ikr, would do that as a kid and kill a bunch of mobs but then get bored. Later when I got older you felt much better if you had full enchanted diamond armor and stacks of enchanted apples *because* you worked hard for it over weeks of playing beforehand makes going on a mob killing rampage feel much better- ha ha die stupid zombie! take that skeleton, payback for killing me in the mine earlier making me drop my first diamonds into the lava!
It sounds cheesy, but it's actually an amazing way to explain this. When you do that, sure, scientifically you get the same benefits as if you got it in survival. You can easily kill mobs and do whatever you want. But you didn't *work* for that diamond armor. You didn't go through dungeons after dungeons to get those gapples. Instead of climbing the epic mountain, you teleported straight to the top.
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. " -Agent smith
Yeah. Considering what was happening before people were plugged in, and these were the survivors of the war, I too would have been tearing at the walls to get out of that "perfect existence." But really that's what we do, we define our lives off misery and the more happy and carefree it is the more our subconscious says it's wrong.
I love how people take lines from a movie and then ascribe them to real life. Not calling anyone specific out here, but I've been noticing this trend lately, and I don't know about you all, but I certainly don't define my life off of misery.
@@SolarFlareAmerica well I chose this quote as I remembered this scene from the film and the explanation from Brit quite matched the one from smith, life would be meaningless with no suffering and pain, life would become boring, there would be no work no meaning, so the "suffering" smith refers to is daily inconveniences and loss tragedy and all that stuff, as those feelings in some way connect us make us feel, well alive, it's sort of like using hacks in GTA V, you get everything you are at the top, and from there, what can you do? You have everything and nothing to do, there was no work, that's why I quit the game, with everything on hand it just made the game have no purpose, now imagine that with your life, you do nothing all day, all that could be done has been done so you just sit at the top with no feelings and no emotions. so smith referred to the 20th century as the "peak of civilization" it was a time (in the films universe) where there were wars, loss, mundane activities, work, relationships because in the Animatrix film it is shown that humans do nothing all day, it is all done by machines.
@@tubaraofeio1053 bold of you to suggest that life would have meaning without pain and suffering. I agree that they're very noteworthy parts of life, but no meaning? Life already has no meaning other than what we ascribe to it. In a fictional universe without it, New meaning could still be found by those who experienced it. Would it be strange, perhaps even unnerving and alien? Probably. Living makes you feel alive. All the additional layers simply add to that experience, or take away from it. I can easily imagine a world in which I didn't have the additional stress of knowing my family will die one day, and I'd certainly sleep better in it. My little brother discovered cheats for GTA V and thinks they're the best part of the experience. He constantly attempts to break the game using them. He discovered an enjoyment for an alternative form of play, even with all the original game purpose being rendered meaningless as you describe. Except, it's not. The game was made to be enjoyed, and the cheats ARE a part of that. If that's not your cup of tea that's ok too. Loved the animatrix. I loved the suggestion that peace WAS possible, right up until humanity clouded the skies in a self-destructive fervor. Of course, this whole thing is about a comic about a drugged up dystopia, one I too shun. While the line blurs immensely between digital and physical reality, the one through line is we enjoy having the freedom to experience life on our own terms. If such a system was devised, it would need to be as if not more complex as irl to stimulate the human beings within it as well as allowing them to intermingle.
I think people are turned off by the pleasure cube because its hard to imagine it not getting boring. It would be sort of like just eating granulated sugar instead of anything sweet that has sugar in it. We like to eat sweet things generally, but we also like the other flavours that come with eating sweet things, whether it's cake, chocolate, fruit, gummy bears, etc. There probably is a version of the pleasure cube that more accurately replicates the subtler "high" pleasures associated with things like achievement, but it's hard to conceive of that for most people. Instead it just sounds like you end up pumped full of drugs that keep you dopey but technically happy.
I was thinking about the "pleasure cube" as kind of a better simulation of this world, but even if it's pumping drugs into your brain: I don't think you know how that would feel in reality. The experience you're describing isn't great, but that's the thing: it's not great. The whole hypothetical question is "would you rather make your life a whole lot better, but also make it meaningless?"
The biggest challenge is to recognise the pleasure cube in the real world. Those who build them are obviously not going to make them look the way they are depicted in that comic strip. There are already many pleasure cubes on my phone's home screen, and I am currently typing a comment on a video within a pleasure cube.
Your phone, or any of its apps, are not pleasure cubes. It only makes you produce dopamine, and only at low levels. A true pleasure cube would also produce serotonin and oxytocin (necessary for longer lasting satisfaction and happiness from social bonding), and all three at much higher quantities. The only thing that probably comes near a pleasure-cube is a high dose of heroin, and that only lasts for a very short time.
@@Nathan-pq7xei think op meant that not in the sense of dopamine but in the sense of only being able to experience the experiences of others and not *be* in the content on said app
Your comic made me unironically go to the Barber’s to get a new cut and stop eating pizza. If that’s my wake-up call, then I thank you for it, sir or ma’am, or omnivoid serpent of the distant planet of Feelgoodland.
Huxley himself summed it up quite nicely: “But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
Contradict himself when he says he wants God. That’s means he does want comfort. The comfort of believing that there’s something out there. That we are more meaningful than everything else. To be more free is to realize we are not special, and God isn’t real.
Merryweathery is just as intellectually shallow as you'd think he is. He is extremely unfunny, untalented, banal, and panders to the lowest common denominator. His argument instantly falls apart as soon as it occurs to you that the experiences themselves have *inherent* meaning and value value, and it's not the dopamine behind them that gives them value.
@@huuuuuuh2057what experiences? the comic doesnt say what experiences are experienced in the cube, it just says that your brain gets fed seretonin and dopamine.
@@primo4915 yeah. Seratonin and dopamine do not have the inherent value that experiences have, therefore it would be moronic to get in the cube instead of continuing life as an adventurer
@@huuuuuuh2057 isn't that Merryweathers whole argument lol, the MC does the pleasure cube cuz she believes it'll give her more happiness but obviously it doesn't turn out that way
This reminds me of this last summer. I bought a gaming pc and played skyrim all day. At first it was very rewarding but as weeks passed i started feeling strange at the end of each day i felt like I had wasted my day and it felt like every single day was exactly the same, eventually i got tired of playing and decided to read some books. After summer i started college and i only could play on weekends. That changed everything, now when weekends arrived i wanted to play videogames after studying the whole day, and it actually felt good. Recently i started going to the gym and my well being just increased even more. All this has made me realise one thing its responsibility and hard work what gives sense to our lives, its resting after a long day of work and seeing the results of our work what makes our lifes truly worth living.
@@esterhammerficThe latter can’t because a perfect adventure has to have a degree of challenge and struggle, which, even if you enjoy the activity, don’t produce bliss. A person who loves climbing mountains will struggle and suffer from the pain of the climb, but will still do it because the reward makes it worth it, nobody climbs a mountain with a big smile all the way up.
Tiktok has been one of the closest things to a pleasure cube imo. I've experienced going through the app and then when I become disinterested, I snap back into reality half an hour later. Watching other people doing the same looks disturbing, kind of like that comic shown in the video. Every video is like a hit of dopamine, so when there's a boring video, the user subconsciously swipes away to find a better one.
SAME. i deleted the app because it was messing with my attention span. i went from being able to watch 45 minute long videos to barely making it past a minute before switching to tiktok. it got so bad that after i deleted the app, my fingers still twitched whenever i was bored back to where the app was subconsciously. I've been clean for 9 months now and I'm still going strong.
so much lore in a fucking anime drawing, what a time to live also in a way, soma from brave new world is the pleasure cube in pill form, huxley was ahead of his time
@@Coppergasm not all of them. And also they were not "ahead of time" they actually made very predictable things, things like that always happened since reach pleasure and comfort was and still is the main goal of technological advancement which may leads to these consequences. It's not like he was writing for future generations, if he predicted a thing that happens today it's just a natural coincidence.
@@phantomwarrior8686 our species figured out that we should wash our hands after taking care of a corpse before delivering a baby like 200 years ago (im probably being generous). I think its fair to applaud scifi writers for coming up with concepts like vr in the 50s
@@Coppergasm this is nothing special to be honest. We always had hygiene even though we did not use it in 200 years ago. So, it's still not special to supposedly "predict" future in sci-fi books, because being honest, they didn't predict anything.
This reminds me a lot about a a spongebob episode where Squidward moves into a place where everything he wants is there, mainly the annoyance of Spongebob and Patrick; later in the episode Squidward seems to be depressed, tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Some time later he obtains a vacuum cleaner, and starts terrorizing other citizens; (Pretty sure Spongebob and Patrick show up some time around this point but don't remember.) Anyways, Squidward realizes that Spongebob and Patrick are the only things keeping him going, as when you have done everything, life is dull, there is nothing left to do. Or as you put it "When people climb a mountain, they don't do it just to see the view at the top, the preparation, journey, and experience that comes with it is more important to them than the end." Note: Went off of memory, don't remember a lot from the episode.
@@p3el_ Well lets says the pleasure doesn't end. Endless pleasure mean zero pain, zero pain means no gain. Sadness is beautiful, they exist to make happiness more happier. If we become god and can be and do everything we ever wanted, what's the point? there's no story there's no struggle, there's no conflict nor climax, if that doesn't exist then there will be nothing to love.
Okay, but seriously, the pleasure cube seems hellishly addicting. Just as Morty freaked out when Summer pulled him off of the "true level" platform, the inhabitants of these pleasure cubes, including the time traveler, would too. Becoming accustomed to intense, constant pleasure would have them perceive anything less as the greatest pain and suffering they have ever experienced in their lives, even as Hell itself.
For me, the thing that would actually turn me away from the pleasure cube is how everything would feel after I got out. There won't be anything in the world that would compare to what I experienced in the cube, and that might send me into a depression or worse.
Even if you were to stay there for your whole life, something still could go wrong, like the power failing or a natural disaster. And all that time you are out of the cube for short matinence would feel like the worst experience of your life ever, because there's nothing else to compare it to.
Modern society focuses far too much on raw pleasure and on isolating ourselves from harm as much as possible. In the technological advancement and comfort that we find ourselves now, we've fundamentally lost touch with a crucial part of our humanity. An excellent video as always my man, you're making some of the most creative and original content on this platform.
That's the issue with Liberalism, it is too much about individualism and atomisation if favour of capitalism and consumer wants rather than societal advancements. The happiness cube is the natural end result of hyperindividualism.
That isn't liberalism. That's Randian libertarianism. There's individualism and then there's radical individualism. One of them is the basis of a free society, the other is the downfall of a free society. I, for example, am a liberal.
@@ArkenTheAmerikan I would dissagree, classical liberalism and the enlightenment are the forefathers of Both libertarianism and Marxism, all three say the highest good in a society is the individual, rather than a greater goal, like the Nation or God.
Which period of older society do you think would be better to aim for then? (Not rhetorical, genuine question) I really cannot think of a period where most people were less focused on those aspects, more than we were generally just worse at securing pleasure or the ability to live without reliance on others at those times. I mean I guess there are periods where some great zeitgeist such as a religious or political movement seizes the reigns, but those tend to be either impermenent or get pretty bad over time. To blame technological advancement is also a bit questionable, as technology clearly has the ability to make it easier to interact with and maintain bonds that wouldn't be possible otherwise. I do think that the current implementation of many pieces of technology have more nefarious motives than helping people interact, but that shouldn't be mistaken for the actual technology itself.
@@Vurglesplat I think you have an odd hatred off meaning in one's life. The truth is, any civilisation that didn't posses a central goal for its existance, may it be a Religion, the Nation, ect, will collapse into fragmentation and mass immorality. Our society is the exception, in such a regard and thats why its heading towards collapse day by the day. You might consider all of society working for a same goal as ''authoritarian'', because to do so you must give away some of your indiviudal freedom, but may I ask, what is the purpose of such a freedom if it restricts you from working to something thats far greater than yourself, alongside hurting in most circmustanses your personal life as well?
Assuming this hypothetical future had solved death by aging, I think the pleasure cube would be a good alternative to suicide if you got tired of living.
I'm genuinely very happy that I found a channel that has a similar sense of humor to mine, cherishes the same video games as I do (minecraft, I liked your jokes involving it too lol), while also producing really thought-invoking, highly highly produced content on issues I consider on a somewhat frequent basis. From your videos on climate change, to policy, to this one on philosophy, I appreciate your interest and good insight on science, the social sciences, and parts of the humanities. Your content is illuminating and inspiring. Be proud of yourself and know that you have made me happy from just the few videos I have watched so far! The topic this video deals with really resonates with me and has kinda been a fundamental question to my identity and drive, especially as a person who struggles with depression, and I'm glad it resonates with someone else as well. I feel a lot less alone :D
This is very idealisitic. I feel as if a lot more people would step into the cube than you'd think. If someone no longer has any attatchment to their character, honesty, or the material world, they would step into the cube and stay there forever, no questions asked. Sadly, I feel as if this is the majority of society as of now.
But the more i think about it, the more it feels like a solution, too many people that are dispossed and discontented with the system and drowning in apathy and envy, why not give them paradise already, they will consume less resources.
"When you play chess, you don't want to throw the opponent's queen out the window, you want to win following the rules and without cheating, the same happens with life" - Abraham Lincoln, probably
yeah because you get a bigger seratonin release when you beat the game following the rules. All our experiences are the products of electrical signals and chemicals, a sufficiently advanced machine could replicate the feeling of satisfaction indefinatly and simply disable our ability to be bored.
@@ExternalDialogue I find amazing that a set of electrical charges and chemical reaccions ocurring in the brain can create a sensation of conciusness, and males us feel and understand this world.
@@ExternalDialogue that’s great. But if you can hook up to a machine, why bother living at all? At that point you only exist to die. You may as well take the option that will always be cheaper. The rope, the stool, and a well tied knot.
back then at school, i read that the thing is humans not only seek happiness or pleasure. they seek meaning in existence and/or understanding of it. kinda just like huxley said in the twin stories of brave new world/the island. this idea is also presented in Maslow's Hierarchy of needs where things like self-actualization or esteem are present as things that people search after they solve more basic needs.
@@imnotabird1118 no. They seek meaning for bliss. Bliss is the thing we all are searching for. Pleasure or happiness is a short simulation of a bliss "light" version. We are trying to find bliss by doing alot of things which give us pleasure or we try to maximize happiness to finally find bliss. So a happy cube wouls never worj because bliss comes from turning off aroganz. Then you will accept truth and stop forcing yourself to live your lie and try to see it as truth. The truth our heart is seeking. It's seeking for the connection with our creator. The one who made everything. Who made the universe, time.. everything Once someone turns off their arrogance its more clear than glas Not IQ, Money or yeas of studying is needed to understand reality and be in bliss It's a pure heart. So every human is abel to achive it by giving up their arrogance and ignorance La ilaha ill Allah
@@soeih8864 What about all the poor people who where born before his coming? Why will they never be able to experience this? Or those who were never exposed to his message? And if everything needs a creator, who created the creator?
@@雷-t3j Before the coming of prophet mohammed they where other prophets Some we know like Jesu, Moses with a huge impact but also alot of prophets to a small group of people like a village or maybe even less. Every human had the chance to accept or denie the truth when it was glas clear to them. IF they did not have the chance then there will be another just test for them maybe in the hearafter. We dont know how but we know that Allah will be testing everyone and no one will be in hellfire or die as disbeliver without knowing of the truth and denying it. The Allmighty is absolut Just and it will be proven to everyone their guild. There will be no one who says im unjustly in hellfire. The only thing they will say is beg their Creator to give them another Chances. They will not get another chance bcs they will die just the same they did again and again. Also the last question is paradox because the name says it. THE CREATOR is not a creation so the CREATOR is not CREATED because he is the CREATOR. The Creator is outside of Space and Time. Absolut Perfect and unimaginable for our brains. One of the biggest gifts to us is that we will be abel to see our Creator in Heaven.
Could not a virtual reality simulator like the cube aid with developing new experiences and better understanding of ourselves? I would never have been able to slay dragons in real life but I can in Skyrim. I could never design a city but I can in city skylines. I could never be a star ship captain in my own space opera, but I can in mass effect. I could never guide a species from cell to interstellar empire but I can in Spore. Even though these experiences aren't real I still feel a sense satisfaction and pride in my virtual achievements from winning an impossible battle in medieval total war or completing a round on papers please without any mistakes. Imagine using the cube to explore a perfect replication of renaissance Florence, renact battles during the English civil war, LARP as a vampire or fly like a bird. Or indeed eating a 400g steak fillet surf and turf without the cost to you or the climate. Indeed, it's understandable why some might prefer the virtual to the real.
He makes the argument that simulating an experience is not the same as the actual experience, but what if that's the point? Tons of people like killing zombies in video games, but no one in there right mind would actually want to experience a zombie apocalypse.
Thomas makes a good point, the only reason any of those experiences seem cool to you, is that you know you are in a simulation, you can leave at any time, and are out of harms way, if they were to make you think you truly were in the Middle Ages, or in Skyrim, I doubt you’d be quite as adventurous
@@potatoboy6094. But nobody can actually be in Skyrim or time travel back to the middle ages. Reality imposes limitations on us the virtual can liberate us from.
@@williamfrancis5367 Im not doubting that, I’m saying that if the virtual reality was so immersive that you truly felt like you were there and weren’t just in a simulation, or if the simulation makes you forget that it’s not real, you might be less likely to be as ballsy as you would be by knowing that none of it really matters
I think you kind of dodged the question by assuming the cube wouldn't be that good. If a certain amount of pain/hardship turns out to be optimal for maximum feelings of well being, then why wouldn't the cube provide that? Assuming the cube would just provide momentary superficial pleasurable things at every second is to assume the cube doesn't do a great job to begin with, since pleasurable things at every second is probably not the best way to maximize pleasure. The moment you become bored with pleasure, or dissatisfied with its lack of meaning, that's not pleasure anymore and therefore the cube isn't fulfilling its purpose. I think I saw something once about people who had some condition where they couldn't stop orgasming non stop and of course that wasn't in any way pleasureful for them. Instead of assuming the cube would overwhelm you with supposedly good things you should assume the cube does a perfect job of ensuring maximum well being even if that doesn't mean an infinite feeling of orgasm. Then the real question is why are people afraid of that on the sole basis that the feelings are virtually induced. The real issue is not that the cube wouldn't produce maximum well being, it's that people believe induced well being is not worth it. And then you could go on about how our feelings in the real world are still induced in some way, how our perception of reality is still fabricated in our brains and only exists there anyway, etc. You could probably tie it with the dread people feel from the simulation theory, which makes them feel like all of their lives could go from meaningful to meaningless based solely on whether the experience of their lives is virtually induced and not on whether the simulation is optimal. I liked the video but I would've taken it in a different direction.
Yeah I had the same thought. In my opinion the cube would lead objectively to the most happiness, people misunderstand it by thinking it would just be a drug induced stupor but honestly why shouldn't it also simulate an ideal life, with hard moments included. Honestly the reason someone would reject it, imo is pretty much purely dogmatic, which I do
The cube is a metaphor for addiction and the decay of society. The constant seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain. The sacrifice of long term well-being for an immediate fix. While attractive at first, it is in fact suffering, as you get stuck in a loop where you have to keep feeding the beast. The longer you go on with it, the more it imprisons you. You become isolated, alienated, your life deprived of meaning, as you sit in your cube, all day every day. Stop now and the emptiness will hit you harder than ever, as there's nothing left for you outside of the cube. Nothing worthwhile to live for. You've become a slave of the cube. Even an increasingly sophisticated and convincing virtual world is still just a representation. It's not alive, it's bits and bytes on a computer. None of it is real. As the color example in the video illustrates, nothing new can come out of the cube other than what's been put there by the outside world. The cube is a lie, an illusion. The dystopian part comes from a society whose social bonds and moral values have eroded. Where more and more people no longer engage in meaningful human interaction and instead withdraw into cubes. Where you're unscrupulously being offered the cube at every turn, because it's good business. Meaning is lost, only hedonism and money worship remain. We already have cubes. Internet addiction, video games (or the classic substance abuse). People looking for an escape and opting out of society altogether. But a real sense of happines and accomplishment can only come from leading a fulfilling life. If you don't, you'll find life slipping through your fingers and in the end are left with nothing. Choose life.
I agree. I think the cube giving us the equivalent of a candy all the time will just increase our tolerance to dopamine and serotonin. Instead, a *better* pleasure cube would be something like the *fake* good place from the show **the good place**. Our world is sad and insufferable because of the unfairness, the injustice, the class segregation, etc. so many factors of your life are decided before you are even born. The wealth of your parents, the country you were born in, the disability you may be born with. Life is so unfair and that's what makes the world sad and miserable. In my opinion, The ideal pleasure cube would be a world where everything is fair and everyone is born equal. Their actions will have concequences and they will have pain for the bad concequences. But that's what brings the higher pleasure that is different from the pleasure you get from eating a candybar
If you're still aware that you're inside of the cube then it's not worth it. But if you're also experiencing a permanent lucid dream or simulation where you can live the life you want to live and have what you desire, I would absolutely go for it.
Andrew Solomon is quoted as saying "The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality." or as I understand it, the ability and regularity to experience the full spectrum of emotions, all of its euphoric highs and grieving lows. Also another note: in the modern world, cleaving the pleasures in two between higher and lower is less helpful by the day. Take modern music for example. One of my favorite bands, Queens of the Stone Age, released an album, Songs for the Deaf, that is fantastic in a way that I would say is conducive to "higher pleasure", but just simply, unequivocally, would not exist without drugs. Many of the "higher pleasures" we may enjoy today, from music, to film, to literature, are creative expressions that simply couldn't exist in the form they do without the lower pleasures- alcohol, sex, drugs. I'm not really sure where else to go on this, as my concern as a human being just is being any amount of happy at all, but I leave with 2 questions: 1.) Did John Stuart Mill have an answer for the prompt I just gave above, or is this more of a product of the modern era, and 2.) Is dopamine that leads to creative expression inherently more valuable than dopamine for its own sake, like you would get in the pleasure cube?
Yes, "pleasure" can mean many different things, it may be too broad a word. There are several areas we need to examine further. Firstly, we would have to examine the make up of 'simple' (like sex, drugs etc) and 'higher' (music, art) pleasures to determine if they are just social and environmental programming/conditioning. At the very basic level, they seem (more externally) sensory based. In contrast, some monks claim meditation (internal process) allows them to reach higher pleasure than world experiences provide. Yet, after a while they come out of meditation to preform their duties and serve the world. This may negate the 'pleasure box' idea as being a prolonged scenario. Then we have to examine what is the purpose of the pleasure, eg is it a healing mechanism for the brain /body? Does it counter act pain and trauma? Does it actually heal the 'hardware' of the brain/body? When things are healed up enough, will the person naturally seek less pleasure? Finally, we would look at what happens to people without enough pleasure in their life. For example, currently the medical community says that "anti social personality disorders" like psychopathy and sociopathy is partially due to the brains inability to produce enough serotonin in certain brain regions. Serotonin is considered as major contributor to people feeling happy. These types of people apparently have less empathy and take more (socially unacceptable) risks, and dont care if they hurt others. The theory is they dont have enough serotonin in certain brain areas that would allow them to act socially acceptable or limit their bad behaviors ; and they developed this way due to trauma or other factors with no way to easily go back. Its a large topic. For some people it maybe something pleasureable to look into. 🤣
i get nervous thinking about romance because I'm gay but i have a very conservative-ish belief of waiting until marriage and dating with the intent to marry. with apps like grindr and the subculture that being gay has with partying and sexual liberation, it feels like people are entitled to have sex with others whether they like it or not. :((
@@coagulatedsalts4711 well according to Christianity marriage is the union between a man and a woman, so you will never actually marry according to it so unless you wanna die virgin you shouldn't think about that
There is something unsettling similar about the pleasure cube and mobile phones/TV. I don’t care if I sound like a boomer when I say this but people, including myself, spend too much time on screens.
Agreed, maybe the addictions talking, but I mostly use it as a distraction of the mundane and boring reality we’re forced to live and work in, most people have to work all the time just to stay alive, I’m sure many people would love to travel, and work out, and eat good food and feel love and pleasure naturally, but most of us can only afford a few hours of staring at a screen and hallucinating that it’s moving or that we’re anywhere except where we are, so unfortunately, we’d need to change a lot to be able to break out of where we are
Easy dopamine hit you are definitely right and it's not just a boomer thing. Obviously the technology itself isn't bad tho, for example you can use a smartphone to read books and talk with relatives on the other side of the world
There’s something to be said about just watching content (watching someone climb a mountain) as opposed to playing a game with its own set of challenges and earned rewards (a game like Celeste)
@@miguelpereira9859 yeah the technology is great, but most people’s smarter than average monkey brains aren’t well suited to using them only a reasonable amount
The idea of a life devoid of any meaning sounds terrifying. For as much as I wonder now what I am to do with myself for another 4-8 decades, at least I know that when it ends, it will have been real. At least I have the *chance* to do something with it that isn't useless.
Eternal pleasure is essentially identical to death. To have one unchanging experience is to have no experience and therefore to have no consciousness and to be dead
I feel like Evangelion itself is a really good counter-argument with the entire escapism and exploiting pleasure=bad sort of thing, the cube gives me major instrumentality vibes
Now that you point it out the similarities are crystal clear for me. I think the part where Shinji chooses to accept the existence of pain and suffering in life rather than choosing this instrumentality BS is just so powerful to me, and I didn't have a clear idea until your comment.
Steven Stalenhag made a book called ‘the electric state’ which describes a world where people are attached to VR like machines that put them in a perfect world (its illustrated, and i still think of it as the most horrifying book ive read)
1:04 "Beauty is just the visual input that produces serotonin in the brain" Gonna have to say that's a definite NOPE not true. The common idea that serotonin or dopamine are purely responsible for feelings of "goodness" or to stretch it even further the appreciation of aesthetics is absolutely not a proven concept. These neurotransmitters are found throughout the body and perform many different functions (particularly digestion and movement). They play a role in emotion regulation and behaviour but so do many other neurotransmitters. Saying serotonin=happy isn't even an oversimplification it's just wrong. Love the video though this is just a pet peeve of mine.
This is the central flaw of this video. Thinking that pure happiness would just be one simple process. If it was that easy we could probably already jam pure Serotonin into our brain.
Plus, art isnt necessarily what makes us happy. It is something whose effort we can appreciate, whose painters emotions, thoughts, goals and views are projected onto. Good art can range from what makes us the happiest, to what gives us the deepest thoughts, insights and existential questions.
I think one of the biggest objections to pleasure cube is that people simply like the illusion of choice and choices having meaning. Though i think huxley makes a good point about a true utopia not being eternal pleasure, his techno spiritual society can be its own type of dystopia. I think the story of the game rain world is a good example. I think if the pleasure cube is created, we will all destroy it before anyone plugs in. The aversion to it is too primal and deep. To have the illusion of choice destroyed is to die.
Imagine a hypothetical pleasure machine that hooks directly into your brain. The pleasure machine looks exactly like reality, but you can be whoever you want, with whatever abilities you want. I feel like most people would plug into the pleasure machine. Imagine living your life just as it is in real life, but you can fly.
I think I would do that, but never really use the abilities. I thought about the hypothetical scenario of essentially getting god mode and being able to mold reality to your liking, but I think the best way of using that would be to just live an eternal but ordinary life where you achieve things through your own work, getting everything you want with minimal effort would get boring pretty quickly
VR is impossible to evolve until this point. Just a silly thought you have. Not even in 100 years using virtual reality it will be able to imitate reality. Also technology is limited, it has issues such as feeling dizzy when playing VR or the necessity of better graphs and interaction. We won't evolve to Player number 1, be sure.
@@phantomwarrior8686 Of course it won't look like reality, and it can't do everything. But the effect is the same to someone who just wants to be in VR all day. You can do more than you think you can judging by the way you talk. I would say you aren't someone who has tried VR for extended periods of time. On VRchat alone I have found VR to be improving by the month, even if the hardware is slow to change.
Freedom is wastly over valued and I don't mean that in any authoritarian way. If you had a set mission that brought you joy and fulfillment, freedom would be less valuable.
It's my fear of "the pleasure cube" that makes me such a proponent of Augmented Reality (AR). Technologies like Virtual Reality falsely simulate the pleasure and experiences that you described in the video; however, Augmented Reality can combine the speed and power of those virtual worlds but with human empathy and connection. This is because AR does not shut you into an entirely virtual world and therefore allows you to experience things more organically. I think in the future, use of the ominous (false) pleasure cube will hopefully die out and more organic, psychologically healthier technologies like AR will replace it.
i want this but what i also want is a real world that is filled with art and beautiful buildings ect... so when you switch it off beauty can still be found :)))
I think both have there place. For crafted expirences VR is amazing and I would want everyone to try it. However AR is already being used as a therapy tool for stuff like PTSD. The problem is over reliance of either and a disassociation from the real world
If the pleasure cube can simulate a world that feels real to us how would someone even know the difference when they're plugged in? Similar to dreaming, sometimes we dream and we think it is the real world. If this is the case there is no difference logically.
I'm pretty sure people underestimate the pleasure cube. If it really triggers seretonin and all pleasure chemicals, then we probably don't have any idea how good and consistent this must feel. I'd be ready to bet most people (probably including me) would get hooked on the thing instantly and never regret going into it.
The age of deconstruction which produced the people who would be fine with such a fate is to be maligned by those with any soul left to speak of. I was happier as a child but I'd not want to go back to that since I'm a better person now. To be the happiest person is not my goal to be the best person I can be is. Please reasses what it is you people want in life and if it truly is this then heroin is there for you. It'll end you but you will have achieved your pleaaure cube if only for a short time.
@@SomeGuy-so3kk You would be a fool if you thought people from an ancient time would be impervious to the pleasure cube. People in the past only had less access to pleasure, but they sought after it in the same exact way. They had a harder time being alive, because life was harder, but put them in a pleasure cube and they would stay in it. There is no such thing as a deconstruction age, what happened is just machines are doing all our chores for us, but every human being would fall victim to the pleasure cube.
@@pulsarhappy7514 I never said that ancient people would be impervious nor that people in the recent past would. Simply that an attitude which would facilitate the use of this and not turn their head up at the concept is a symptom of this very real age of deconstruction. Everything down to the very concepts of men and women existing is being deconstructed and its quite sad to witness at times. And of course no one would leave the pleasure cube. Hardly anyone every really quits heroin. The mark of ones character is whether or not they'd choose to enter such a damned thing in the first place. I don't fault the heroin addict for being unable to quit I fault him for his choice to begin the use of such a thing in the first place.
I know it's been a year but this video keeps showing up in my brain every once in a while and I felt like leaving my own thoughts here. To me, the pleasure cube idea is something that will ultimately fail over time. Even with all the hypotheticals and the idea that you may not know you're in a pleasure cube, I still strongly feel that the cube's effects will simply just diminish over time until eventually it just stops working for us. Sure it works for maybe 5 or 10 years but I don't forsee it being something you're stuck with for life. Eventually, people will start to see the illusion for what it really is, and when they do, they'll simply just get bored of it, and that's if we're in a perfect world where the pleasure cube doesn't permanently fuck up your brain's chemical makeup beyond repair. It's like eating the same exact food every day. Eventually, you start to despise the taste. It also falls into the idea that the human mind cannot simply create something entirely new either in the way this video explains. You are destined to run out of things to do eventually, and, when you do, the illusion cannot sustain itself afterwards. If anything, I think the pleasure cube will actually end up making people worse. Pure Dopamine is not the same as contentment. It would be like those occassional posts about people dreaming they had a whole loving family and kids and then waking up suddenly to realize they were never real. It would spiral out of control incredibly quickly afterwards. TL;DR: The cube sucks anyway!!! This shit don't even fuckin' work!!!!
The running out of things to do ties in with immortality. If I were to live in a hyperreality pleasure cube and I didn't wipe my memories every time I decided to go on a new adventure, what is there to do? Eventually I'll run out of things.. In fact, what if I'm just another experience?
Pure dopamine already fucking exists - you can steal some from your local hospital. They hook people up to it on IV drips when they need to get someone's heart to not stop beating when it really fucking should. Guess what - it ain't exactly sunshine and rainbows and just gets people wired and anxious. Stimulants that affect it are common and don't exactly produce GREAT PLEASURE, they also just make you more active. Dopamine isn't a pleasure chemical, its a stimulatory chemical that makes you more focused on stuff, controls locomotion(notice I say control, it's why Parkinson's disease works the way it does. The brain is a complicated system with lots of areas responsible for controlling other areas and suppressing their activity), increases blood pressure and heart rate and makes you not feel fatigue. Being able to be super focused and not be tired is obviously great, but it can be only as great as the thing you are doing with that energy. For example - in the modern world you have people going to nightclubs and concerts and taking stimulants that directly affect dopamine to dance more and without fatigue or the need to sleep. They're having a good night - after all, they can talk and dance and fuck for days without fatigue. You also have a completely different group of people who do stimulants - soldiers, who also do it to be more energetic and attentive for longer periods of time. Now I don't know about you, but I don't think being awake thanks only to being wired on stimulants while in a paranoid environment where you have to do extremely difficult things in extreme danger is fun. Even mundane situations that are miserable arent really any more or less miserable on stimulants, let alone goddamn war, which is hell.
I think the only thing that would hinders me from entering the pleasure cube is if it don’t have a clear way out. I would love. And I MEAN LOVE to be able to go into the pleasure cube for a certain hours per day.
if you were in the cube you probably wouldn't could get out. Even if you physically could get out, the amount of happiness you would get in that cube would make it near impossible for you to want to get out of the cube
You'd get addicted very quickly, pleasure is addictive, once you receive everything you want in any form, and have the experience of experience everything possible and impossible, your brain will get overestimulated very quickly and after some days discouraged.
I sometimes wonder if we have already stepped into the pleasure cube, and that the reason we find the higher pleasures good is because the pleasure cube has made it so.
This video is a masterpiece in the inside thoughts and research, as well as the outside on the presentation too. It is just very well thought of. Thank you for this Britmonkey. This was the video that made me realize that you are a big deal in the youtube. oh, the pear one was too also :)
Some things that make me happy are music, humor, science. They have little to do with the lethargic pleasure cube. They have more to do with “being in the zone”. You don’t get bored of “being in the zone”. It is wonderful, constructive, unlimited fun. It is not about achieving, it is just enjoying.
Alan Watts: "Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say "Well, that was pretty great." But now let's have a surprise. Let's have a dream which isn't under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say "Wow, that was a close shave, wasn't it?" And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream ... where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today."
I think what scares me more about the pleasure cube is someone or some entity using me for their own gain without me knowing it rather than the pleasure itself.
I would kill for this to be real. To not ever have to deal with challenge or hardship ever again. To not have to have a personality or friends, to never worry about loss or happiness or fulfillment, to just be able to live in a state of mindless bliss until I die. I wish that this could happen to me. I hate being alive.
As someone who's struggled with depression for most of my life the pleasure cube is functionally equivalent to suicide. I disappear from the outside world in both situations and in one I'm forever happy while the other I'm forever nothing.
I already knew the meaning of Life before even watching this video Life isn't about Enjoying It as much as Possible Life is about Suffering and Overcoming it
I might be in the minority in saying that this pleasure cube doesn't seem so horrifying? Most worries about the cube will fade away when you experience the cube.
Yeah, as much as I say I'd hate it, as much as anyone would say that they'd hate it, we will love it. Upon the altar of eternal bliss any qualms or worries will be left behind. It's similar to heaven, something that most people aren't afraid of.
When you understand how dopamine work, you'll understand why people can't quit drug, alcohol or smoking. This cube will convince you to be part of it. When the cube is broken, you will be in the state of confused and fear. You will crave for that high dopamine the cube is giving. It's sad that in life we have tons of bullshit. But like everyone else in the comments have already said. The happiness is like the light. When there is too much like, you can't see shit. Sometimes we just need a shade of dark, like sadness, to see where the light is appreciate at. About heaven, I personally think heaven represents your resting after finishing a task, in particular, you finish all the good deeds in life. This is how dopamine work. You are rewarded after completing a task. Heaven is the reward after you do a good deed to yourself and mankind. You still experience your life from start to finish. You still have identity of who you are to justify why should you be in heaven.
Of course it will feel great, it’s hijacking our brains to feel good, abusing our chemistry for eternal bliss, that’s not the point, the same point about it: “feeling good once you’re in it” could literally be said about anything, ever heard of Stockholm syndrome? Just cuz it feels good doesn’t mean it is, you might feel like heaven, but you’re really just rotting away in a claustrophobic cube, if you’re really willing to throw your chance to experince things, to do something only a few could ever claim to have done, for some cheap and quick chemically induced happiness, I recommend ecstasy, not that I’ve ever tried it myself, but it’s apparently what you’re looking for, but I realized a long time ago that the destination is not why it’s worth living, but the journey to get there that makes things fulfilling, and of course I don’t know you and your life and this might not be your actual viewpoint, but from where I’m standing, anybody who is willing to take being in a simulation for their whole life over true experience(or true as far as anyone can prove), must not be doing so hot in the life they were given
I cannot stop watching your "The Rise and Fall of New Labour", I just turn it on once a week and watch it again. I don't recall ever finding such an interesting video on a transformation of a political party. Your videos are awesome, the stop being a climate nihilist and the anti car one are very well made, but the labour one is just peak content. The part from 8:1610:05 is just so well made, the music out of this world. I never cared about British politics, but now I literally ask all british people I know what they think of Tony Blair's laws. And I was also wondering whether you could make a video on Thatcher. Why for some she is an iron lady and for some a gender neutral bathroom .Love your content, you're the only channel where I have the subscription bell actually activated for every video.
Its like the realizing of the concept of heaven as a real place, and the fact that such a concept is uncomfortable is, in and of itself, very much uncomfortable.
The pleasure cube wouldn't even work. We become adjusted to larger doses of these happy chemicals as we take more of them, requiring larger doses to get the same happiness, and becoming reliant on the amount we've received so far just to not be miserable. You would be happy in the pleasure cube until it could no longer provide enough dope and serotonin to keep you happy as you adjust to the amount you've been getting. It would have to keep giving you more and more until it can't supply any more. If it somehow had an infinite supply then you'd probably die long before the point that the amount it needs to give you to make you happy equals your body weight. It would be unsustainable to keep someone happy in a box forever and if they were kicked out they would become incapable of living a normal life because they would be so dependent on the chemicals they're no longer receiving. People kicked out of the pleasure box would become the most depressed people in the world. Edit: I’m very aware it’s “like a drug” and my entire argument revolves around that fact.
@M T I don’t get it. That’s what I said over and over in my comment. Dope is a drug. And our bodies adapt to them. If you were to inject a shit ton of dope it would make you really happy. If you did it every single day for the rest of your life the happiness you would get from it would diminish with each day until you no longer feel happy when you inject this shit ton of dope. But then if you just suddenly _stop_ taking the drugs then you will feel extremely depressed until you start taking them again and will need the shit ton of drugs just to feel normal. This is why antidepressants can start to show diminishing effects until you’re depressed again. But you can’t just stop taking them because that would make things worse.
this is kinda what i was thinking, you would eventually reach a point that you can no longer receive enough dopamine to make you satisfied anymore - you would get bored of the pleasure cube, somehow?
Part of being human is feeling emotion. Good and bad. Feeling constant pleasure reduces you to nothing. It doesn't matter if it's a vegetizer or a simulation. Humans, in order to be human, need negative emotions.
Pleasure =\= focus The zone mentioned in the US army study is akin to the meditative state. It's not pure pleasure, it's a right balance of pleasure, discomfort, curiosity, stimulus and reward.
Whatever type of happiness concoction your brain can come up with, the pleasure cube can do better. A machine specifically designed to make you "feel good" I assume should be able to simulate any form of happiness. So the same feeling of "happiness of life / not taking happiness for granted / cherishing happiness" can also be simulated in the pleasure cube which is funny, but not surprising if you think about it.
The pleasure cube is like anxiety medication. Taking it will cure your anxiety, but if you get off it, the anxiety will be even worse. If one leaves the pleasure cube, he will probably off himself because he hasn't experienced negative emotion since going into the cube. We have to perfect the pleasure cube, perfect AI, and prevent mass extinction via black holes, asteroids, etc. before even thinking about putting all living beings into the cube. The pleasure cube is THE goal of humanity though.
Honestly, I think the main thing I took away from this was the Moderation and Freedom is Key. You can hate what I say, but you have to admit, sometimes we all just have to leave the tedium of everyday life. Not to say I want the pleasure cube, I hope that concept is set on fire and have it's ashes sent to the sun. No, what I'm personally aiming for is specifically a balanced form of "Rebirth Escapism", where one can willingly spend a defined (aka limited) period of time as a new person starting from the ground up with what they know in real life. I know that this concept still has many drawbacks, as this will most likely lead to self-inflicted heavy isolation on introverst who don't put value on their real life. But I am at least hoping that a community of open social interation would form around this idea.
The cube hijacks the brain, theres no way you can say the cube is bad once you get plugged in. Its a perfect dream that you would never get bored of. If you want love or identity then the cube will simulate that, if you want hard work to achieve higher pleasure then why not, but unlike the real world the cube will make sure you achieve happiness.
Here's how I look at it: Happiness is a signal I tend to get in my brain when things I value happen. Of course, it's not a perfect signal; there's not a perfect one-to-one correspondence between what I value and the feeling of happiness, not at all. And mind-altering technology could almost entirely sever the connection between happiness and value entirely. I prefer both having the experience of happiness, AND the things that happiness should be a signal for. That's what I want - not just a light flashing "everything is okay", but also for everything to be okay. (It's the same thing with suffering: I _both_ want to not experience much suffering, _and_ I don't want someone to cut my arms off - the signal and the thing it's signalling are different, and I want to avoid both. The humans in the comic are like people who can't feel pain - their signal got broken, and is no longer doing the thing they want it to do.) I want love _and_ the feeling of love; friendship _and_ the feeling of friendship; adventure _and_ the feeling of adventure! And that's all there is to it! I don't need any more philosophical justification than that, dammit! My preferences include, _but extend beyond,_ the state of my brain. That's just want my brain is designed to want, no further justification needed! Anyone who would not prefer that comic to come true feels the same way - they have preferences for how the universe _actually is_ outside of their brain. ( Or put another way, to borrow one of my favorite econ concepts, we want to avoid Goodhart's trap: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law. Happiness and the things you care about are correlated - but if all you do is focus on maximizing happiness, *you'll break the correlation!* )
To me, the most terrifying part about this concept is that however adament one is to not want to be part of the "pleause cube", if they're placed in it they would have no care to leave, they wouldn't be able to because they wouldn't *want* to. even still, if the cube worked as it did in the comic, trying to take someone out of the cube would cause them extreme depression, or at worst kill them.
This will likely never be seen by ya, but I just want to mention that your channel is basically the musings of philosophy. That makes you a philosopher :) congrats
As a person with 5-year-long-and-still-going, treatment resistant depression, the vision of infinite pleasure chemicals intake doesn’t actually sound anyhow like a bad thing
the 1800 version of this comic is in a drive-thru lane: "Don't worry, it looks like food, it tastes like food, it's definitely not food, but it will keep you alive. Though, health is no guarantee."
i hate our modern hedonistic society. everyone just thinks that pleasure = happiness. but its not true. sure, it feels good. but take a deep look into yourself. are you happy?
That makes no sense, the whole point of “perfection” is to be unflawed, you’re trying to be all philosophical with your rhetoric and fancy monologue but then you forgot the definition of the word you’re trying to describe while you were too busy trying to cope about your imperfect life.
@@burgernthemomrailer That's the point. A definition that contradicts itself denotes something impossible. If the impossible is without flaw, but having no flaws is itself a flaw, then the impossible cannot exist.
@@fellinuxvi3541 but why is having no flaws considered a flaw? You dont provide any sort of reasoning to the backbone of your pseudointellectual quote whatsoever. The cube has plenty of "flaws", it does not exist in the state of perfection you speak of, so your comment becomes less and less relevant to the topic at hand the more you think about it.
The message of the quote is that a world must have flaws, or else risk being bland, and empty. If everything was simply perfect, then nothing would ever be done, since there is nothing to improve, nothing to be thankful for, and nothing to overcome. There would be no baseline for what "perfect" would be, and what "not perfect" be, since the former would be the norm. If there is no drive to be human, no drive to eventually achieve perfection, even if it's impossible, then that is the flaw. A world without flaws, is flawed in and of itself. If infinite pleasure were given, and all pain and flaws removed, as laid out in "the box" thought experiment, then that provides no desire to live the human experience. *There would be no desire to be human.* Rejecting what you are is the primary flaw of the box.
The problem with the "pleasure cube" is it's an abstract hypothetical that is yet to be experienced. It just looks like a little box room which doesn't look that pleasurable. Once you try it and experience it, then you would agree there is absolutely no point to leave the pleasure cube.
Yeah, we dont know if it really is good or not, but one thing is certain; Once you go in there's no going out. You would probably get addicted to this „Pleasure Cube“ the second you entered it.
This video is amazing and exactly captures my thoughts (and most of other people’s). This video is especially important because of “Great reset” arguments happening. Keep up the good work bro.
Defeat the system with sheer logic - Nothing gives me more joy other that: - Dividing by zero. - This sentence is a lie - Throwing the recycling bin in the recycling bin shortcut
Can't imagine not having the contrast between pain and pleasure, and only having pleasure all the time. Without pain, pleasure just doesn't hit as hard. Like having a nice cup of pipping hot chocolate after you were freezing outside. It just wouldn't be as good without that initial discomfort.
Omfg I had that exact thought when I was about 15 id say. I have made up my own answers since but I am really curious what other ppl think on this. It feels really satisfying to know that other have had the exact same ideas as me. Quickly: I think that happiness is relative and theorize that being "always happy" wouldnt really make us happy as bad feelings enhance and enable happiness. Although if I am wrong or the simulation would include that this would still leave us in a situation where we would have to accept this creepy future as objectively good, despite what our intuition tells us. Also, the reason why our intuition tells us this a bad future, us probably if our arguably irrational longing for meaning. Although if a sense of meaning makes us happy, then its not pointless despite being irrational, making it a rational goal in a way.
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its the irl equivalent to going in creative and giving yourself full enchanted diamond amor and stacks of enchanted apples
ikr, would do that as a kid and kill a bunch of mobs but then get bored. Later when I got older you felt much better if you had full enchanted diamond armor and stacks of enchanted apples
*because* you worked hard for it over weeks of playing beforehand makes going on a mob killing rampage feel much better- ha ha die stupid zombie! take that skeleton, payback for killing me in the mine earlier making me drop my first diamonds into the lava!
It sounds cheesy, but it's actually an amazing way to explain this. When you do that, sure, scientifically you get the same benefits as if you got it in survival. You can easily kill mobs and do whatever you want. But you didn't *work* for that diamond armor. You didn't go through dungeons after dungeons to get those gapples. Instead of climbing the epic mountain, you teleported straight to the top.
Great observation!
No more achievements, you are a genius
yes please
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. "
-Agent smith
Yeah. Considering what was happening before people were plugged in, and these were the survivors of the war, I too would have been tearing at the walls to get out of that "perfect existence." But really that's what we do, we define our lives off misery and the more happy and carefree it is the more our subconscious says it's wrong.
It’s kind of funny that the machines had some debate or discussion over this, with some proposing a certain solution and others disagreeing with it.
I love how people take lines from a movie and then ascribe them to real life. Not calling anyone specific out here, but I've been noticing this trend lately, and I don't know about you all, but I certainly don't define my life off of misery.
@@SolarFlareAmerica well I chose this quote as I remembered this scene from the film and the explanation from Brit quite matched the one from smith, life would be meaningless with no suffering and pain, life would become boring, there would be no work no meaning, so the "suffering" smith refers to is daily inconveniences and loss tragedy and all that stuff, as those feelings in some way connect us make us feel, well alive, it's sort of like using hacks in GTA V, you get everything you are at the top, and from there, what can you do? You have everything and nothing to do, there was no work, that's why I quit the game, with everything on hand it just made the game have no purpose, now imagine that with your life, you do nothing all day, all that could be done has been done so you just sit at the top with no feelings and no emotions. so smith referred to the 20th century as the "peak of civilization" it was a time (in the films universe) where there were wars, loss, mundane activities, work, relationships because in the Animatrix film it is shown that humans do nothing all day, it is all done by machines.
@@tubaraofeio1053 bold of you to suggest that life would have meaning without pain and suffering. I agree that they're very noteworthy parts of life, but no meaning? Life already has no meaning other than what we ascribe to it. In a fictional universe without it, New meaning could still be found by those who experienced it. Would it be strange, perhaps even unnerving and alien? Probably. Living makes you feel alive. All the additional layers simply add to that experience, or take away from it. I can easily imagine a world in which I didn't have the additional stress of knowing my family will die one day, and I'd certainly sleep better in it.
My little brother discovered cheats for GTA V and thinks they're the best part of the experience. He constantly attempts to break the game using them. He discovered an enjoyment for an alternative form of play, even with all the original game purpose being rendered meaningless as you describe. Except, it's not. The game was made to be enjoyed, and the cheats ARE a part of that. If that's not your cup of tea that's ok too.
Loved the animatrix. I loved the suggestion that peace WAS possible, right up until humanity clouded the skies in a self-destructive fervor.
Of course, this whole thing is about a comic about a drugged up dystopia, one I too shun. While the line blurs immensely between digital and physical reality, the one through line is we enjoy having the freedom to experience life on our own terms. If such a system was devised, it would need to be as if not more complex as irl to stimulate the human beings within it as well as allowing them to intermingle.
I think people are turned off by the pleasure cube because its hard to imagine it not getting boring. It would be sort of like just eating granulated sugar instead of anything sweet that has sugar in it. We like to eat sweet things generally, but we also like the other flavours that come with eating sweet things, whether it's cake, chocolate, fruit, gummy bears, etc.
There probably is a version of the pleasure cube that more accurately replicates the subtler "high" pleasures associated with things like achievement, but it's hard to conceive of that for most people. Instead it just sounds like you end up pumped full of drugs that keep you dopey but technically happy.
Exactly this
I was thinking about the "pleasure cube" as kind of a better simulation of this world, but even if it's pumping drugs into your brain: I don't think you know how that would feel in reality. The experience you're describing isn't great, but that's the thing: it's not great. The whole hypothetical question is "would you rather make your life a whole lot better, but also make it meaningless?"
Sometimes you need to experience hardships to appreciate happy time
@@harshvardhanchouhan616 you can experience hard times in the pleasure cube.
@@smorcrux426 you are right though how would we know if we are in one
The biggest challenge is to recognise the pleasure cube in the real world. Those who build them are obviously not going to make them look the way they are depicted in that comic strip. There are already many pleasure cubes on my phone's home screen, and I am currently typing a comment on a video within a pleasure cube.
I was kinda waiting for him to bring that up lol
Exactly
America loves its fentanyl
Your phone, or any of its apps, are not pleasure cubes. It only makes you produce dopamine, and only at low levels. A true pleasure cube would also produce serotonin and oxytocin (necessary for longer lasting satisfaction and happiness from social bonding), and all three at much higher quantities.
The only thing that probably comes near a pleasure-cube is a high dose of heroin, and that only lasts for a very short time.
@@Nathan-pq7xei think op meant that not in the sense of dopamine but in the sense of only being able to experience the experiences of others and not *be* in the content on said app
LOL I was just enjoying your videos and my own comic pops up!! I was so surprised hahaha
lol
Your comic made me unironically go to the Barber’s to get a new cut and stop eating pizza. If that’s my wake-up call, then I thank you for it, sir or ma’am, or omnivoid serpent of the distant planet of Feelgoodland.
@@gabobei1991 doing your… son.
Peter griffin
Amazing illustration 👏
Huxley himself summed it up quite nicely: “But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
Contradict himself when he says he wants God. That’s means he does want comfort. The comfort of believing that there’s something out there. That we are more meaningful than everything else. To be more free is to realize we are not special, and God isn’t real.
@@malfaroangel3896 Depends what vision of God one has I guess
@@malfaroangel3896 Cringe atheist detected
@@gustavusadolphus4344 Imagine unironically believing in Sky daddy.
@@TheSkel161 The belief in the Supernatural is humanity's greatest cope. Unwilling to embrace the reality of an unfeeling indifferent Universe.
"There is no god in a Minecraft church."
Yo that actually hits deep
And a remote island is las islas malvinas aka the falklands
Bu- but what about the end credits after you beat the ender drago-
@@DEV-rw7eu that's a ender world
thats becouse you are god in minecraft
Nah, the god is you.
I never thought I'd see a serious philosophical discussion based on something by the creator of "Internet Explorer chan" but here we are
Merryweathery is just as intellectually shallow as you'd think he is. He is extremely unfunny, untalented, banal, and panders to the lowest common denominator.
His argument instantly falls apart as soon as it occurs to you that the experiences themselves have *inherent* meaning and value value, and it's not the dopamine behind them that gives them value.
@@huuuuuuh2057what experiences? the comic doesnt say what experiences are experienced in the cube, it just says that your brain gets fed seretonin and dopamine.
@@primo4915 yeah. Seratonin and dopamine do not have the inherent value that experiences have, therefore it would be moronic to get in the cube instead of continuing life as an adventurer
@@huuuuuuh2057 isn't that Merryweathers whole argument lol, the MC does the pleasure cube cuz she believes it'll give her more happiness but obviously it doesn't turn out that way
@@huuuuuuh2057 cope, he’s good. I don’t get why you’re so aggressive to this dude who just shitposts anime girl and gay comics.
This reminds me of this last summer. I bought a gaming pc and played skyrim all day. At first it was very rewarding but as weeks passed i started feeling strange at the end of each day i felt like I had wasted my day and it felt like every single day was exactly the same, eventually i got tired of playing and decided to read some books.
After summer i started college and i only could play on weekends. That changed everything, now when weekends arrived i wanted to play videogames after studying the whole day, and it actually felt good. Recently i started going to the gym and my well being just increased even more. All this has made me realise one thing its responsibility and hard work what gives sense to our lives, its resting after a long day of work and seeing the results of our work what makes our lifes truly worth living.
Like planting crops, working the fields and raising farm animals to make and enjoy good food
@@simeonw1481 but we don’t do that… oh my goodness! Don’t tell me!
i have these same thoughts too
Fresh air, exercise, sunshine, a dog, deleting social media, a glass of liquor or two. We're on to something, boys.
Or simply variety and contrast.
I've been saying this for so long. You imagine NOT a perfect world, but a perfect adventure, with just the right amount of challenge and satisfaction
And both of those can be simulated in the pleasure cube :)
@@esterhammerficThe latter can’t because a perfect adventure has to have a degree of challenge and struggle, which, even if you enjoy the activity, don’t produce bliss.
A person who loves climbing mountains will struggle and suffer from the pain of the climb, but will still do it because the reward makes it worth it, nobody climbs a mountain with a big smile all the way up.
@@panzervpanther828😂
Tiktok has been one of the closest things to a pleasure cube imo. I've experienced going through the app and then when I become disinterested, I snap back into reality half an hour later. Watching other people doing the same looks disturbing, kind of like that comic shown in the video. Every video is like a hit of dopamine, so when there's a boring video, the user subconsciously swipes away to find a better one.
that's why I deleted the app
That’s why I never got it in the first place
SAME. i deleted the app because it was messing with my attention span. i went from being able to watch 45 minute long videos to barely making it past a minute before switching to tiktok. it got so bad that after i deleted the app, my fingers still twitched whenever i was bored back to where the app was subconsciously. I've been clean for 9 months now and I'm still going strong.
Also youtube shorts now
@@Exo88712 that sucks
so much lore in a fucking anime drawing, what a time to live
also in a way, soma from brave new world is the pleasure cube in pill form, huxley was ahead of his time
old timey scifi writers were very ahead of time in general i think
"Anime drawing"
@@Coppergasm not all of them. And also they were not "ahead of time" they actually made very predictable things, things like that always happened since reach pleasure and comfort was and still is the main goal of technological advancement which may leads to these consequences. It's not like he was writing for future generations, if he predicted a thing that happens today it's just a natural coincidence.
@@phantomwarrior8686 our species figured out that we should wash our hands after taking care of a corpse before delivering a baby like 200 years ago (im probably being generous). I think its fair to applaud scifi writers for coming up with concepts like vr in the 50s
@@Coppergasm this is nothing special to be honest. We always had hygiene even though we did not use it in 200 years ago. So, it's still not special to supposedly "predict" future in sci-fi books, because being honest, they didn't predict anything.
This reminds me a lot about a a spongebob episode where Squidward moves into a place where everything he wants is there, mainly the annoyance of Spongebob and Patrick; later in the episode Squidward seems to be depressed, tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Some time later he obtains a vacuum cleaner, and starts terrorizing other citizens; (Pretty sure Spongebob and Patrick show up some time around this point but don't remember.) Anyways, Squidward realizes that Spongebob and Patrick are the only things keeping him going, as when you have done everything, life is dull, there is nothing left to do. Or as you put it "When people climb a mountain, they don't do it just to see the view at the top, the preparation, journey, and experience that comes with it is more important to them than the end."
Note: Went off of memory, don't remember a lot from the episode.
Yessss this is actually my favorite episode, this explains it
While those activies ended up being boring, that-- *pleasure box--* doesnt end, nor ended up being boring
@@p3el_ Well lets says the pleasure doesn't end. Endless pleasure mean zero pain, zero pain means no gain. Sadness is beautiful, they exist to make happiness more happier. If we become god and can be and do everything we ever wanted, what's the point? there's no story there's no struggle, there's no conflict nor climax, if that doesn't exist then there will be nothing to love.
this is a good thought. I think the pleasure cube will be powerful in that people will use it for both a perfect life and for tormenting others.
Okay, but seriously, the pleasure cube seems hellishly addicting. Just as Morty freaked out when Summer pulled him off of the "true level" platform, the inhabitants of these pleasure cubes, including the time traveler, would too. Becoming accustomed to intense, constant pleasure would have them perceive anything less as the greatest pain and suffering they have ever experienced in their lives, even as Hell itself.
Exactly- going inside a pleasure cube and leaving would be like waking up and having to leave your warm bed, but amped up by 100000%
For me, the thing that would actually turn me away from the pleasure cube is how everything would feel after I got out. There won't be anything in the world that would compare to what I experienced in the cube, and that might send me into a depression or worse.
Even if you were to stay there for your whole life, something still could go wrong, like the power failing or a natural disaster. And all that time you are out of the cube for short matinence would feel like the worst experience of your life ever, because there's nothing else to compare it to.
That would be called withdraw. The cube is a drug.
So a phone.
@@haze8969 soma
Reminds me of the "true level" clip from Rick and morty
Modern society focuses far too much on raw pleasure and on isolating ourselves from harm as much as possible. In the technological advancement and comfort that we find ourselves now, we've fundamentally lost touch with a crucial part of our humanity. An excellent video as always my man, you're making some of the most creative and original content on this platform.
That's the issue with Liberalism, it is too much about individualism and atomisation if favour of capitalism and consumer wants rather than societal advancements. The happiness cube is the natural end result of hyperindividualism.
That isn't liberalism. That's Randian libertarianism. There's individualism and then there's radical individualism. One of them is the basis of a free society, the other is the downfall of a free society. I, for example, am a liberal.
@@ArkenTheAmerikan I would dissagree, classical liberalism and the enlightenment are the forefathers of Both libertarianism and Marxism, all three say the highest good in a society is the individual, rather than a greater goal, like the Nation or God.
Which period of older society do you think would be better to aim for then? (Not rhetorical, genuine question) I really cannot think of a period where most people were less focused on those aspects, more than we were generally just worse at securing pleasure or the ability to live without reliance on others at those times. I mean I guess there are periods where some great zeitgeist such as a religious or political movement seizes the reigns, but those tend to be either impermenent or get pretty bad over time.
To blame technological advancement is also a bit questionable, as technology clearly has the ability to make it easier to interact with and maintain bonds that wouldn't be possible otherwise. I do think that the current implementation of many pieces of technology have more nefarious motives than helping people interact, but that shouldn't be mistaken for the actual technology itself.
@@Vurglesplat I think you have an odd hatred off meaning in one's life. The truth is, any civilisation that didn't posses a central goal for its existance, may it be a Religion, the Nation, ect, will collapse into fragmentation and mass immorality. Our society is the exception, in such a regard and thats why its heading towards collapse day by the day. You might consider all of society working for a same goal as ''authoritarian'', because to do so you must give away some of your indiviudal freedom, but may I ask, what is the purpose of such a freedom if it restricts you from working to something thats far greater than yourself, alongside hurting in most circmustanses your personal life as well?
"So why don't you just get drunk all of the time, eat rubbish and jack of all day?"
Quite bold of you to assume I don't
yo same
UwU
a lot of people do that, really XD
@@SrSander are they happy though? Are you happy? Am I happy?
Based
Assuming this hypothetical future had solved death by aging, I think the pleasure cube would be a good alternative to suicide if you got tired of living.
When I die, I hope there's a pleasure cube in the sky for me. I heard that if you're a bad guy, you get sent to the underground pain cube instead.
@@__Razer I would really enjoy the pain cube if it looks like a woman.
you mean as a mean to suicide? doesn't seem you'll last long without food in there to me
@@varyhandsomeguy uh
Why go through all the hassle of getting into the cube while true infinite freedom is as close as turning over your wrist?
I'm genuinely very happy that I found a channel that has a similar sense of humor to mine, cherishes the same video games as I do (minecraft, I liked your jokes involving it too lol), while also producing really thought-invoking, highly highly produced content on issues I consider on a somewhat frequent basis. From your videos on climate change, to policy, to this one on philosophy, I appreciate your interest and good insight on science, the social sciences, and parts of the humanities. Your content is illuminating and inspiring. Be proud of yourself and know that you have made me happy from just the few videos I have watched so far! The topic this video deals with really resonates with me and has kinda been a fundamental question to my identity and drive, especially as a person who struggles with depression, and I'm glad it resonates with someone else as well. I feel a lot less alone :D
This is very idealisitic.
I feel as if a lot more people would step into the cube than you'd think.
If someone no longer has any attatchment to their character, honesty, or the material world, they would step into the cube and stay there forever, no questions asked.
Sadly, I feel as if this is the majority of society as of now.
But the more i think about it, the more it feels like a solution, too many people that are dispossed and discontented with the system and drowning in apathy and envy, why not give them paradise already, they will consume less resources.
I'm kinda sad. Might as well.
"When you play chess, you don't want to throw the opponent's queen out the window, you want to win following the rules and without cheating, the same happens with life"
- Abraham Lincoln, probably
yeah because you get a bigger seratonin release when you beat the game following the rules.
All our experiences are the products of electrical signals and chemicals, a sufficiently advanced machine could replicate the feeling of satisfaction indefinatly and simply disable our ability to be bored.
@@ExternalDialogue I find amazing that a set of electrical charges and chemical reaccions ocurring in the brain can create a sensation of conciusness, and males us feel and understand this world.
Yeah you don't whant to throw a queen out of the window illegally
@@ExternalDialogue that’s great. But if you can hook up to a machine, why bother living at all? At that point you only exist to die. You may as well take the option that will always be cheaper. The rope, the stool, and a well tied knot.
have you heard about the game rust?
the playerbase's motives might surprise a lot of people
back then at school, i read that the thing is humans not only seek happiness or pleasure. they seek meaning in existence and/or understanding of it. kinda just like huxley said in the twin stories of brave new world/the island.
this idea is also presented in Maslow's Hierarchy of needs where things like self-actualization or esteem are present as things that people search after they solve more basic needs.
Humans seek meaning or understanding or etc... for happinnes or pleasure
@@imnotabird1118 no. They seek meaning for bliss. Bliss is the thing we all are searching for. Pleasure or happiness is a short simulation of a bliss "light" version. We are trying to find bliss by doing alot of things which give us pleasure or we try to maximize happiness to finally find bliss. So a happy cube wouls never worj because bliss comes from turning off aroganz. Then you will accept truth and stop forcing yourself to live your lie and try to see it as truth.
The truth our heart is seeking.
It's seeking for the connection with our creator. The one who made everything. Who made the universe, time.. everything
Once someone turns off their arrogance its more clear than glas
Not IQ, Money or yeas of studying is needed to understand reality and be in bliss
It's a pure heart.
So every human is abel to achive it by giving up their arrogance and ignorance
La ilaha ill Allah
@@soeih8864 "bliss" "heart" "allah" so happiness and pleasure my dude. U r just complicating things because of ur stupidbrain
@@soeih8864 What about all the poor people who where born before his coming? Why will they never be able to experience this? Or those who were never exposed to his message? And if everything needs a creator, who created the creator?
@@雷-t3j Before the coming of prophet mohammed they where other prophets Some we know like Jesu, Moses with a huge impact but also alot of prophets to a small group of people like a village or maybe even less. Every human had the chance to accept or denie the truth when it was glas clear to them. IF they did not have the chance then there will be another just test for them maybe in the hearafter. We dont know how but we know that Allah will be testing everyone and no one will be in hellfire or die as disbeliver without knowing of the truth and denying it. The Allmighty is absolut Just and it will be proven to everyone their guild. There will be no one who says im unjustly in hellfire. The only thing they will say is beg their Creator to give them another Chances. They will not get another chance bcs they will die just the same they did again and again. Also the last question is paradox because the name says it. THE CREATOR is not a creation so the CREATOR is not CREATED because he is the CREATOR. The Creator is outside of Space and Time. Absolut Perfect and unimaginable for our brains. One of the biggest gifts to us is that we will be abel to see our Creator in Heaven.
Could not a virtual reality simulator like the cube aid with developing new experiences and better understanding of ourselves?
I would never have been able to slay dragons in real life but I can in Skyrim. I could never design a city but I can in city skylines. I could never be a star ship captain in my own space opera, but I can in mass effect. I could never guide a species from cell to interstellar empire but I can in Spore.
Even though these experiences aren't real I still feel a sense satisfaction and pride in my virtual achievements from winning an impossible battle in medieval total war or completing a round on papers please without any mistakes.
Imagine using the cube to explore a perfect replication of renaissance Florence, renact battles during the English civil war, LARP as a vampire or fly like a bird. Or indeed eating a 400g steak fillet surf and turf without the cost to you or the climate.
Indeed, it's understandable why some might prefer the virtual to the real.
He makes the argument that simulating an experience is not the same as the actual experience, but what if that's the point? Tons of people like killing zombies in video games, but no one in there right mind would actually want to experience a zombie apocalypse.
Thomas makes a good point, the only reason any of those experiences seem cool to you, is that you know you are in a simulation, you can leave at any time, and are out of harms way, if they were to make you think you truly were in the Middle Ages, or in Skyrim, I doubt you’d be quite as adventurous
@@potatoboy6094. But nobody can actually be in Skyrim or time travel back to the middle ages. Reality imposes limitations on us the virtual can liberate us from.
@@williamfrancis5367 Im not doubting that, I’m saying that if the virtual reality was so immersive that you truly felt like you were there and weren’t just in a simulation, or if the simulation makes you forget that it’s not real, you might be less likely to be as ballsy as you would be by knowing that none of it really matters
@@potatoboy6094. Just like the privileged in the real world.
I think you kind of dodged the question by assuming the cube wouldn't be that good. If a certain amount of pain/hardship turns out to be optimal for maximum feelings of well being, then why wouldn't the cube provide that? Assuming the cube would just provide momentary superficial pleasurable things at every second is to assume the cube doesn't do a great job to begin with, since pleasurable things at every second is probably not the best way to maximize pleasure. The moment you become bored with pleasure, or dissatisfied with its lack of meaning, that's not pleasure anymore and therefore the cube isn't fulfilling its purpose. I think I saw something once about people who had some condition where they couldn't stop orgasming non stop and of course that wasn't in any way pleasureful for them. Instead of assuming the cube would overwhelm you with supposedly good things you should assume the cube does a perfect job of ensuring maximum well being even if that doesn't mean an infinite feeling of orgasm. Then the real question is why are people afraid of that on the sole basis that the feelings are virtually induced. The real issue is not that the cube wouldn't produce maximum well being, it's that people believe induced well being is not worth it. And then you could go on about how our feelings in the real world are still induced in some way, how our perception of reality is still fabricated in our brains and only exists there anyway, etc. You could probably tie it with the dread people feel from the simulation theory, which makes them feel like all of their lives could go from meaningful to meaningless based solely on whether the experience of their lives is virtually induced and not on whether the simulation is optimal. I liked the video but I would've taken it in a different direction.
Yeah I had the same thought.
In my opinion the cube would lead objectively to the most happiness, people misunderstand it by thinking it would just be a drug induced stupor but honestly why shouldn't it also simulate an ideal life, with hard moments included.
Honestly the reason someone would reject it, imo is pretty much purely dogmatic, which I do
Great reply, yeah I have similar feelings
The cube is a metaphor for addiction and the decay of society. The constant seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain. The sacrifice of long term well-being for an immediate fix. While attractive at first, it is in fact suffering, as you get stuck in a loop where you have to keep feeding the beast. The longer you go on with it, the more it imprisons you. You become isolated, alienated, your life deprived of meaning, as you sit in your cube, all day every day. Stop now and the emptiness will hit you harder than ever, as there's nothing left for you outside of the cube. Nothing worthwhile to live for. You've become a slave of the cube.
Even an increasingly sophisticated and convincing virtual world is still just a representation. It's not alive, it's bits and bytes on a computer. None of it is real. As the color example in the video illustrates, nothing new can come out of the cube other than what's been put there by the outside world. The cube is a lie, an illusion.
The dystopian part comes from a society whose social bonds and moral values have eroded. Where more and more people no longer engage in meaningful human interaction and instead withdraw into cubes. Where you're unscrupulously being offered the cube at every turn, because it's good business. Meaning is lost, only hedonism and money worship remain.
We already have cubes. Internet addiction, video games (or the classic substance abuse). People looking for an escape and opting out of society altogether. But a real sense of happines and accomplishment can only come from leading a fulfilling life. If you don't, you'll find life slipping through your fingers and in the end are left with nothing. Choose life.
If the cube doesn't do a good job of producing happiness as it leaves out pain and hardship, don't we then have the perfect cube already? (Life)
I agree. I think the cube giving us the equivalent of a candy all the time will just increase our tolerance to dopamine and serotonin. Instead, a *better* pleasure cube would be something like the *fake* good place from the show **the good place**. Our world is sad and insufferable because of the unfairness, the injustice, the class segregation, etc. so many factors of your life are decided before you are even born. The wealth of your parents, the country you were born in, the disability you may be born with. Life is so unfair and that's what makes the world sad and miserable.
In my opinion, The ideal pleasure cube would be a world where everything is fair and everyone is born equal. Their actions will have concequences and they will have pain for the bad concequences. But that's what brings the higher pleasure that is different from the pleasure you get from eating a candybar
If you're still aware that you're inside of the cube then it's not worth it. But if you're also experiencing a permanent lucid dream or simulation where you can live the life you want to live and have what you desire, I would absolutely go for it.
Imagine being born into the cube 💀
Yeah and then you are permanently trapped in a fake world which has no meaning whatsoever and you can't affect anything. Doesn't sound good to me.
I think you just watch the boring world around you, you just dont care because you're happy anyway.
"Lucid dream" implies you already know.
@death exist
Andrew Solomon is quoted as saying "The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality." or as I understand it, the ability and regularity to experience the full spectrum of emotions, all of its euphoric highs and grieving lows.
Also another note: in the modern world, cleaving the pleasures in two between higher and lower is less helpful by the day. Take modern music for example. One of my favorite bands, Queens of the Stone Age, released an album, Songs for the Deaf, that is fantastic in a way that I would say is conducive to "higher pleasure", but just simply, unequivocally, would not exist without drugs. Many of the "higher pleasures" we may enjoy today, from music, to film, to literature, are creative expressions that simply couldn't exist in the form they do without the lower pleasures- alcohol, sex, drugs.
I'm not really sure where else to go on this, as my concern as a human being just is being any amount of happy at all, but I leave with 2 questions: 1.) Did John Stuart Mill have an answer for the prompt I just gave above, or is this more of a product of the modern era, and 2.) Is dopamine that leads to creative expression inherently more valuable than dopamine for its own sake, like you would get in the pleasure cube?
Yes, "pleasure" can mean many different things, it may be too broad a word. There are several areas we need to examine further.
Firstly, we would have to examine the make up of 'simple' (like sex, drugs etc) and 'higher' (music, art) pleasures to determine if they are just social and environmental programming/conditioning. At the very basic level, they seem (more externally) sensory based. In contrast, some monks claim meditation (internal process) allows them to reach higher pleasure than world experiences provide. Yet, after a while they come out of meditation to preform their duties and serve the world. This may negate the 'pleasure box' idea as being a prolonged scenario.
Then we have to examine what is the purpose of the pleasure, eg is it a healing mechanism for the brain /body? Does it counter act pain and trauma? Does it actually heal the 'hardware' of the brain/body? When things are healed up enough, will the person naturally seek less pleasure?
Finally, we would look at what happens to people without enough pleasure in their life. For example, currently the medical community says that "anti social personality disorders" like psychopathy and sociopathy is partially due to the brains inability to produce enough serotonin in certain brain regions. Serotonin is considered as major contributor to people feeling happy. These types of people apparently have less empathy and take more (socially unacceptable) risks, and dont care if they hurt others. The theory is they dont have enough serotonin in certain brain areas that would allow them to act socially acceptable or limit their bad behaviors ; and they developed this way due to trauma or other factors with no way to easily go back.
Its a large topic. For some people it maybe something pleasureable to look into. 🤣
"dating is reduced to a fancy dinner followed by a one night stand"
that still is much better than what we currently have
i get nervous thinking about romance because I'm gay but i have a very conservative-ish belief of waiting until marriage and dating with the intent to marry. with apps like grindr and the subculture that being gay has with partying and sexual liberation, it feels like people are entitled to have sex with others whether they like it or not. :((
@@coagulatedsalts4711 well according to Christianity marriage is the union between a man and a woman, so you will never actually marry according to it so unless you wanna die virgin you shouldn't think about that
@@GioGio14412 he didn't mention Christianity though
@@GioGio14412 You can marry not by church
@@coagulatedsalts4711 sexual liberation is cool, but no, consent is a thing, you're not entitled to have sex with anyone.
There is something unsettling similar about the pleasure cube and mobile phones/TV.
I don’t care if I sound like a boomer when I say this but people, including myself, spend too much time on screens.
Agreed, maybe the addictions talking, but I mostly use it as a distraction of the mundane and boring reality we’re forced to live and work in, most people have to work all the time just to stay alive, I’m sure many people would love to travel, and work out, and eat good food and feel love and pleasure naturally, but most of us can only afford a few hours of staring at a screen and hallucinating that it’s moving or that we’re anywhere except where we are, so unfortunately, we’d need to change a lot to be able to break out of where we are
Easy dopamine hit you are definitely right and it's not just a boomer thing. Obviously the technology itself isn't bad tho, for example you can use a smartphone to read books and talk with relatives on the other side of the world
There’s something to be said about just watching content (watching someone climb a mountain) as opposed to playing a game with its own set of challenges and earned rewards (a game like Celeste)
@@miguelpereira9859 yeah the technology is great, but most people’s smarter than average monkey brains aren’t well suited to using them only a reasonable amount
The idea of a life devoid of any meaning sounds terrifying. For as much as I wonder now what I am to do with myself for another 4-8 decades, at least I know that when it ends, it will have been real. At least I have the *chance* to do something with it that isn't useless.
Eternal pleasure is essentially identical to death. To have one unchanging experience is to have no experience and therefore to have no consciousness and to be dead
I feel like Evangelion itself is a really good counter-argument with the entire escapism and exploiting pleasure=bad sort of thing, the cube gives me major instrumentality vibes
Now that you point it out the similarities are crystal clear for me. I think the part where Shinji chooses to accept the existence of pain and suffering in life rather than choosing this instrumentality BS is just so powerful to me, and I didn't have a clear idea until your comment.
Yup
Exactly
No
No.
Steven Stalenhag made a book called ‘the electric state’ which describes a world where people are attached to VR like machines that put them in a perfect world (its illustrated, and i still think of it as the most horrifying book ive read)
Ive always found it interesting that we as the reader of that book (and the protagonist) never actually see what it is that makes them so addicted.
That's why I'm called the lectromancer. 😏
1:04 "Beauty is just the visual input that produces serotonin in the brain"
Gonna have to say that's a definite NOPE not true. The common idea that serotonin or dopamine are purely responsible for feelings of "goodness" or to stretch it even further the appreciation of aesthetics is absolutely not a proven concept. These neurotransmitters are found throughout the body and perform many different functions (particularly digestion and movement). They play a role in emotion regulation and behaviour but so do many other neurotransmitters.
Saying serotonin=happy isn't even an oversimplification it's just wrong.
Love the video though this is just a pet peeve of mine.
This is the central flaw of this video. Thinking that pure happiness would just be one simple process. If it was that easy we could probably already jam pure Serotonin into our brain.
We already do. Tf you think drug addicts are?
Plus, art isnt necessarily what makes us happy. It is something whose effort we can appreciate, whose painters emotions, thoughts, goals and views are projected onto. Good art can range from what makes us the happiest, to what gives us the deepest thoughts, insights and existential questions.
Found the r/Neuro user
Here we have a doctor, my guys
I think one of the biggest objections to pleasure cube is that people simply like the illusion of choice and choices having meaning.
Though i think huxley makes a good point about a true utopia not being eternal pleasure, his techno spiritual society can be its own type of dystopia. I think the story of the game rain world is a good example.
I think if the pleasure cube is created, we will all destroy it before anyone plugs in. The aversion to it is too primal and deep. To have the illusion of choice destroyed is to die.
Imagine a hypothetical pleasure machine that hooks directly into your brain. The pleasure machine looks exactly like reality, but you can be whoever you want, with whatever abilities you want. I feel like most people would plug into the pleasure machine. Imagine living your life just as it is in real life, but you can fly.
I think I would do that, but never really use the abilities. I thought about the hypothetical scenario of essentially getting god mode and being able to mold reality to your liking, but I think the best way of using that would be to just live an eternal but ordinary life where you achieve things through your own work, getting everything you want with minimal effort would get boring pretty quickly
Holy shit this comic has illustrated exactly what I was thinking for years of what VR will inevitably evolve into
Home Depot! I'd like your finest fertilizer
Metaverse
VR is impossible to evolve until this point. Just a silly thought you have. Not even in 100 years using virtual reality it will be able to imitate reality. Also technology is limited, it has issues such as feeling dizzy when playing VR or the necessity of better graphs and interaction. We won't evolve to Player number 1, be sure.
@@phantomwarrior8686 Of course it won't look like reality, and it can't do everything. But the effect is the same to someone who just wants to be in VR all day. You can do more than you think you can judging by the way you talk.
I would say you aren't someone who has tried VR for extended periods of time. On VRchat alone I have found VR to be improving by the month, even if the hardware is slow to change.
@@dylanc9174 VR is not the future, people will not give up their real lives and responsibilities to live in such stupid and artificial environment.
"Just play Roblox or Minecraft instead, they're just as good"
Best quote from the video
Freedom is the most important both practically and ethically
How do you know you aren't in a simulation already and that your freedom is just an illusion?
@@wave1090 what if i am? would that change anything? the point is that i dont know if i am or not so it doesnt matter.
@@wave1090 to programme this reality as a simulation, you would need to programme infinite, which is impossible, since infinite is not a number.
Freedom is wastly over valued and I don't mean that in any authoritarian way. If you had a set mission that brought you joy and fulfillment, freedom would be less valuable.
@@wave1090
Then it doesn’t matter if you’re not free
I love the assemblance-esque distortion when you say "we want to do things, not just have the experience of doing it"
Fits perfect. Great video
What if there is an error, and it's just unending terror and nightmare that you can't get out of.
It's my fear of "the pleasure cube" that makes me such a proponent of Augmented Reality (AR). Technologies like Virtual Reality falsely simulate the pleasure and experiences that you described in the video; however, Augmented Reality can combine the speed and power of those virtual worlds but with human empathy and connection. This is because AR does not shut you into an entirely virtual world and therefore allows you to experience things more organically. I think in the future, use of the ominous (false) pleasure cube will hopefully die out and more organic, psychologically healthier technologies like AR will replace it.
i want this but what i also want is a real world that is filled with art and beautiful buildings ect... so when you switch it off beauty can still be found :)))
@@A-homo-sapien that's why I find AR more comforting, Reality is still a backdrop, still visible, to the "simulation" in front of it.
@@renaigh ye ye fr
The best case for AR could enhance reality.
Hack our selves to see beyond the visual spectrum, hear beyond the audible range ect.
I think both have there place. For crafted expirences VR is amazing and I would want everyone to try it. However AR is already being used as a therapy tool for stuff like PTSD.
The problem is over reliance of either and a disassociation from the real world
If the pleasure cube can simulate a world that feels real to us how would someone even know the difference when they're plugged in? Similar to dreaming, sometimes we dream and we think it is the real world. If this is the case there is no difference logically.
Maybe were in pleasure cube and though people suffer, the real world is a polluted, radiated shithole, and were none the wiser
@@aloedg8058 I can guarantee that I'm not in the pleasure cube. I'd take that option in a heartbeat though.
that’s “the matrix” but the premise of this video is that you’re given the *option*.
@@aloedg8058 Huh, that's actually an interesting twist. What if you found out you were already in it? Would you leave?
@@desu38 probably cant
I'm pretty sure people underestimate the pleasure cube. If it really triggers seretonin and all pleasure chemicals, then we probably don't have any idea how good and consistent this must feel. I'd be ready to bet most people (probably including me) would get hooked on the thing instantly and never regret going into it.
yeah
That's exactly what's terrifying about it.
The age of deconstruction which produced the people who would be fine with such a fate is to be maligned by those with any soul left to speak of. I was happier as a child but I'd not want to go back to that since I'm a better person now. To be the happiest person is not my goal to be the best person I can be is. Please reasses what it is you people want in life and if it truly is this then heroin is there for you. It'll end you but you will have achieved your pleaaure cube if only for a short time.
@@SomeGuy-so3kk
You would be a fool if you thought people from an ancient time would be impervious to the pleasure cube. People in the past only had less access to pleasure, but they sought after it in the same exact way. They had a harder time being alive, because life was harder, but put them in a pleasure cube and they would stay in it.
There is no such thing as a deconstruction age, what happened is just machines are doing all our chores for us, but every human being would fall victim to the pleasure cube.
@@pulsarhappy7514 I never said that ancient people would be impervious nor that people in the recent past would. Simply that an attitude which would facilitate the use of this and not turn their head up at the concept is a symptom of this very real age of deconstruction. Everything down to the very concepts of men and women existing is being deconstructed and its quite sad to witness at times.
And of course no one would leave the pleasure cube. Hardly anyone every really quits heroin. The mark of ones character is whether or not they'd choose to enter such a damned thing in the first place. I don't fault the heroin addict for being unable to quit I fault him for his choice to begin the use of such a thing in the first place.
I know it's been a year but this video keeps showing up in my brain every once in a while and I felt like leaving my own thoughts here.
To me, the pleasure cube idea is something that will ultimately fail over time. Even with all the hypotheticals and the idea that you may not know you're in a pleasure cube, I still strongly feel that the cube's effects will simply just diminish over time until eventually it just stops working for us. Sure it works for maybe 5 or 10 years but I don't forsee it being something you're stuck with for life. Eventually, people will start to see the illusion for what it really is, and when they do, they'll simply just get bored of it, and that's if we're in a perfect world where the pleasure cube doesn't permanently fuck up your brain's chemical makeup beyond repair. It's like eating the same exact food every day. Eventually, you start to despise the taste. It also falls into the idea that the human mind cannot simply create something entirely new either in the way this video explains. You are destined to run out of things to do eventually, and, when you do, the illusion cannot sustain itself afterwards. If anything, I think the pleasure cube will actually end up making people worse. Pure Dopamine is not the same as contentment. It would be like those occassional posts about people dreaming they had a whole loving family and kids and then waking up suddenly to realize they were never real. It would spiral out of control incredibly quickly afterwards.
TL;DR: The cube sucks anyway!!! This shit don't even fuckin' work!!!!
The running out of things to do ties in with immortality. If I were to live in a hyperreality pleasure cube and I didn't wipe my memories every time I decided to go on a new adventure, what is there to do? Eventually I'll run out of things.. In fact, what if I'm just another experience?
Pure dopamine already fucking exists - you can steal some from your local hospital. They hook people up to it on IV drips when they need to get someone's heart to not stop beating when it really fucking should. Guess what - it ain't exactly sunshine and rainbows and just gets people wired and anxious. Stimulants that affect it are common and don't exactly produce GREAT PLEASURE, they also just make you more active.
Dopamine isn't a pleasure chemical, its a stimulatory chemical that makes you more focused on stuff, controls locomotion(notice I say control, it's why Parkinson's disease works the way it does. The brain is a complicated system with lots of areas responsible for controlling other areas and suppressing their activity), increases blood pressure and heart rate and makes you not feel fatigue. Being able to be super focused and not be tired is obviously great, but it can be only as great as the thing you are doing with that energy. For example - in the modern world you have people going to nightclubs and concerts and taking stimulants that directly affect dopamine to dance more and without fatigue or the need to sleep. They're having a good night - after all, they can talk and dance and fuck for days without fatigue. You also have a completely different group of people who do stimulants - soldiers, who also do it to be more energetic and attentive for longer periods of time. Now I don't know about you, but I don't think being awake thanks only to being wired on stimulants while in a paranoid environment where you have to do extremely difficult things in extreme danger is fun. Even mundane situations that are miserable arent really any more or less miserable on stimulants, let alone goddamn war, which is hell.
We already have a "pleasure cube" that generates dopamine whenever we want, it's called "Cellphone"
More specifically, tiktok
I think the only thing that would hinders me from entering the pleasure cube is if it don’t have a clear way out.
I would love. And I MEAN LOVE to be able to go into the pleasure cube for a certain hours per day.
I mean, if you think about it you'd love to go in for all hours a day, no matter what you say now.
if you were in the cube you probably wouldn't could get out. Even if you physically could get out, the amount of happiness you would get in that cube would make it near impossible for you to want to get out of the cube
I think it would make it hard to focus on normal life
You'd get addicted very quickly, pleasure is addictive, once you receive everything you want in any form, and have the experience of experience everything possible and impossible, your brain will get overestimulated very quickly and after some days discouraged.
Most people will tell you pleasure cube bad until you mention they can meet their waifu in it.
I sometimes wonder if we have already stepped into the pleasure cube, and that the reason we find the higher pleasures good is because the pleasure cube has made it so.
A good thought experiment, but one without an answer currently
If this is the pleasure cube, I want a refund.
I SIGNED UP FOR BEING A FEMBOY FURRY FOX NOT THIS HUMAN GARBAGE THING
This video is a masterpiece in the inside thoughts and research, as well as the outside on the presentation too. It is just very well thought of. Thank you for this Britmonkey. This was the video that made me realize that you are a big deal in the youtube. oh, the pear one was too also :)
Some things that make me happy are music, humor, science. They have little to do with the lethargic pleasure cube. They have more to do with “being in the zone”. You don’t get bored of “being in the zone”. It is wonderful, constructive, unlimited fun. It is not about achieving, it is just enjoying.
Alan Watts: "Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say "Well, that was pretty great." But now let's have a surprise. Let's have a dream which isn't under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say "Wow, that was a close shave, wasn't it?" And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream ... where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today."
as an addict for the last 15 years, this whole video resonates so much with me. well done!
I hope you manage to get out of whatever addiction, this is. Wish ya luck!
more people find pleasure from watching others succeed, then actually achieving that goal themselves.
I think what scares me more about the pleasure cube is someone or some entity using me for their own gain without me knowing it rather than the pleasure itself.
They already are using you, your labor, your ideas and your money, for their purposes.
I would kill for this to be real. To not ever have to deal with challenge or hardship ever again. To not have to have a personality or friends, to never worry about loss or happiness or fulfillment, to just be able to live in a state of mindless bliss until I die. I wish that this could happen to me. I hate being alive.
I understand.
I like how minecraft is the example of ''eternal bliss''
As someone who's struggled with depression for most of my life the pleasure cube is functionally equivalent to suicide. I disappear from the outside world in both situations and in one I'm forever happy while the other I'm forever nothing.
"How people are in videos games rarely react how they are in real life"
Yes, I am, in fact, *not* a hyper-advanced octopus girl
I don't break trees with my fist
yes i'm not a pickaxe
this essentially boils down to a discussion about drugs, and many junkies are already in their pleasure cube. some just like it
I already knew the meaning of Life before even watching this video
Life isn't about Enjoying It as much as Possible
Life is about Suffering and Overcoming it
I might be in the minority in saying that this pleasure cube doesn't seem so horrifying? Most worries about the cube will fade away when you experience the cube.
Yeah, as much as I say I'd hate it, as much as anyone would say that they'd hate it, we will love it. Upon the altar of eternal bliss any qualms or worries will be left behind.
It's similar to heaven, something that most people aren't afraid of.
When you understand how dopamine work, you'll understand why people can't quit drug, alcohol or smoking. This cube will convince you to be part of it. When the cube is broken, you will be in the state of confused and fear. You will crave for that high dopamine the cube is giving. It's sad that in life we have tons of bullshit. But like everyone else in the comments have already said. The happiness is like the light. When there is too much like, you can't see shit. Sometimes we just need a shade of dark, like sadness, to see where the light is appreciate at.
About heaven, I personally think heaven represents your resting after finishing a task, in particular, you finish all the good deeds in life. This is how dopamine work. You are rewarded after completing a task. Heaven is the reward after you do a good deed to yourself and mankind. You still experience your life from start to finish. You still have identity of who you are to justify why should you be in heaven.
@@cloudynguyen6527 yeah too much is maby a problem but a less Strong Form can Improve our lifes so much
Of course it will feel great, it’s hijacking our brains to feel good, abusing our chemistry for eternal bliss, that’s not the point, the same point about it: “feeling good once you’re in it” could literally be said about anything, ever heard of Stockholm syndrome? Just cuz it feels good doesn’t mean it is, you might feel like heaven, but you’re really just rotting away in a claustrophobic cube, if you’re really willing to throw your chance to experince things, to do something only a few could ever claim to have done, for some cheap and quick chemically induced happiness, I recommend ecstasy, not that I’ve ever tried it myself, but it’s apparently what you’re looking for, but I realized a long time ago that the destination is not why it’s worth living, but the journey to get there that makes things fulfilling, and of course I don’t know you and your life and this might not be your actual viewpoint, but from where I’m standing, anybody who is willing to take being in a simulation for their whole life over true experience(or true as far as anyone can prove), must not be doing so hot in the life they were given
@@jackreid2664 this is why 11 year old me decided I don't want to go to heaven.
I wish I was kidding. It's so fucking funny
I refuse because that "why not" sounds threathening.
I cannot stop watching your "The Rise and Fall of New Labour", I just turn it on once a week and watch it again. I don't recall ever finding such an interesting video on a transformation of a political party. Your videos are awesome, the stop being a climate nihilist and the anti car one are very well made, but the labour one is just peak content. The part from 8:16 10:05 is just so well made, the music out of this world. I never cared about British politics, but now I literally ask all british people I know what they think of Tony Blair's laws. And I was also wondering whether you could make a video on Thatcher. Why for some she is an iron lady and for some a gender neutral bathroom .Love your content, you're the only channel where I have the subscription bell actually activated for every video.
Its like the realizing of the concept of heaven as a real place, and the fact that such a concept is uncomfortable is, in and of itself, very much uncomfortable.
There was a German writer (I can't remember his name but I remember his quote) that said: "Only the sad people know what happiness is".
The pleasure cube wouldn't even work.
We become adjusted to larger doses of these happy chemicals as we take more of them, requiring larger doses to get the same happiness, and becoming reliant on the amount we've received so far just to not be miserable. You would be happy in the pleasure cube until it could no longer provide enough dope and serotonin to keep you happy as you adjust to the amount you've been getting. It would have to keep giving you more and more until it can't supply any more. If it somehow had an infinite supply then you'd probably die long before the point that the amount it needs to give you to make you happy equals your body weight. It would be unsustainable to keep someone happy in a box forever and if they were kicked out they would become incapable of living a normal life because they would be so dependent on the chemicals they're no longer receiving. People kicked out of the pleasure box would become the most depressed people in the world.
Edit: I’m very aware it’s “like a drug” and my entire argument revolves around that fact.
It is a drug
@M T I don’t get it. That’s what I said over and over in my comment. Dope is a drug. And our bodies adapt to them. If you were to inject a shit ton of dope it would make you really happy. If you did it every single day for the rest of your life the happiness you would get from it would diminish with each day until you no longer feel happy when you inject this shit ton of dope. But then if you just suddenly _stop_ taking the drugs then you will feel extremely depressed until you start taking them again and will need the shit ton of drugs just to feel normal. This is why antidepressants can start to show diminishing effects until you’re depressed again. But you can’t just stop taking them because that would make things worse.
@@potatoboy6094 see my reply to @M T ‘s comment
this is kinda what i was thinking, you would eventually reach a point that you can no longer receive enough dopamine to make you satisfied anymore - you would get bored of the pleasure cube, somehow?
what if it worked by modifying your brain to remove that adaptation though?
TLDR: "we cant get the full enjoyment unless we work hard to get it" or:
"what id it was the friends we made along the way?"
Part of being human is feeling emotion. Good and bad. Feeling constant pleasure reduces you to nothing. It doesn't matter if it's a vegetizer or a simulation.
Humans, in order to be human, need negative emotions.
Pleasure =\= focus
The zone mentioned in the US army study is akin to the meditative state. It's not pure pleasure, it's a right balance of pleasure, discomfort, curiosity, stimulus and reward.
This channel doubled in subscribers in such a short period.
You deserve it!
Yeah it's really blowing up right now, and it's not from any of his new videos instantly being successful, so the algorithm must've blessed him lol
The comic is oddly similar to Scythelord's "Wireframe" a death metal song about very similar themes.
Shoutouts to Vinesauce Jonttelflips.
Whatever type of happiness concoction your brain can come up with, the pleasure cube can do better. A machine specifically designed to make you "feel good" I assume should be able to simulate any form of happiness. So the same feeling of "happiness of life / not taking happiness for granted / cherishing happiness" can also be simulated in the pleasure cube which is funny, but not surprising if you think about it.
Yes. I dont see why such an advanced civilisation could not just make people artificially fulfilled as well.
The pleasure cube is essentially just suicide wrapped up in a nice label.
suicide isn't eternal happiness, it's a return to non-existence
or, depending on your beliefs, eternal torture
@@pezvonpez I know, but both are giving up on any fine experiences for an unconscious avoidance of the horrors of life
The pleasure cube is like anxiety medication. Taking it will cure your anxiety, but if you get off it, the anxiety will be even worse.
If one leaves the pleasure cube, he will probably off himself because he hasn't experienced negative emotion since going into the cube.
We have to perfect the pleasure cube, perfect AI, and prevent mass extinction via black holes, asteroids, etc. before even thinking about putting all living beings into the cube.
The pleasure cube is THE goal of humanity though.
Honestly, I think the main thing I took away from this was the Moderation and Freedom is Key.
You can hate what I say, but you have to admit, sometimes we all just have to leave the tedium of everyday life. Not to say I want the pleasure cube, I hope that concept is set on fire and have it's ashes sent to the sun.
No, what I'm personally aiming for is specifically a balanced form of "Rebirth Escapism", where one can willingly spend a defined (aka limited) period of time as a new person starting from the ground up with what they know in real life.
I know that this concept still has many drawbacks, as this will most likely lead to self-inflicted heavy isolation on introverst who don't put value on their real life. But I am at least hoping that a community of open social interation would form around this idea.
Well if something like the cube gets invented, wouldn't it just be a slow and relaxing way of natural selection?
What if the real pleasure cube was the friends we made along the way?
The cube hijacks the brain, theres no way you can say the cube is bad once you get plugged in. Its a perfect dream that you would never get bored of. If you want love or identity then the cube will simulate that, if you want hard work to achieve higher pleasure then why not, but unlike the real world the cube will make sure you achieve happiness.
I think people Confuse pleasure and happiness. One can be in a state of pleasure and still not be happy.
Great video! There’s something so calming and thought provoking about all your vids. Please keep it up I can never wait for the next one.
Here's how I look at it: Happiness is a signal I tend to get in my brain when things I value happen. Of course, it's not a perfect signal; there's not a perfect one-to-one correspondence between what I value and the feeling of happiness, not at all. And mind-altering technology could almost entirely sever the connection between happiness and value entirely.
I prefer both having the experience of happiness, AND the things that happiness should be a signal for. That's what I want - not just a light flashing "everything is okay", but also for everything to be okay. (It's the same thing with suffering: I _both_ want to not experience much suffering, _and_ I don't want someone to cut my arms off - the signal and the thing it's signalling are different, and I want to avoid both. The humans in the comic are like people who can't feel pain - their signal got broken, and is no longer doing the thing they want it to do.)
I want love _and_ the feeling of love; friendship _and_ the feeling of friendship; adventure _and_ the feeling of adventure!
And that's all there is to it! I don't need any more philosophical justification than that, dammit! My preferences include, _but extend beyond,_ the state of my brain. That's just want my brain is designed to want, no further justification needed! Anyone who would not prefer that comic to come true feels the same way - they have preferences for how the universe _actually is_ outside of their brain.
( Or put another way, to borrow one of my favorite econ concepts, we want to avoid Goodhart's trap: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law. Happiness and the things you care about are correlated - but if all you do is focus on maximizing happiness, *you'll break the correlation!* )
To me, the most terrifying part about this concept is that however adament one is to not want to be part of the "pleause cube", if they're placed in it they would have no care to leave, they wouldn't be able to because they wouldn't *want* to. even still, if the cube worked as it did in the comic, trying to take someone out of the cube would cause them extreme depression, or at worst kill them.
Everyone has a pleasure cube, it’s in your hands right now!
Especially your right hand!
Joke's on you, I'm watching this on a desktop computer.
This will likely never be seen by ya, but I just want to mention that your channel is basically the musings of philosophy. That makes you a philosopher :) congrats
As a person with 5-year-long-and-still-going, treatment resistant depression, the vision of infinite pleasure chemicals intake doesn’t actually sound anyhow like a bad thing
We want comfort. But we find meaning in effort.
I'm sure that the pleasure cube would accommodate for any of these potential pitfalls. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a pleasure cube.
the 1800 version of this comic is in a drive-thru lane: "Don't worry, it looks like food, it tastes like food, it's definitely not food, but it will keep you alive. Though, health is no guarantee."
i hate our modern hedonistic society. everyone just thinks that pleasure = happiness. but its not true. sure, it feels good. but take a deep look into yourself. are you happy?
“When a world is without flaws, it is flawed in and of itself. There is no distinction between what is perfection, and what would not be.”-Me
That makes no sense, the whole point of “perfection” is to be unflawed, you’re trying to be all philosophical with your rhetoric and fancy monologue but then you forgot the definition of the word you’re trying to describe while you were too busy trying to cope about your imperfect life.
@@burgernthemomrailer That's the point. A definition that contradicts itself denotes something impossible.
If the impossible is without flaw, but having no flaws is itself a flaw, then the impossible cannot exist.
@@fellinuxvi3541 but why is having no flaws considered a flaw? You dont provide any sort of reasoning to the backbone of your pseudointellectual quote whatsoever. The cube has plenty of "flaws", it does not exist in the state of perfection you speak of, so your comment becomes less and less relevant to the topic at hand the more you think about it.
LMAO weak. Back to the drawing board buddy.
The message of the quote is that a world must have flaws, or else risk being bland, and empty. If everything was simply perfect, then nothing would ever be done, since there is nothing to improve, nothing to be thankful for, and nothing to overcome. There would be no baseline for what "perfect" would be, and what "not perfect" be, since the former would be the norm. If there is no drive to be human, no drive to eventually achieve perfection, even if it's impossible, then that is the flaw. A world without flaws, is flawed in and of itself. If infinite pleasure were given, and all pain and flaws removed, as laid out in "the box" thought experiment, then that provides no desire to live the human experience. *There would be no desire to be human.* Rejecting what you are is the primary flaw of the box.
The problem with the "pleasure cube" is it's an abstract hypothetical that is yet to be experienced. It just looks like a little box room which doesn't look that pleasurable. Once you try it and experience it, then you would agree there is absolutely no point to leave the pleasure cube.
Yeah, we dont know if it really is good or not, but one thing is certain; Once you go in there's no going out. You would probably get addicted to this „Pleasure Cube“ the second you entered it.
That is very presumptuous. People become addicted to pleasurable things all the time and still struggle to quit whenever they can.
They should make a nothing cube, once you enter you stop being conscious.
That already exists. Any gun, cyanide etc.
People voluntarily make sacrifices not for happiness, but to feel fulfilled. Fulfillment does not equal happiness.
What if instead we made a "pain cube" which would obviously have you experience pain and made it societally honourable to endure?
As far as I'm aware, many cultures already do similar stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if this actually happened in the future.
how about an amogus cube
you perpetually play among us in it
@@ergwertgesrthehwehwejwe that's the same as a pain cube
Yes imagine building a literal hell.
Tbh it's the thing I fear most from our future
Didn't expect that you going to do a video based on Merryweather comic, good video as always
I won't be joining the pleasure cube, but I'm happy for those that find meaning in the cube lifestyle.
No, I’m going to raid the pleasure cubes and wake the people up, whether they like it or not.
@@someguy4405 why would you do that?
@@kauadesouza2978
They need to face reality instead of living lies.
(this is basically becoming the plot of the matrix)
@@someguy4405 I doubt they could re-acclimate to living as a human and not an ego dead thing that exists to be happy.
This video is amazing and exactly captures my thoughts (and most of other people’s). This video is especially important because of “Great reset” arguments happening. Keep up the good work bro.
Defeat the system with sheer logic - Nothing gives me more joy other that:
- Dividing by zero.
- This sentence is a lie
- Throwing the recycling bin in the recycling bin shortcut
Can't imagine not having the contrast between pain and pleasure, and only having pleasure all the time. Without pain, pleasure just doesn't hit as hard.
Like having a nice cup of pipping hot chocolate after you were freezing outside. It just wouldn't be as good without that initial discomfort.
Not for me.
Omfg I had that exact thought when I was about 15 id say. I have made up my own answers since but I am really curious what other ppl think on this. It feels really satisfying to know that other have had the exact same ideas as me.
Quickly: I think that happiness is relative and theorize that being "always happy" wouldnt really make us happy as bad feelings enhance and enable happiness. Although if I am wrong or the simulation would include that this would still leave us in a situation where we would have to accept this creepy future as objectively good, despite what our intuition tells us.
Also, the reason why our intuition tells us this a bad future, us probably if our arguably irrational longing for meaning. Although if a sense of meaning makes us happy, then its not pointless despite being irrational, making it a rational goal in a way.