Neo is forcibly abducted from his gooey creche by Morpheus and other members of the Resistance. Neo emerges naked, slimy, confused, and scared. His world has been shattered.
The machines who run Earth had hooked up millions of humans to creches to extract their bioenergy, the fuel that keeps the machines going. They also had hooked humans into a big software program to entertain them, giving them the will to live. With the software, the humans believed they were having a wonderful life. But the reality is that they never left the creche they were incubated in. The will to live was necessary to supply bioenergy to the machines.
Neo is out of his creche and now knows how humanity has been enslaved. Morpheus offers Neo two pills.
If Neo takes the blue pill, he will be returned to the creche. His life will be comfortable and pleasurable. He will forget about his brief life outside the creche.
If Neo takes the red pill, he will join the resistance. The real world offers stress, suffering, war, and death.
A moral of this paradigm seems to portray a necessary loss or sacrifice to acquire the truth. The red pill/blue pill choice has been in many pop-culture allusions since the Matrix was released in 1999.
So what pill would you take if you were offered Neo’s choice?
Most of you will say the Red Pill.
But it doesn't matter what you just said. Politically speaking, those people who disagree with you would say have swallowed the Blue Pill — despite your insistence you took the Red Pill. You would say it is they who have taken the Blue Pill. Both sides of the political divide can use the Matrix paradigm to justify their own position. So whatever lessons the Matrix paradigm can teach us have been lost.
So I propose a new pill Matrix paradigm
Orange Pill
This pill is about replacing democracy with a rightful-thinking oligarchy. Many Medium readers see the rising forces of fascism coming from MAGA. MAGA has taken the Orange Pill to later inflict their version of a better world on all of us. If this oligarchy forms, the machines still get the bioenergy from both sides.
A pre-emptive left-leaning strike could prevent the MAGA takeover. Some readers would be willing to sacrifice democracy to put their favorite anti-fascist movement in charge instead of MAGA. If this oligarchy forms, the machines still get the bioenergy from both sides.
Black Pill
This pill is for those who believe that the world is heading for some kind of dystopia and there is not much we can do about it. We can see the ship sinking, but there is no sense in repairing the holes or closing bulkheads or finding a different ship. Our best hope is to find a small lifeboat and keep our heads low as the new oligarchic rulers — humanity’s natural social order — takes hold. The machines have convinced us to be helpless and hopeless. The machines still get our bioenergy.
Purple Pill
The current system can be saved — if enough of us participate in the right way. So we vote and protest. We jump in our echo chambers and vent. We write articles for the internet. We believe that our great insights and actions will convince more people in the creches to join the resistance. Maybe we can scare a few machines away.
However, when we take the purple pill, the best we can hope for is the world being in the same contentious state as it was before. We prevented the dystopia, but it is an empty victory. The machines still get our bioenergy.
Or maybe, just maybe, the Purple Pill has been designed by the intelligent machines to make us believe we can change things, when we really can’t. In other words, we have jumped from one matrix into a second matrix, a basic unreality into an advanced unreality. The machines still get our bioenergy.
Green Pill
We build a new democracy — because the current one (especially the American version) is not working out so well.
When this democracy is finished, all of humanity will be free of the machines. The people — not the machines — will be making the societal decisions. No more sitting in creches, looking for entertainment. There will be more opportunity and prosperity for all. And more community and connections!
Sounds too utopic, right?
Think of Neo when he was offered the Red and Blue Pills. He did not just step out and fight the Agent Smiths. He had to be trained. After many years in the creche, he needed to get his body in shape to master Newtonian physics. Then he had to learn how to believe the non-Newtonian ways of the matrix.
People who take the Green Pill will also have to be trained. Building this new democracy is where we get this training. After much practice with the new ways, the Green Pill will find us more able elected representatives, working in a more consensual environment, to find better solutions, free of partisan interference.
Still sounds too utopic, right?
The Red Pill must have sounded utopic to Neo as well. With no guarantee of success, Neo chose the Red Pill. If he was looking for a guarantee, he should have chosen the Blue Pill.
I am your Morpheus.
If you have not heard of the Green Pill before, you have now. Your ignorance of the Green Pill is no longer an excuse.
You are at the website that explains the Green Pill a little better. To learn, keep clicking on the links that you find more interesting.
Accepting the Green Pill does not mean you sit back and watch someone else build this new democracy. Think about this: there is something satisfactory in saying that we — the people — the average people — will have to build this democracy.
I am your Morpheus.
Whether you like this bold statement or not, you will be choosing one of these four pills when you finish reading this article. What will it be? Orange? Black? Purple? Green?
Published on Medium 2023
