We are currently running a vote for the next game on Patreon. The vote is between Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy XV.
Usually when it's things like Final Fantasy/JRPG discussions Mike is the one who's leading the discussion, but for this series Casen is flexing his analytical skills so hard that I'm scared he's gonna burst an artery! As someone who sucks at analysis, I love these and It's fun to play alongside since I have a busy schedule and can only commit a couple hours a week, which is great as that's all this requires to be caught up for the next discussion. Keep up the good work!
Really strong start in the first ten minutes of this episode, the comparison between ADAM and the internet is perfect. It really shows how good the writing of this game is and how great you two are at breaking down storytelling into something understandable for everyone. That said these last two episodes feel a bit messy in their structure (I've already watched ahead on the Discord channel). You've been leaning hard into reading the audio diaries and wiki descriptions but getting mixed up in when events happen in the levels in a more organic way. The first thing you see in Port Neptune is the strung up bodies of smugglers but Casen only brings them up as we move on to the hideout so the point is initially dismissed then brought up again later but labelled as being in Arcadia. The third leg of the the narrative of this game is environmental, taking more time to appreciate such things as this and the suicided parents of a Little Sister would be welcomed. I just feel your note taking has not quite been up to your usual standard. You do see Atlas down next to the sub that his family is inside, he gestures up to you while talking to you and you see him trying to get in and are then interrupted by Ryan who sends in the Splicers. It is a really well done scene as the Spider Splicers crawl over the glass between you and Atlas as he is looking away. One tiny flaw with this game was that they did not have time to make unique models for key characters like Atlas and Tenenbaum and so they just reused splicers for them (Atlas being a fisherman in waders). Yay Casen for comparing this game's dialogue to Vagrant Story's. I hadn't realised it before you pointed it out but you're spot on. I've always wondered about the Air in Rapture. I would have to assume there is some system in place to ensure that everyone has enough to live by but that you can buy a richer or cleaner supply by paying enough for it. I doubt the city could function if you would literally die by missing one payment, plus it's not like everyone has to carry their own supply, all the areas we see are common areas with shared air. Not even Ryan is mad enough to think you can take thousands of people to a location with no air and expect them to think it a good idea. I'd argue against your logic that Atlas wanted to go to Rapture to take advantage of it without contributing to it. The key to entering Rapture is that you are going to a place where your work and only your work will decide your fate, if you are prepared to work hard then Rapture welcomes you. Atlas is saying that he believed in this ideal and was prepared to work at it without other superfluous ideals holding him back. Rapture is not just for the elites at the top, it is for _anyone_ who will work hard to get ahead. *Now* we get to the important part with Ryan's diary about burning down a forest to prevent the government taking it from him. Two episodes ago I recommended you watch a video about this game called Rapture: After the Shrug by Monty Zander. One of the key points that he made was that Andrew Ryan's ideal is not exactly what he says - despite the claim that all you need in Rapture is the 'sweat of your brow' all he really cares about is _ownership._ The forest he talks about _was_ planted by 'God' and he felt the right to burn it down because by that point it _belonged_ to _him_ He is also using this as justification for currently destroying the Forests of Arcadia because he did plant the seeds to this place, it _belongs_ to him so he can do as he pleases to it (though why he is destroying the main oxygen producer of the whole city to try and kill one occupant I can't guess, what is he planning to breathe afterwards???). It is pretty clear that It was mostly the sweat of Julie Langford's brow that built Arcadia but this does not matter to Ryan, he owns it, therefore his is the only voice in what is done with it. Ownership trumps effort. It is the same with what you have told us of Atlas Shrugged, The guy destroys his factory rather than lose it to the government but this does not take into account the _other_ people who worked there every day. His employees donate the sweat of their brows to this factory but this does not matter to the one who owns it, employees sit in the middle of the equation between a thieving government and 'rightful' owners but being in the middle is apparently a null position to be ignored. tbc
One of the reasons why I like this podcast is that while some common talking points are brought up, it’s always placed in a more intuitive lens than most other critics or analyses I’ve seen. However, I would like to present another viewpoint, coming from a Catholic perspective. A serious chunk of this episode is spent discussing how extremes are similar, or in some cases, the other side of the same coin. I do think that it is important to note that even when we intellectualize this as such, we don’t as humans actually act like we truly believe it. A good example would be the saying “the opposite of love isn’t hate, but rather, apathy or ambivalence.” The implication being that love and hate are “two sides of the same coin.” However, this disregards the degeneration of one’s soul and personality when consumed by hate, as opposed to the self-evident goodness of love (in this case, love being “willing the absolute good of another.”) One brings us closer to the transcendent, while the other further separates us. I would word this as “one more closely aligns us with Logos, where as the other misaligns us.” When we are misaligned with Logos, we end up living in a world of absurdity and confusion because we have separated ourselves not just from truth in general, but the greatest truth of all.
Incredible how this video game report series feels a lot like a college class tbh. Reminds me of my my old music theory class, where we would listen to and analyze music through the ages.
This podcast just keep getting better and better! It's always a joy to see a new episode on my feed! One note about the whole Arcadia thing: my first impression of the cult was that they just kinda returned to the late stage of paganism, when nature worship (or pan worship) starts to become "unnatural", as Chesterton put it. Hence the crazyness. You have the human sacrifice, the feast/drink in the woods, and also the name of the place (Arcadia), that links everything to this last stage of the greek pagans. Anyway, really enjoying this analysis, will continue seeing it!
It's also a nice little callback to the Pagan faction in the Thief games that Ken Lavine also worked on where the Pagan's in that game have a lot of the same kind of beliefs and behavior.
In regards to the ghostly images of past events, these are explained early on in an audio log by McDonagh. They’re another side effect of ADAM use where the memories of a person are experienced by another due to genetic cross-contamination. Needless to say, memories being stored in genes is a rather fantastical, sci fi way to explain this sort of thing but here they’re a useful tool in world building via a different method than audio logs or exposition. Additionally, there are a few of these past events that are very significant to the main plot. Also, speaking further about McDonagh, he shows up quite a bit in a number of the audio logs and Levine has stated that he represented Ryan’s conscience. This is reflected in how he generally comes off as more sensible and observant than Ryan and also lends an additional layer of bitter irony in what ended up happening to him.
Your conversation about ideology and what you can't foresee immediately brought to mind the Shakespeare line: There is more to heaven and earth than can be contained in your philosophy
The "who makes America's nukes?" part really got to me because i can see someone having that question in the 90s or 80s and not be able to immediately find out, showing again how powerful the internet is.
To your points about how major changes take place in a society and how cyclical that process can be, there's a great model that comes out of Complexity Theory that explicitly considers big systemic changes in terms of an *Adaptive Cycle*. I'll paraphrase some details: It's a model for how complex systems grow and change overtime, alternating between long periods of aggregation/transformation of resources and shorter [often destructive] periods that create opportunities for innovation. This cycle is proposed to be fundamental unit for understanding complex systems from cells to ecosystems to societies. The four phases of the Adaptive Cycle are the 1) exploitation/growth phase, 2) the energy conservation phase, 3) the release/collapse phase, and 4) the reorganization phase. They are typically illustrated by a lazy-eight figure endlessly cycling back through each phase. In contrast to 1970s-style General Systems Theory, the theory around Adaptive Cycles emphasizes the inevitability of both stability and transformation in complex systems. These systems (e.g., political systems, cultures, ecosystems) may appear static for long periods of time, but transformation of some sort is inevitable. Subsequent iterations of the cycle can repeat configurations, possibilities, and dynamics. It's technically possible to skip the often destructive release phase of the cycle and reorganize a system before a collapse. In almost all empirical cases though--whether it's a tiny ecosystem or a large-scale political one--big systemic changes result from the collapse of a preexisting structure. A big part of Resilience Theory, which grew out of Complexity Theory and ecology, uses this model to understand system dynamics and learn how large social systems can reorganize before collapsing.
@@CasenSperry My pleasure! It's a fascinating theory with a lot of empirical grounding, gaining more and more traction across scientific fields. For example, I came at it from an anthropological perspective, using it to analyze some well-documented cases of dramatic societal change in the Early Bronze Age for my PhD. Anyway, let me know if you want any recommendations for further reading!
@@ryandude3 I think something to keep in mind is that this is also a very empiricism-centric approach to this concept. I could also look at this and see this as a scientific approach to the idea of the Strauss-Howe generational theory, the old yarn of “strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men.” One is an intuitive and philosophical way of looking at an apparent pattern, while another is a “data driven” way. I only bring this up because our society tends to lord one over the other while ignoring that one was built on the back of another, or at least understanding that science is only one epistemological method of many.
The second I saw the symbols, I couldnt wait to hear Casen talk about them here. Also, I'm playing the remastered and yeah, the sound has some serious issues. Constantly hearing splicers as if theyre speaking right in my ear, but actually theyre like 2 rooms down
I have a couple of extended family members that used to work a Boeing as engineers and the stuff that they were working on was all classified. I used to try to guess what it was when when I was young, and finally one day, one of them finally stopped me and said, "I can't tell you what it is, but all I'll say is that you should hope we never use it." After that, I stopped asking.
I love Bioshock for the simple fact that it’s a meta commentary on how a faux utopia society would fall because of the nature of man. No matter how good we want the society to be, it will never reach its full potential because we hold it back
Have you guys heard of The Great Chain of Being? It’s a concept that was around for over a thousand years and historically was used to justify all sorts of horrible things. Might be something worth looking into!
I'm impressed at how concise this comment was. Very deep for a single sentence. The trouble is, ideologies exist in the mind and the mind has too hard a time predicting material limitations. If you could create an ideology that was grounded, maybe it would have a hard time spreading as others wouldn't find it appealing enough to dedicate resources to. Thank you!
1:00:00 I think Casen hit the nail on the head with addictive products. There was something you missed: negative externalities. If you make a non-polluting car, the driver doesn’t benefit from that so what incentive would there be to buy it? Or the design makes it safer for you by making it dangerous to everyone else e.g. SUVs. “The market” can’t actually fix this alone because the incentives are badly misaligned.
This comment reminds me of when I made changes to my power plan so that the electricity would be partly generated by a green energy provider. At the time, this cost me no additional fees compared to before but when I told my parents about it my mom’s immediate response was “but why?”
I hope you guys revisit the submarine ambush scene later, as you've already pointed out some things about it don't add up and I think that feeling only grows later in the game. I still don't know if there's a good explanation for the way that scene unfolds. Would be interested in your thoughts.
I saw a comment on a previous podcast episode expressing disagreement with the assumed political views of Mike and Casen and it's a shame that they can't voice political questions purely in regards to a story without people 1: assuming how they actually feel in the first place and 2: judging them for their possible views without knowing their life experiences or reasons. This show is for entertainment and story analysis, and I think they do a great job of questioning all political/sociological/economic thinking when it is applicable to the story, and I can think of multiple instances where they've questioned people and society from both sides of a given aisle. We can all sound crazy if you can poke enough holes in facets of our ideologies. Mike shouldn't have to say he's not making political statements. Just enjoy the show 😂
Question: where are you from? I agree with what you wrote, and I've been noticing how Anglo-based cultures and human groups influenced by them are the ones that always make everything political and are the most vocal about their militancy, as a Latin American
@XIIIR Yeah, you're spot on. Americans are awfully proud of their views, which is both a good and bad thing. It's a politically hot climate with plenty of activism and people who want to do what they believe is best, but there's lots of disagreements and controversy to go with that as well. The comment I read disagreed with something Casen like/shared on Twitter which is just... why worry about it? Why do you care what their personal views are? They really don't let that seep into analysis of the story and if they do a little bit, they reign it in and try to be as objective and open-minded as possible.
@SaberRexZealot I don't even remember to be honest. The user seemed to not like something Casen apparently liked or shared on Twitter. For all I know, I disagree with Mike and/or Casen on everything, or we could possibly agree on every issue. More likely is that it's a mix of agreements and disagreements. I just don't care about their political views because they aren't trying to send political messages here. Like that's not the point 😂
I feel bad I never finished bioshock. I was having so much fun with it, and got no real reason whatsoever, I just stopped about where they are now. And I had the whole trilogy! I really need to sit down and finish
Regarding 44:00 : It is likely that Levine did not read Atlas Shrugged but that one of the other writers did. On an endeavor as big as a AAA game, there is going to be many writers and as long as the writing of the others fit within the tonal whole, there is no advantage to wasting time nit picking every detail of the scripts that others are submitting. I am sure that as part of bringing on those writers, there was a list of influences in the design doc or "bible". That would be typical in a dev team bigger than a handful of people.
He may have read The Fountain Head. I think in that one the protagonist burns down the apartment complexes he designed because they weren’t built to his vision. Could be wrong, I’m definitely not a Rand guy.
I think that’s almost certainly what happened. Unlike a much smaller game and shorter game, (eg Undertale), It’s extremely unlikely Levine designed and wrote every aspect of the game. A game of this size built under such time constraints could only have been accomplished by a team. That includes the dialogue and artistry
It’s more interesting that Tenebaum implied she created little sisters because that’s the only way little girls could survive in an Objectivist Society. Making them immortal and unable to be injured protects them
It’s great because this is a reflection of Ayn Rand as an intellectual figurehead. In all of these stories there is a noticeable lack of children. Imo, it seems that the society that Rand wanted to build cannot be a place where children can be accounted for.
I must have read that wrong when Ryan was telling his girlfriend he’d be late because he had to go to a boring talk about Adam. I thought he was extremely interested in it, but wanted to downplay his interest to not upset her being blown off. Earlier messages seemed to indicate he didn’t have a lot of commitment to women.
I remember reading about this with a justification given by her being that it was only right and proper people should seek out companionship with people who were their “intellectual equals.” And then when one of her lovers became romantically entangled with another woman she got pissed.
The divisions within those companies handling research, development, information assurance, and manufacturing of nuclear are based primarily out of government run national laboratories, heavily regulated, monitored and secured by the Department of Energy and other government/military entities.
Around 56:40, you guys mention you can't wholly abandon a faith or ideology truly if you simply adopt another variation of the same concept. The example you used was obviously Ayn Rand jumping from communism to objectivism. This might be s essentially politics in a nutshell lol. Both sides are of any type of philosophy in a nutshell, and Bioshock does a fantastic job of illustrating this. I work with alot of Leaders, Teachers, Parents --- people in positions of authority really --- and many really struggle to understand that when you have a vision or a goal, the reaching of that goal means you almost always have to undermine the message of the vision that you're trying to convey. Like when an employer says their business is "like a family", and they go on a firing spree and never talk to you again afterwards =P Einstein put it best when I think he said something like the same level of thinking that created a problem can not solve it. Great video! Great discussion! Great game!
Yeah, gosh, having to earn food that somebody else grew, harvested, prepped & packaged, shipped, stocked, and possibly delivered to your door? What a tragedy. Why can't we all just labor for the benefit of some strangers we'll never meet? What a failure of humanity. ... Sorry, I don't mean to be too biting, it's just...well Andrew Ryan kind of has a point when it comes to basic needs. While it would be ideal if no cost came from the things we need to survive, a price has to be paid somewhere down the line by somebody even if only to gather the resource. We compensate people for goods because they themselves paid for them in some way, with time, skill, or investing some physical resource. And even if we only needed to gather what we needed, it says nothing of our psychological desire for variety and our tendency to invent new problems. It's telling that when the traveling Israelites complained about being hungry, God gave them manna for free 6 days a week, and the next thing they did was complain that they were tired of manna.
I get what point you're coming from, but we need to remember how money works. It's a physical token of labor. Instead of me going "hey, I'll come and do x y, and z for you and you'll give me this item," we exchange money for goods because it represents our labor. No one can farm, make their own clothes and make all the things they need for themselves, so we help others out and, in-turn, they help us. So we have money.
I read the last wish and I've never played a witcher game. To be fair, I'm reading the books first so I can get a fuller experience when I do play the wild hunt.
In regards to the inability to silence or regulate/censor something on the internet, look into the kiwifarms forum. I'm not saying you need to like it, but over the last 6 or so months, there has been an effort to scrub it from the net. It would be gone(and was briefly) if not for the effort of the man running it. Buying a domain isn't enough if people want you gone.
@Cliff Eye Yes, it still exists, but as I said, it's due to the AFAIK unprecedented efforts of the owner. I never suggested that kiwifarms was good or bad, just using it as a real, even current example of how the internet is not the wild west, how you can absolutely be scrubbed off of it. If i understood that right, yes, more socially unacceptable actions typically net heavier consequences. Which speaks to my point, you can't just buy a domain and avoid consequences.
Can I ask, are you guys practising Mormons? I ask because I’m interested in how a religious upbringing can impact your analytical outlook on the world. Both of you apply literary analysis to the video games you study, but you also explore religious iconography too. I wonder if you approach religion from an academic perspective rather than a spiritual one?
@@CasenSperry thanks for replying, Casen. I work in a Catholic school (in the UK) but teach English literature. I often find that there is a lot of crossover in terms of literary analysis and the spiritual life that my school promotes. Both share an exploration of symbolism for instance.
Casen if it makes you feel better I also read all the witcher books but haven't touched the games. I'm sure they are great but knowing the writing is slightly different made me pause. I'll get to them tho
humanity is only as it is because of our ability to make artificial constructs, no other species (as far as i know) has collectively agreed on all the units of measurement we have artificially constructed, and our ability to transfer them to machines. consider the idea the millions of years in the future a meter, or a btu, or a foot, or a gallon, could be a unit of universal measurement across species.
The thing about Rapture and "producers vs parasites" is that, well, the producers don't want to do the shit jobs themselves. You can build the best underwater city you want, but someone has to clean the toilets... There's a lot of grunt work that needs to get done to keep a society running, but it's not "productive" work by the definition of people like Rand or Ryan because it's sysiphean work, stuff you have to keep doing over and over again just to maintain the current state of things. There's an irony in Atlas Shrugged and the owners destroying their own factories. It's *pure* marxism. The owners have to destroy the factories because they recognise that the only thing that matters about them is that they *control the means of production*.
The irony is that the person who understands this the most is Fontaine. He talks almost word for word your first paragraph in one of the audio logs how everyone came to Rapture thinking they’d be “captains of industry” but didn’t really take into account there would be people who needed to “scrub the toilets.” What makes it truly ironic is that Fontaine sees that naïveté and ensuing resentment as things that can further be exploited for his own ends because he’s a consummate grifter.
I'm someone who's never played the game so as I'm hearing it described here, the story and gameplay seem very disconnected. Do you feel the storytelling is helped or hurt by being a video game, specifically a first person shooter? Do you think it would work better as a book or maybe a different genre of video game?
Most of it works very well, as these are audio diaries. Very often the audio diary accompanies the environmental storytelling -- you're looking around a scene and seeing the aftermath while hearing some kind of audio "commentary" on what you are seeing. You will also see as the plot develops that this definitely wouldn't work as a book -- the player's agency is a central theme of the game
1:03:00 i mean go back to the previous metaphor. How many people or countries have tried to just "go make their own internet" we are past the point where that is a solution lol
Is Ryan giving all the money to the scientists or is he keeping some? You can't really preach workers rights and keep being a capatilist skimming profit when you haven't done any of the work
Adam can definietly be allegory for social media, and it's net negative effects on society. What kind of content creators control the algorithm of TH-cam the most for example? Negative buggers, that's who. Don't matter what field of interest you look up. Politics? Pop culture? Probably the puppies too. It will reward the grifters who upload three videos a day selling you lies and honouring anger. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but hey, that's the modern world for you. Or me, rather Your talk of idealogical extremes reminds me of the New Atheism movement. The best that did for me was make me less non-religious :/
You’re view of pure free market capitalism hurts my heart. A free market capitalist would make safe products because they want there product to continue being bought. The market would regulate itself better than any government ever could. Every drug ever recalled by the FDA was first approved by the FDA.
Andrew Ryan is a character based off of a Teenager's understanding of Ayn Rand. For example Ryan's response to Adam is flawed because it fails to consider the effects of addiction/intoxication on consent and free choice. Let's not even get into how Rapture's setting bends that too, unlike an open city on land. The writing is good but the understanding of the philosophy is bad. Only worse misunderstanding would be a teenager reading Nieztsche and thinking he was a nihilist.
We are currently running a vote for the next game on Patreon. The vote is between Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy XV.
We all know XV ain't winning this one.
VI pls
@@klaasfaak4039 Almost guarantee it's gonna be VI. Or IX. But my money is on VI. Either one works for me. Couldn't care less about XII or XV.
VI or IX, hopefully VI
I couldn't help but notice that ff13 isn't on here
After several hours I asked Atlas "dude, where the f*ck is Andrew Ryan?!" and he just shrugged
You guys are an absolute treasure. So happy I subscribed on Patreon. Perhaps the only creators I'd ever donate to
cant agree any more!
Usually when it's things like Final Fantasy/JRPG discussions Mike is the one who's leading the discussion, but for this series Casen is flexing his analytical skills so hard that I'm scared he's gonna burst an artery! As someone who sucks at analysis, I love these and It's fun to play alongside since I have a busy schedule and can only commit a couple hours a week, which is great as that's all this requires to be caught up for the next discussion. Keep up the good work!
Really strong start in the first ten minutes of this episode, the comparison between ADAM and the internet is perfect. It really shows how good the writing of this game is and how great you two are at breaking down storytelling into something understandable for everyone.
That said these last two episodes feel a bit messy in their structure (I've already watched ahead on the Discord channel). You've been leaning hard into reading the audio diaries and wiki descriptions but getting mixed up in when events happen in the levels in a more organic way. The first thing you see in Port Neptune is the strung up bodies of smugglers but Casen only brings them up as we move on to the hideout so the point is initially dismissed then brought up again later but labelled as being in Arcadia. The third leg of the the narrative of this game is environmental, taking more time to appreciate such things as this and the suicided parents of a Little Sister would be welcomed. I just feel your note taking has not quite been up to your usual standard.
You do see Atlas down next to the sub that his family is inside, he gestures up to you while talking to you and you see him trying to get in and are then interrupted by Ryan who sends in the Splicers. It is a really well done scene as the Spider Splicers crawl over the glass between you and Atlas as he is looking away. One tiny flaw with this game was that they did not have time to make unique models for key characters like Atlas and Tenenbaum and so they just reused splicers for them (Atlas being a fisherman in waders).
Yay Casen for comparing this game's dialogue to Vagrant Story's. I hadn't realised it before you pointed it out but you're spot on.
I've always wondered about the Air in Rapture. I would have to assume there is some system in place to ensure that everyone has enough to live by but that you can buy a richer or cleaner supply by paying enough for it. I doubt the city could function if you would literally die by missing one payment, plus it's not like everyone has to carry their own supply, all the areas we see are common areas with shared air. Not even Ryan is mad enough to think you can take thousands of people to a location with no air and expect them to think it a good idea.
I'd argue against your logic that Atlas wanted to go to Rapture to take advantage of it without contributing to it. The key to entering Rapture is that you are going to a place where your work and only your work will decide your fate, if you are prepared to work hard then Rapture welcomes you. Atlas is saying that he believed in this ideal and was prepared to work at it without other superfluous ideals holding him back. Rapture is not just for the elites at the top, it is for _anyone_ who will work hard to get ahead.
*Now* we get to the important part with Ryan's diary about burning down a forest to prevent the government taking it from him. Two episodes ago I recommended you watch a video about this game called Rapture: After the Shrug by Monty Zander. One of the key points that he made was that Andrew Ryan's ideal is not exactly what he says - despite the claim that all you need in Rapture is the 'sweat of your brow' all he really cares about is _ownership._ The forest he talks about _was_ planted by 'God' and he felt the right to burn it down because by that point it _belonged_ to _him_ He is also using this as justification for currently destroying the Forests of Arcadia because he did plant the seeds to this place, it _belongs_ to him so he can do as he pleases to it (though why he is destroying the main oxygen producer of the whole city to try and kill one occupant I can't guess, what is he planning to breathe afterwards???).
It is pretty clear that It was mostly the sweat of Julie Langford's brow that built Arcadia but this does not matter to Ryan, he owns it, therefore his is the only voice in what is done with it. Ownership trumps effort. It is the same with what you have told us of Atlas Shrugged, The guy destroys his factory rather than lose it to the government but this does not take into account the _other_ people who worked there every day. His employees donate the sweat of their brows to this factory but this does not matter to the one who owns it, employees sit in the middle of the equation between a thieving government and 'rightful' owners but being in the middle is apparently a null position to be ignored.
tbc
One of the reasons why I like this podcast is that while some common talking points are brought up, it’s always placed in a more intuitive lens than most other critics or analyses I’ve seen. However, I would like to present another viewpoint, coming from a Catholic perspective.
A serious chunk of this episode is spent discussing how extremes are similar, or in some cases, the other side of the same coin. I do think that it is important to note that even when we intellectualize this as such, we don’t as humans actually act like we truly believe it.
A good example would be the saying “the opposite of love isn’t hate, but rather, apathy or ambivalence.” The implication being that love and hate are “two sides of the same coin.” However, this disregards the degeneration of one’s soul and personality when consumed by hate, as opposed to the self-evident goodness of love (in this case, love being “willing the absolute good of another.”) One brings us closer to the transcendent, while the other further separates us. I would word this as “one more closely aligns us with Logos, where as the other misaligns us.” When we are misaligned with Logos, we end up living in a world of absurdity and confusion because we have separated ourselves not just from truth in general, but the greatest truth of all.
Incredible how this video game report series feels a lot like a college class tbh. Reminds me of my my old music theory class, where we would listen to and analyze music through the ages.
Love it! Casen gives GREAT insights for someone coming in new to Bioshock
This podcast just keep getting better and better! It's always a joy to see a new episode on my feed!
One note about the whole Arcadia thing: my first impression of the cult was that they just kinda returned to the late stage of paganism, when nature worship (or pan worship) starts to become "unnatural", as Chesterton put it. Hence the crazyness. You have the human sacrifice, the feast/drink in the woods, and also the name of the place (Arcadia), that links everything to this last stage of the greek pagans.
Anyway, really enjoying this analysis, will continue seeing it!
It's also a nice little callback to the Pagan faction in the Thief games that Ken Lavine also worked on where the Pagan's in that game have a lot of the same kind of beliefs and behavior.
In regards to the ghostly images of past events, these are explained early on in an audio log by McDonagh. They’re another side effect of ADAM use where the memories of a person are experienced by another due to genetic cross-contamination. Needless to say, memories being stored in genes is a rather fantastical, sci fi way to explain this sort of thing but here they’re a useful tool in world building via a different method than audio logs or exposition. Additionally, there are a few of these past events that are very significant to the main plot.
Also, speaking further about McDonagh, he shows up quite a bit in a number of the audio logs and Levine has stated that he represented Ryan’s conscience. This is reflected in how he generally comes off as more sensible and observant than Ryan and also lends an additional layer of bitter irony in what ended up happening to him.
50:00-60:00 were such a brilliant part of this discussion. Your ideas on morality and religion are very respectable and educated.
Your conversation about ideology and what you can't foresee immediately brought to mind the Shakespeare line: There is more to heaven and earth than can be contained in your philosophy
The "who makes America's nukes?" part really got to me because i can see someone having that question in the 90s or 80s and not be able to immediately find out, showing again how powerful the internet is.
Would you kindly keep up the great work? Such a well done and consistently good podcast
To your points about how major changes take place in a society and how cyclical that process can be, there's a great model that comes out of Complexity Theory that explicitly considers big systemic changes in terms of an *Adaptive Cycle*. I'll paraphrase some details:
It's a model for how complex systems grow and change overtime, alternating between long periods of aggregation/transformation of resources and shorter [often destructive] periods that create opportunities for innovation. This cycle is proposed to be fundamental unit for understanding complex systems from cells to ecosystems to societies. The four phases of the Adaptive Cycle are the 1) exploitation/growth phase, 2) the energy conservation phase, 3) the release/collapse phase, and 4) the reorganization phase. They are typically illustrated by a lazy-eight figure endlessly cycling back through each phase.
In contrast to 1970s-style General Systems Theory, the theory around Adaptive Cycles emphasizes the inevitability of both stability and transformation in complex systems. These systems (e.g., political systems, cultures, ecosystems) may appear static for long periods of time, but transformation of some sort is inevitable. Subsequent iterations of the cycle can repeat configurations, possibilities, and dynamics. It's technically possible to skip the often destructive release phase of the cycle and reorganize a system before a collapse. In almost all empirical cases though--whether it's a tiny ecosystem or a large-scale political one--big systemic changes result from the collapse of a preexisting structure.
A big part of Resilience Theory, which grew out of Complexity Theory and ecology, uses this model to understand system dynamics and learn how large social systems can reorganize before collapsing.
Very informative! I'm going to look into this more. Thank you!
@@CasenSperry My pleasure! It's a fascinating theory with a lot of empirical grounding, gaining more and more traction across scientific fields. For example, I came at it from an anthropological perspective, using it to analyze some well-documented cases of dramatic societal change in the Early Bronze Age for my PhD.
Anyway, let me know if you want any recommendations for further reading!
@@ryandude3 I think something to keep in mind is that this is also a very empiricism-centric approach to this concept. I could also look at this and see this as a scientific approach to the idea of the Strauss-Howe generational theory, the old yarn of “strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men.” One is an intuitive and philosophical way of looking at an apparent pattern, while another is a “data driven” way. I only bring this up because our society tends to lord one over the other while ignoring that one was built on the back of another, or at least understanding that science is only one epistemological method of many.
The early segment of this episode makes me desperate for a Metal Gear Solid 2 analysis. You'd have a field day!
I lost it at the "But Mom! I'm ALMOST to Andrew Ryan!!!" XD
Been watching a bunch of these lately. Really interesting stuff, appreciated the character imitations and voices ❤
Casen with the Bill Clinton impression! That part was too funny!
The second I saw the symbols, I couldnt wait to hear Casen talk about them here. Also, I'm playing the remastered and yeah, the sound has some serious issues. Constantly hearing splicers as if theyre speaking right in my ear, but actually theyre like 2 rooms down
Loved the intro! Here we gooooooooo
Amazing work. Absolutely worth supporting on patreon guys! Donate and fund the discussion!
I have a couple of extended family members that used to work a Boeing as engineers and the stuff that they were working on was all classified. I used to try to guess what it was when when I was young, and finally one day, one of them finally stopped me and said, "I can't tell you what it is, but all I'll say is that you should hope we never use it." After that, I stopped asking.
I love Bioshock for the simple fact that it’s a meta commentary on how a faux utopia society would fall because of the nature of man. No matter how good we want the society to be, it will never reach its full potential because we hold it back
Have you guys heard of The Great Chain of Being? It’s a concept that was around for over a thousand years and historically was used to justify all sorts of horrible things.
Might be something worth looking into!
Looked it up today. Very interesting! Thank you for the reference!
So one might get the takeaway that ideologies would benefit from some sort of analysis of the material conditions of society.
I'm impressed at how concise this comment was. Very deep for a single sentence. The trouble is, ideologies exist in the mind and the mind has too hard a time predicting material limitations. If you could create an ideology that was grounded, maybe it would have a hard time spreading as others wouldn't find it appealing enough to dedicate resources to. Thank you!
I was literally crying laughing at "I almost beat Andrew Ryan"
1:00:00 I think Casen hit the nail on the head with addictive products. There was something you missed: negative externalities. If you make a non-polluting car, the driver doesn’t benefit from that so what incentive would there be to buy it? Or the design makes it safer for you by making it dangerous to everyone else e.g. SUVs. “The market” can’t actually fix this alone because the incentives are badly misaligned.
This comment reminds me of when I made changes to my power plan so that the electricity would be partly generated by a green energy provider. At the time, this cost me no additional fees compared to before but when I told my parents about it my mom’s immediate response was “but why?”
Legit can’t wait to get paid so I can get on that patreon I hear so much about
I hope you guys revisit the submarine ambush scene later, as you've already pointed out some things about it don't add up and I think that feeling only grows later in the game. I still don't know if there's a good explanation for the way that scene unfolds. Would be interested in your thoughts.
Howard Roark blows up his own construction at the climax of the fountainhead rather than permit its plans to be altered to have some ornamentation.
Yeah I think that’s what the destruction of the forest is a reference to
I saw a comment on a previous podcast episode expressing disagreement with the assumed political views of Mike and Casen and it's a shame that they can't voice political questions purely in regards to a story without people 1: assuming how they actually feel in the first place and 2: judging them for their possible views without knowing their life experiences or reasons. This show is for entertainment and story analysis, and I think they do a great job of questioning all political/sociological/economic thinking when it is applicable to the story, and I can think of multiple instances where they've questioned people and society from both sides of a given aisle. We can all sound crazy if you can poke enough holes in facets of our ideologies. Mike shouldn't have to say he's not making political statements. Just enjoy the show 😂
Question: where are you from?
I agree with what you wrote, and I've been noticing how Anglo-based cultures and human groups influenced by them are the ones that always make everything political and are the most vocal about their militancy, as a Latin American
@XIIIR Yeah, you're spot on. Americans are awfully proud of their views, which is both a good and bad thing. It's a politically hot climate with plenty of activism and people who want to do what they believe is best, but there's lots of disagreements and controversy to go with that as well. The comment I read disagreed with something Casen like/shared on Twitter which is just... why worry about it? Why do you care what their personal views are? They really don't let that seep into analysis of the story and if they do a little bit, they reign it in and try to be as objective and open-minded as possible.
@@spencerrenwick5131 now you got me curious. What could’ve Casen said to offend someone?
@SaberRexZealot I don't even remember to be honest. The user seemed to not like something Casen apparently liked or shared on Twitter. For all I know, I disagree with Mike and/or Casen on everything, or we could possibly agree on every issue. More likely is that it's a mix of agreements and disagreements. I just don't care about their political views because they aren't trying to send political messages here. Like that's not the point 😂
@@spencerrenwick5131 fair enough Spencer
Your mother coming in saying "You STILL haven't beaten Andrew Ryan yet!?" must have happened to someone right lol?
I feel bad I never finished bioshock. I was having so much fun with it, and got no real reason whatsoever, I just stopped about where they are now. And I had the whole trilogy! I really need to sit down and finish
Regarding 44:00 : It is likely that Levine did not read Atlas Shrugged but that one of the other writers did. On an endeavor as big as a AAA game, there is going to be many writers and as long as the writing of the others fit within the tonal whole, there is no advantage to wasting time nit picking every detail of the scripts that others are submitting.
I am sure that as part of bringing on those writers, there was a list of influences in the design doc or "bible". That would be typical in a dev team bigger than a handful of people.
He may have read The Fountain Head. I think in that one the protagonist burns down the apartment complexes he designed because they weren’t built to his vision. Could be wrong, I’m definitely not a Rand guy.
I think that’s almost certainly what happened. Unlike a much smaller game and shorter game, (eg Undertale), It’s extremely unlikely Levine designed and wrote every aspect of the game. A game of this size built under such time constraints could only have been accomplished by a team. That includes the dialogue and artistry
if Ken Levine doesn't post a review of Atlas Shrugged on Goodreads we should sue him
It’s more interesting that Tenebaum implied she created little sisters because that’s the only way little girls could survive in an Objectivist Society. Making them immortal and unable to be injured protects them
It’s great because this is a reflection of Ayn Rand as an intellectual figurehead. In all of these stories there is a noticeable lack of children. Imo, it seems that the society that Rand wanted to build cannot be a place where children can be accounted for.
Great Episode as always!!
I must have read that wrong when Ryan was telling his girlfriend he’d be late because he had to go to a boring talk about Adam. I thought he was extremely interested in it, but wanted to downplay his interest to not upset her being blown off. Earlier messages seemed to indicate he didn’t have a lot of commitment to women.
That's kinda the same with Ayn Rand. She was known to be promiscuous and constant affairs with her husband.
I remember reading about this with a justification given by her being that it was only right and proper people should seek out companionship with people who were their “intellectual equals.”
And then when one of her lovers became romantically entangled with another woman she got pissed.
@@pickerofnits3066 irony seems to be a constant factor with objectivists
The divisions within those companies handling research, development, information assurance, and manufacturing of nuclear are based primarily out of government run national laboratories, heavily regulated, monitored and secured by the Department of Energy and other government/military entities.
Around 56:40, you guys mention you can't wholly abandon a faith or ideology truly if you simply adopt another variation of the same concept.
The example you used was obviously Ayn Rand jumping from communism to objectivism.
This might be s essentially politics in a nutshell lol. Both sides are of any type of philosophy in a nutshell, and Bioshock does a fantastic job of illustrating this.
I work with alot of Leaders, Teachers, Parents --- people in positions of authority really --- and many really struggle to understand that when you have a vision or a goal, the reaching of that goal means you almost always have to undermine the message of the vision that you're trying to convey. Like when an employer says their business is "like a family", and they go on a firing spree and never talk to you again afterwards =P
Einstein put it best when I think he said something like the same level of thinking that created a problem can not solve it.
Great video! Great discussion! Great game!
hello from Provo, UT :)
This is fantastic
54:29 sometimes we just need to let out a good fetch 😂
Would you guys be interested in doing a game like Dark Souls which has more of an envioremental storytelling?
Imagine living in a place where you have to PAY for basic necessities to stay alive, good thing it's a totally fictional situation 🥶
Yeah, gosh, having to earn food that somebody else grew, harvested, prepped & packaged, shipped, stocked, and possibly delivered to your door? What a tragedy.
Why can't we all just labor for the benefit of some strangers we'll never meet? What a failure of humanity.
...
Sorry, I don't mean to be too biting, it's just...well Andrew Ryan kind of has a point when it comes to basic needs. While it would be ideal if no cost came from the things we need to survive, a price has to be paid somewhere down the line by somebody even if only to gather the resource. We compensate people for goods because they themselves paid for them in some way, with time, skill, or investing some physical resource.
And even if we only needed to gather what we needed, it says nothing of our psychological desire for variety and our tendency to invent new problems. It's telling that when the traveling Israelites complained about being hungry, God gave them manna for free 6 days a week, and the next thing they did was complain that they were tired of manna.
I get what point you're coming from, but we need to remember how money works. It's a physical token of labor. Instead of me going "hey, I'll come and do x y, and z for you and you'll give me this item," we exchange money for goods because it represents our labor. No one can farm, make their own clothes and make all the things they need for themselves, so we help others out and, in-turn, they help us. So we have money.
Heads up: Video is titled episode 3, not 4.
I read the last wish and I've never played a witcher game. To be fair, I'm reading the books first so I can get a fuller experience when I do play the wild hunt.
In regards to the inability to silence or regulate/censor something on the internet, look into the kiwifarms forum. I'm not saying you need to like it, but over the last 6 or so months, there has been an effort to scrub it from the net. It would be gone(and was briefly) if not for the effort of the man running it. Buying a domain isn't enough if people want you gone.
@Cliff Eye Yes, it still exists, but as I said, it's due to the AFAIK unprecedented efforts of the owner.
I never suggested that kiwifarms was good or bad, just using it as a real, even current example of how the internet is not the wild west, how you can absolutely be scrubbed off of it.
If i understood that right, yes, more socially unacceptable actions typically net heavier consequences. Which speaks to my point, you can't just buy a domain and avoid consequences.
Can I ask, are you guys practising Mormons? I ask because I’m interested in how a religious upbringing can impact your analytical outlook on the world. Both of you apply literary analysis to the video games you study, but you also explore religious iconography too. I wonder if you approach religion from an academic perspective rather than a spiritual one?
Mike has said he's not a practitioner anymore, and that happened because he analyzed his religion and found múltiple points that didn't make sense
Mike is not but I am.
@@CasenSperry thanks for replying, Casen. I work in a Catholic school (in the UK) but teach English literature.
I often find that there is a lot of crossover in terms of literary analysis and the spiritual life that my school promotes. Both share an exploration of symbolism for instance.
Casen if it makes you feel better I also read all the witcher books but haven't touched the games. I'm sure they are great but knowing the writing is slightly different made me pause. I'll get to them tho
humanity is only as it is because of our ability to make artificial constructs, no other species (as far as i know) has collectively agreed on all the units of measurement we have artificially constructed, and our ability to transfer them to machines. consider the idea the millions of years in the future a meter, or a btu, or a foot, or a gallon, could be a unit of universal measurement across species.
Yes.
Flame and Mist. Fire and Air?
I like first, then I watch
The thing about Rapture and "producers vs parasites" is that, well, the producers don't want to do the shit jobs themselves. You can build the best underwater city you want, but someone has to clean the toilets...
There's a lot of grunt work that needs to get done to keep a society running, but it's not "productive" work by the definition of people like Rand or Ryan because it's sysiphean work, stuff you have to keep doing over and over again just to maintain the current state of things.
There's an irony in Atlas Shrugged and the owners destroying their own factories. It's *pure* marxism. The owners have to destroy the factories because they recognise that the only thing that matters about them is that they *control the means of production*.
The irony is that the person who understands this the most is Fontaine. He talks almost word for word your first paragraph in one of the audio logs how everyone came to Rapture thinking they’d be “captains of industry” but didn’t really take into account there would be people who needed to “scrub the toilets.”
What makes it truly ironic is that Fontaine sees that naïveté and ensuing resentment as things that can further be exploited for his own ends because he’s a consummate grifter.
1:05:30👛💲💸 🌬️Harry Potter 🍃🔪
💗💙💗💙
I have read the Witcher books but never the game 😂
oopsy, wrong title, still love the podcast guys （＾∀＾●）ﾉｼ
I'm someone who's never played the game so as I'm hearing it described here, the story and gameplay seem very disconnected. Do you feel the storytelling is helped or hurt by being a video game, specifically a first person shooter? Do you think it would work better as a book or maybe a different genre of video game?
Most of it works very well, as these are audio diaries. Very often the audio diary accompanies the environmental storytelling -- you're looking around a scene and seeing the aftermath while hearing some kind of audio "commentary" on what you are seeing. You will also see as the plot develops that this definitely wouldn't work as a book -- the player's agency is a central theme of the game
Kaden is based
1:03:00 i mean go back to the previous metaphor. How many people or countries have tried to just "go make their own internet" we are past the point where that is a solution lol
Is Ryan giving all the money to the scientists or is he keeping some?
You can't really preach workers rights and keep being a capatilist skimming profit when you haven't done any of the work
Workers without money produce 0% results
Adam can definietly be allegory for social media, and it's net negative effects on society. What kind of content creators control the algorithm of TH-cam the most for example? Negative buggers, that's who. Don't matter what field of interest you look up.
Politics? Pop culture? Probably the puppies too. It will reward the grifters who upload three videos a day selling you lies and honouring anger. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but hey, that's the modern world for you. Or me, rather
Your talk of idealogical extremes reminds me of the New Atheism movement. The best that did for me was make me less non-religious :/
Can be but probably not intended considering the year it was made.
@@jeffpalaganas7404 You're right. I should've said Adam has APPLICABILITY with social media, not allegory.
Great job guys love it! Casen you annoy the hell out of me alot of the time but i bet your a great friend. I had one just like you.
You’re view of pure free market capitalism hurts my heart. A free market capitalist would make safe products because they want there product to continue being bought. The market would regulate itself better than any government ever could.
Every drug ever recalled by the FDA was first approved by the FDA.
Andrew Ryan is a character based off of a Teenager's understanding of Ayn Rand. For example Ryan's response to Adam is flawed because it fails to consider the effects of addiction/intoxication on consent and free choice. Let's not even get into how Rapture's setting bends that too, unlike an open city on land.
The writing is good but the understanding of the philosophy is bad. Only worse misunderstanding would be a teenager reading Nieztsche and thinking he was a nihilist.