topic of robots is even more confusing. Typically, there is an underlying Theory of Productive Forces argument or the chauvinist assumption that the First World produces the equivalent of what it consumes or even more; there is no comparable focus on the amount of value created by Third World workers that is injected into the system. To the extent that the function of mobile robots is confined to the provision of services that would otherwise be done by unproductive (humyn) labor, and the First World continues to the perceive the use of people's labor in the Third World as more economical than robots, the discussion of robots and the creation of value would be moot. "The Second Renaissance" raises various speculative social and economic questions, but the most outrageous one has to do with the idea of machines' ruling over humyns, not just in the sense of man-machine interdependency that the elder councilor talks about in "The Matrix Reloaded."

The theme of authoritarian utopia or benevolent authoritarianism, including benevolent, specifically technological authoritarianism, is found in many sci-fi stories, famously Isaac Asimov's and Aldous Huxley's. MIWS suspects that people have not understood the full implications of the "Matrix" saga as a science fiction epic, as opposed to just an action series with philosophical and intellectual subtexts. Many critical reviews and essays do not put the "Matrix" movie trilogy and "The Animatrix" in the context of other sci-fi films and stories, but some viewers will. There are many similarities that MIWS could talk about, but the connection MIWS would like to make is to "Colossus: The Forbin Project" (1970), part of the cultural legacy of the Cold War. There is reportedly going to be a remake of "Colossus." In "Colossus," a machine programmed to defend the united $tates, given control of weapons systems and nuclear weapons, and designed to remove "human" irrationality and imperfection from decision-making, ends up cooperating with a similar Soviet system, its Soviet counterpart, and taking over the world to prevent war. Problematically, the unified Colossus-Guardian system doesn't say anything about ending exploitation to ensure peace (just disease, famine and overpopulation -- typical items on a mitigative imperialist agenda). Disturbingly, the new system also re-targets u.$. and Soviet missiles away from the U.S.S.R. and the united $tates, to Third World countries and other countries that have weapons not under Colossus' control, and, reminiscent of imperialist peacekeeping rhetoric, appears to equate the defense and preservation of the united $tates with the prevention of war in general.

In their actions toward humyns, the machines in "The Matrix," on a line, might roughly be somewhere in between Colossus and the self-preserving Skynet of "Terminator" (1984) indifferent to the survival of humyns. In the most favorable light, the "Matrix" machines act in a way that happens to preserve the humyn species -- whereas the species might have gone extinct in an environment damaged by nuclear weapons (making Matrix life seem attractive by comparison) -- but the Matrix doesn't simulate communism, and the machines offer humyns limited autonomy, within the Matrix virtual reality. Another, obvious comparison would be with the artificially intelligent system V.I.K.I. in the movie "I, Robot" (2004), which, like Colossus, ends up trying to save humyns from themselves and taking away some of their freedom. (MIWS could also make a connection to Godard's "Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution" (1965) and the Alpha 60 computer, but only in that the "Matrix" series and "Alphaville" are both a petty-bourgeois or false consciousness-centered critique of alienation, sterility and technical/social control and efficiency in industrialized societies and have parallel themes about evolution. MIWS would deal with "Alphaville" separately, since it is clearly aiming to be much more than a portrayal of the future of humyn civilization, but rather a theoretical movie about the present and certain societies, and may draw a different audience. Otherwise, "Alphaville," "I, Robot" and the "Matrix" series are all starkly negative portrayals of machine control, whereas "Colossus: The Forbin Project" is arguably ambivalent.)

There is a petty-bourgeois pacifist or Liberal train of thought in all of the movies MIWS mentioned. But if the species doesn't get to communism fast enough to prevent extinction, there is a sense in which it will have already surrendered control of its destiny. Advances in computing, artificial intelligence theory, mind and brain sciences, and materials and engineering, by 2100 or even 2050, barring prohibitive economic, political and cultural changes and shifts (including changes affecting interest in and funding for research), may make a Colossus or a V.I.K.I. technically, if not socially, possible. If imperialism is not destroyed in time to improve the survival chances of the species, there may be the Colossus option, and the contradictions that would entail, as a possible future for the species, not just extinction, to the extent that such a technological and social system would not be identifiable as communism. Irrational people need to stop provoking each other and ruining things for the species as a whole -- that is one problem, which "Colossus" raises in a Liberal way; there are also underlying ideological and structural contradictions that must be resolved, by coercive and revolutionary cultural means.

MIWS has no particular reason to doubt that someone will eventually attempt to create a highly capable, potentially extremely powerful AI system, which would just need to be connected to material appendages (attached or remotely controlled tools or systems) useful for carrying out its objectives, as defined by itself or some parameters fed to it (e.g., eliminate atopic weapons, maximize and equalize life expectancy with some constraints against killing and other things, minimize stress without using drugs). MIWS would only argue that such a system could come into being only with enormous resources appropriated in the course of class struggle. Crucially, while Dr. Forbin is given chief credit for Colossus, Colossus grew out of the u.$. military, not some individual's lab somewhere. The emergence of such a system before class, gender and national contradictions have been resolved would likely come about only in the midst of heightened global class struggle and have to overcome numerous powerful economic and political forces and instabilities. As to the ultimate possibility of such a development, there are only pat answers; MIWS can only speak to the preconditions for the introduction of such a control system, because its capabilities are unknown and inherently speculative.

As a figurative prediction of reality, where the machines of "Matrix" just represent a strong coercive state apparatus, the "Matrix" story presents the same problem that MIWS discussed before. This time, the machines represent the repressive aspects of the proletarian state, not the proletariat itself deploying a "Matrix" ideology against the oppressor classes. MIWS still sees problems of bureaucracy and a new bourgeoisie. A state of the whole population, standing above classes, cannot last as a proletarian state. As the proletarian state carries out its functions, specific anti-bureaucracy measures and cultural revolutions must be carried out, by the masses.

"The Second Renaissance" and the "Matrix" trilogy raise some questions for scientific consideration. Overall, the "Matrix" story is counterrevolutionary. After introducing the idea that the machines and Zero-One are the proletariat or proletarian nations, MIWS in this article tried to redeem the "Matrix" story by looking at some questions raised by the story that are related to the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. MIWS still found the story lacking. There is nothing or little that is specifically communist about the "Matrix" story that wishful people don't read into it, or strategically useful about the story in particular, for First World application.

Notes

1. Gary Gardner and Payal Sampat, "Mind Over Matter: Recasting the Role of Materials in Our Lives," Worldwatch Paper 144, 1998 December, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/846

2. Proceedings of the First Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, http://www.agi-08.org/papers/