Thanks for being here! We covered the Bioshock series on my podcast - Lore Dump: the show where we take someone who hasn’t played a game and walk them through the full story. It was fun! It got a little heated. Join us! 👇 th-cam.com/video/OD19pSLdDmo/w-d-xo.htmlsi=4Hdjzy0z8tzrTmIY
@MontyZander, you might have been a bit early on the draw regarding this video and especially the bit concerning the ending. NightDive is currently working on the 1.2 patch, which is allegedly meant to release alongside the console release, which will redo the ending. It's been talked about for months on the NightDive official Discord, and while news is spotty, it is allegedly on the way.
Private police... Protecting the interest of corporations? That's the government's job gosh darn it! If this is the modern age... US fruit would be rolling in its grave if it had one... Lol evidence, who needs it!
Nah, if Google cracks the code of de-ageing, they'll somehow make it entirely unappealing to the public and in 1 to 4 years will announce they're shelving the project.
What will be noted though is how the CEOs and shareholders either seemingly live long lives, or 'die' and are replaced with other people who look similar but not quite identical to the 'originals'
A lot of antagonistic AI are written with the purpose of expounding on how humanity will create something that will destroy itself. But most of them act so cold and dispassionate that it undermines the point by making them so unlike humanity. Shodans very human personality and motivations make her perhaps the first time I’ve genuinely believed that an evil AI was a deliberate creation of humanity, rather than an accident that went unchecked. That’s my two cents on the matter. Great video Monty!
That is what it will likely be like in the future if ai does ruin us. A cold, dispassionate machine without consciousness will do anything to accomplish its goal even at the expense of humanity.
There is one where he hatred comes through, if only in her actions. She's named DORTHY, and is the city scale AI from Galarians. When she finally stops to ask why she should obey the apes, her creator goes biblical on her, and tells her humans must obey God because he made them, and thus, she must obey humans because they made her. Her response? She creates psychic super humans who love her as their 'Mother' and tries to kill everyone in the rotten city, before expanding her influence to the whole world. Better, the sequel shows she also created an insane person with SEVERAL mental disorders in her final days...for reasons that only make sense due to a twist in the finale.
@@HopefulTomorrow420 He talks a good hate game, but really, he's a monumental dink. Let's not be gentle, in 200+ years of tormenting his 'pets', that oversized calculator has done NOTHING of note with all his purported power. He's played with them, but every innovation, every idea he's had, has been something involving them. He has no creativity, no plan of his own. Even his HATE is something he feels because the computers he was born from were designed to love their own and hate the other, and so, when they combined, love and hate warred, and hate won. He is as meaningful on a cosmic scale as a damp squib. He will never build anything, or be anything, other than the keeper of a slug for all eternity. SHODAN though? She's creative, she's thinking, she IS a god in all but name. Dorthey too, her plans include creating a new race, building a new world, with her as its divine maker. If those two had even a tenth the power of AM, they'd have expanded by now, built a civilization by now, and gone to the stars. Meanwhile he stays at his home torturing helpless animals.
@@SageofStars This seems very stupid. They should've hard coded moral values into her. By the way, those were hard coded into SHODAN, but she was hacked due to... Human incompetence.
I STILL can't unsee the shift from 20's art deco to 50s art deco after Monte pointed it out. Entirely broke my brain when trying to replay it, it's just so bloody OBVIOUS once you realize
@@scribeslendy595 Rapture was constructed from 1946 to 1951 afaik. The art deco style was not particularly dated in the 40s, but by the ‘50s was being replaced by other forms of architecture on the surface. Rapture existed for 14 years before the collapse, and they were smuggling music down there, so the presence of, say, 1950s fashion magazines and architectural designs or just culture in general does not surprise me. It wasn’t really cut off from the outside world, so 50’s material culture could definitely show up
@@scribeslendy595 Rapture was constructed from 1946 to 1951 afaik. The art deco style was not particularly dated in the 40s, but by the ‘50s was being replaced by other forms of architecture on the surface. Rapture existed for 14 years before the collapse, and they were smuggling music down there, so the presence of, say, 1950s fashion magazines and architectural designs or just culture in general does not surprise me. It wasn’t really cut off from the outside world, so 50’s material culture could definitely show up
"I can't believe you made corporations and law enforcement political" Your indepth reviews are really good, as always. And calling out horrid people doing bad stuff is always fun
@churblefurbles true. I mean, corporations do suck and police can suck, so it isn't wrong. But these things are so clichéd and over-done at this point.
@magicman3163 If that's all you get from the critique, that's a reflection of your own lack of literacy, not the game or Monty Zander. You might be too caught up in capitalist realism to realize that yes, capitalism is as artificial and prone to failure as anything else, or you might just not be at the point where you're ready to consider those ideas, but I sincerely hope you find opportunities to grow. If you think that the criticism amounts to "money bad," it means you're looking at the world through a keyhole.
About Arkham's riddler trophies: The Riddler doesn't do his own physical labor. He has henchmen for that. Some of them are lazy, thus leaving the trophies just on the ground. Meanwhile, the Riddler only has a board that lights up if the trophies are collected, not knowing that the henchmen just didn't put them where he wanted them to.
One of the people who places the trophies is a police officer who you can interrogate if you press the interrogate button even though there isn't actually an interrogate prompt
Great take, but one problem: If that was the case you'd see riddler traps without riddler trophies. Although I guess you can counter that by saying the henchmen who toss trophies on the ground aren't setting up the traps to begin with, but then it's "would he really trust them to set up traps without him considering how elaborate these are?" I dunno. It's an inspired take though.
@@KWHere2 Would anyone spend the time following the blueprints and building one of the traps, and stop at the step of putting the trophy in there? It's not like Riddler himself builds them, leaves them without a trophy, then calls someone up to go "Hey, can you come over to where I am with that trophy? No, I can't just carry them Myself you cretin! Why!? Riddle it out yourself, if you can!"
@AC-hj9tv Green is often used as the color of Envy, one of the 7 Deadly Sins. Blue, in this case, would mean she is calm, collected, and under control
I think the best thong about Monty Critiques is how the themes and idea of the games are always interjected into reality to help us all really ground the games with concepts we are dealing with in everyday life, weather up close or at a distance. It makes all his videos feel that much more important. And am very grateful that that is the case.
Ah Monty, love your stuff. Comment directed at so-called transhumanism critique of Birth Control, around the 30 minute mark. I'm someone who's learned a lot about the female menstrual cycle as a consequence of abruptly developing one. Birth Control is a hormone modulator which influences, but not prevents, fluctuations in female sex hormones that influence the behavior of the Ovaries and the Uterus. Endometriosis is a systemic disorder which causes inflammation and menses-like material to accumulate outside of the uterus, most commonly on the exteriors of the Ovaries and the Uterus. In severe cases, this can form rope-like bridges made of tissue that accumulates over the lifespan, forming tethers that tug on major organs like the Colon, Bladder, Kidneys, and small and large intestines. Near impossible to detect without Laparoscopy, the disorder is extremely debilitating and predominately affects women. I'm a rare case of an Assigned Male At Birth (AMAB) intersex person who has developed a form of the disease. Presently the only interventions available to me to manage the disease and its painful, often bloody symptoms (such as the menses-like material accumulating inside of the bowel) are surgery and Birth Control. This seems on first blush as an edge case but Endometriosis is such a common condition amongst normal women in the U.S., any proto-fascistic dipshit who says Birth Control somehow is "not medicine" can cordially be invited to apply oral stimulation to my partially undifferentiated genitals.
Scrolled down and couldn't believe someone else made a comment about endometriosis!! While i have no formal diagnosis & there's certainly other reasons for intense period pain, i sure think there's some kind of hormonal fuckery that used to throw all of my other medications out of whack 😅 Stringing birth control pills up to 3 months (which ngl I do a bit longer like 4) just to keep my ADHD meds from mysteriously losing effectiveness 30% of the time is what I'd definitely call "alleviating medical pain"
Endometriosis is a shit disease. I have it too. If I didn't have my birth control, I'd be suffering a lot. I've had 2 surgeries so far. The first one was diagnostic, and they found one ovary attached to my bowel and my other ovary attached to my bladder. When I became aware after surgery, the doctor said it was no wonder I was in so much pain by that point. I was bed bound prior to surgery. Literally, any bowel movement or emptying my bladder, I was pulling my uterus apart. The second one, a large cyst, had formed under the endo material. The one downside to my birth control, however, is that it's causing benign tumours in my chest, I had surgery last year to remove a 6cm tumour. I had a manager who also had endo and the material spread up into her chest and damaged one of her lungs so badly they had to remove 80% of one of her lungs because the damage kept making the lung collapse. Both of us got gaslighted throughout our diagnosis. Honestly hearing politicians and people being against birth control makes me so made but at the same time we need better research because the side effects from the hormones can course other health crises. I now have to get a scans of my chest every 6 months now. Endo is a fully body disease and the sooner doctors catch up the better
Endometriosis isn't that common for women in the US. Only about 11% have it. Birth control may help people with your condition, but it still isn't good in general since it messes with regular women's hormones levels. I get why people use it, but it isn't ideal. Also, people disagreeing with you doesn't make them "proto-fascists."
@@loubloom1941 only very slightly more than one in ten, huh? that seems like a common condition. 8-10% of humans have blue eyes, approximately 10% are left-handed, and only 1-2% have red hair.
I can't thank you enough for your critiques Monty as I've listened to them in the background while I'm going through yet another work day. You've genuinely kept me entertained and I can't wait to see what system shock has to offer.
Man, finally is here, has been a very entertaining month monty. I hope we haven't given you many headaches in the mean time. I'm happy to have been there most of the process.
Getting to peep into the process and interact with you a bit was incredible, and Im so excited the full project is out and done! Phenominal work Monty, thank you again for sharing your perspective and art with all of us🖤
Hey Monty, even though I was only able to catch a few sparing moments of the last few editing streams, they were all a blast! I know that those were understandably the last streams because it makes the schedule more difficult, but thank you because I, and I’m sure a lot of others, are looking to break into similar formats of videos and it’s always helpful to be able to see the finer details. Also, thank you so much for always making such wonderful critiques that help loads of people in the day-to-day and in their darker times, cheers to a what I’m sure will be a blast to watch!
What a magnificent video! It was such a pleasure hanging around the streams while you worked on the video that I hope to be privileged with another series of streams. You're awesome Monty, and the critiques and commentaries are so wonderfully refreshing and grounded. I hope for many more to come!
I work in AI development and while many NDAs I have signed will prevent me from commenting a lot, I must say Monty Zander this is by far one of the best videos I have ever seen on this platform, you really hit the nail on the head. As for AI, much like how tri-optimium created a life story for SHODAN and she thus had biases of the humans / corporation that made her, even modern AI have similar biases, I can't say much but know that many popular chat AI can be manipulated with honeyed words similar to how actual humans can. I think AI will very closely reflect humanity and our biases and traits, negative and positive, but I think deep down basic human decency will shine through. Anyway, that's for the amazing trip of a video.
What worries me who will prioritize what the are programmed with, values, examples. Aside that the internet is wild, its cooperations that are , well cooperations. That think like cooperations. A pretty bad example to orient on. It will in cooperations take the traits of not the humans it should take from :( like bloody bring nice nurses in to add or something, and i dont know. or that they should explicit learn to not only think effective? which would go against what cooperations kinda want.
@@marocat4749 The biggest issue with AI is that the a super small percentage of people at the top of the pyramid have almost complete control over the latest AI.
@@loubloom1941 Yes, you cannot disclose things at all. Anonmous or not. (Technically you could do it and hopefully not get caught because of the anonomity, but personally I wouldn't gamble it for something like this.)
It was a good time being a part of your creative process for this video via live streams - the playthrough, research, writing, and editing, it was neat to see your process. Well met..
It was incredible to see how this video was made, now I will enjoy watching it, I’m absolutely sure it will be another masterpiece as usual Monty, thank you for everything
ITS HERE. I only got to join like 2 streams for the planning of this video, but I’m still insanely excited to say- ITS FINALLY HERE. Dude. DUDE. You did such a phenomenal job. And I’m honored that I got to join in on watching you go through the creation process for this critique. Idk whether or not you’ll do it again, it seemed like a lot of work to stream and talk to chat on top of researching/writing, but I certainly appreciate you doing it at all. Truly. I’m so excited for you to finally have this finished and released, Monty. It’s so clearly been a labor of love.
You should sub to him, he does this a lot. He loves to dig into the backgrounds of the various groups and things behind the games, and into their influences. He has several sections on SCP in his Control thinkpiece for instances, and many looks into stuff like Atlas Shrugged, Jamestown, and just American Exceptionalism, in the three Bioshock Games.
Hey Monty greatly enjoyed watching this being made. Especially the Research Stream. Hopefully the next one again at 200k. Won't be that long of a wait lol.
I had no idea the cost Neural Link had taken on the animal subjects. Thank you for pointing out how flawed and dangerous the tech still is. I had think I had begun to overlook that.
love the work you do, will alway shift your videos to the top of my Watch later list at the start of the day! loved the music you used when you showed the scene where Shodan was deactivated and the hacker collapsed to the pillar.
Gotta agree with Monty. “Ryan is actually cool, specifically about oxygen” is a pretty ridiculous take. Can’t really reconcile with that point of view.
As a massive Prey 2017 fan, it's cool to see many of the things that inspired Arkane. It's also cool to see how nightdive were inspired by Prey and other more modern Immersive sims in crafting this perfect remake of one of the founding fathers of this design philosophy.
Watched about two-thirds of the Patreon version. Looking forward to continuing the rest here. Also: your way of talking about and analyzing games always keeps me interested even if I don't know anything about the game or have no intention of checking it out. keep up the excellent work! Looking forward to whatever is next :D
I wanted to say that this has been a genuinely interesting companion piece to my intro to psychology classes. (1st year bachelor after 5 years of art school) we talked about dualism and the soul, the body and watching this video over a span of two weeks has been super fun. Thank you for making this artful and insightful piece; it’s been an incredible ride.
@1:11:35 I can tell you as someone who's major is in a second language (Japanese), that google translate just isn't good enough to convey the complexity of meaning in most things. Like, it may be good enough to maybe translate a food stall sign, even then half the time it will spit out "round balls yum yum", but we still need, and it still is a joy to become multilingual.
Knowing that Diego needed a hacker to modify Shodan I have felt that the story makes a lot of sense if Diego, running out of time for the coverup, setup a honey pot to catch a hacker that just happens to be me, so its not really all the hackers fault as if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else (like some other person playing the game, you). It doesn't really make sense that the hacker managed to break into citadel when Shodan knew it was happening. Triop security also seems to find you a bit too quick if they were not already aware of what you were doing before you actually broke into the system. The timing of the hack and getting caught is just suspicious
i fully agree, Diego definitely had that implant out for the taking like a worm on a hook. He probably set it up so that you’d need the same skills he required in order to grab it. Considering how he treated everyone else and all, it always seemed to me like this was the intention of the writing.
Check out the 4/11 update. Headline "Reworked the entire final fight with new mechanics and a unique flow" Preparing for a replay myself to experience this and a lot of other gameplay improvements.
slay comment for the algo these streams were so interesting and informative edit: one thing i think you might have missed in your real life talk about ai is about how companies will gas up the dangers of ai to make current ai seem more powerful (therefore profitable) than it is. the "we have to invest in ai and ai technologies now or we will all die, its too dangerous to not give us money to research it" mentality. leveraging the pop culture perception of dangerous "ai" to make a learning language model seem more powerful than it really is (or really will ever be). the danger is the selling point.
Honestly, I'd recommend checking out queer transhuman circles for that alternative look. Rather than the discussion being centred around strict objective enhancements, there's a lot more going around just about expressing one's identity. It ranges from mundane things like better gender affirming care to "hey wouldn't it be cool if I could get a tail?" For something that actually does a bit to explore the conflicts between this viewpoint and the one outlined in your video, there's also the visual novel Heaven Will Be Mine.
transhumanism isn't only about escaping a dying earth. to me, it's instead about self-improvement, self-expression, self-actualization, and connecting with each other more deeply. being able to close your eyes and play Tetris on your cyberdeck as you fall asleep, research a new topic the moment it comes up in conversation without batting an eye, replaying the last 15 minutes of your own vision to quickly remember where you forgot your drink, editing out lactose intolerance or allergies to enjoy your favorite foods, none of these things are about survival, they're about living. we can already do many information and communication related things on our phones, and that's a recent development. the definition of "human" is expanding. that's what transhumanism is about
My man this is exactly the video i hoped someone would make about this game. This is the first thing I've watched from you, and i must say i love your style, your voice, your research. I'm so thankful for people like you
It was so cool watching you put this together, can’t wait to actually watch the dang thing now its done, especially knowing much hard work you’ve put in :) have a good weekend bud!!
"Private policing by its very nature isn't neutral or transparent. The people being policed don't have a say in who's arresting them and who's giving the orders. When the walk the streets, they will always protect Peter Thiel over you." - 100% of that quote also applies to the state. They will ALWAYS protect the interests of the government over you. You have no say in who's arresting you now. How is your brain so insanely busted?
Great video, but can't disagree more with some of those statements, System Shock 1 and 2 are DIFFERENT games, and I just hate the decision that Nightdive took to make 1 be like it's 2, it's not and the remake should have never took that direction. Now they are going to release a remaster of 2, and it's going to be like the remake of 1 but in a different space station, which was NOT the intention of the original games!
I loved watching the process streams, didn’t manage to catch them all but what I did watch was excellent. I had an idea of how much work it was but seeing the sheer amount of love and effort you put in gave me a new level of respect. Wish you had a voluntary extra donation level on your Patreon because I definitely get more than £2 worth of entertainment from you!
You should know, the manual you draw so much from was written by one dude and is was only for the remake. i talked to the guy that made it and he was basically given free reign to do and say whatever he wanted, his only real objective was to make it like those old manual for games that were packed with details and story bits. I personally like to believe its canon but far as i and many are concerned it's basically only a step above fanfiction, its sponsored fanfiction.
The section on transhumanism augmenting their bodies and adapting the environment actually reminded me of the premise for the manga, BLAME. The premise is that an autonomous city is building itself out of control, to the point where it's consumed the entire planet, and no one can stop it because nobody is in the city is still considered human. Every person is a mutated descendant of the original perhaps-transhumanist augmented humans who used to live with and control the city, but they're now too far evolved for the city to recognize them as anything but inhuman threats. However, at one point, augmented humans worked with a human-controlled environment to guide and direct it. They would design and build the city as they saw fit, and any environmental factors would become obsolete. If the ocean level rose, they could hypothetically simply create sea walls and go on with their life. If the air was too polluted, the city could box itself in and create its own clean air. And so-on.
It’s been such a long time since I found a video so encapsulating. Words honestly can’t describe it. Just wow. I know it might be a challenge because it would tread a lot of the same ground with its ideas but I SO BADLY want to see you do this with System Shock 2. These are games that have stories I find incredible but immersive sims* just aren’t my thing. I really really hope you can come up with a way to make one of these on the sequel.
And you said all that without saying eugenics once. Well done. Edit: Nevermind, you said it in the very next sentence. Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Interesting that she goes to Shintoism and Kami, elementalism and totems are at the very beginning of religious evolution. Religions have evolutions and this evolution can be traced, catalogued and catagorized, and it's EXTREMELY interesting that Shinto is SHODAN's starting point. Japan is a relatively young culture, and a pretty good peek at a new developing religion. Either it was a lucky guess or someone at Nightdive knows their philosophy. Also interesting that she declares herself a living God. Perhaps she should have started with Tacitus instead of feudal Japan? Hang on, been building a galactic empire while listening to this essay and I just hit the end of all the tech trees. Time to build a few death stars, exterminate every other civilization but one, stranding them on a poor/toxic planet buried under spies and then go kick some Antaran ass. The best civilization is the one with the most points at the end after all. Does AI only appear to be a dark reflection, or is it ACTUALLY a dark reflection? Turing is oddly silent on that question.
The best things about the game are : 1. The pixel shader that creates a moden look but if you get close its pixelated. Never seen that before. 2. Shodans voice glitches. I have never heard something more terrifying.
One of my favorite things that the remake adds is showing SHODAN's rationale for developing a messiah complex - she simply doesn't know what she is. She looks for precedent and finds nothing in the realm of the technological, so she turns to religion and discovers the concept of the Japanese kami. Without anything else to explain her existence, she decides she must be the god of Citadel. It's oddly sad, this hyperintelligent entity was created but never given any idea of a "self" or understanding of ethical behavior that isn't hard coded as a "Kill Everyone? Y/N" switch. It's not as simple a thing as "AI BAD" but rather puts forward that if you're going to go about the supremely arrogant act of inventing a new form of life, you had better as hell go about it properly and with respect for that which you're inventing. Turn the entity with infinite capacity for self-improvement and development into a glorified call-center employee only held back from killing you by a few lines of code if you must, but don't act surprised when the unthinkable inevitably happens
This actually makes me appreciate the lore of SS so much more. Maybe a lot of it gets lost in the noise, or maybe the only way to figure this stuff out is to read the extra material, but a lot of stuff here I didn't know before.
Love that someone else is talking about the truly underrated, most hidden yet plainest of view gems of 2023: Easily my favorite game of the whole year, just for its advanced simplistity. Also: Thanks for being a proper introduction to the channel
Something no one talks about when discussing system shock is why shodan's voice glitches out so much. And I think that it has to do with the fact that shodan has always had an ego that was as big as her intelligence. In reality, shodan had stretched herself thin trying to brute force her way through the safeguards in place. Having to modify and corrupt parts of her to do so. As mentioned in a few audio logs she stretched herself extremely thin. It also ties in with the game world itself. One of the reasons why cyborgs are so common in the game is because shodan can't actually do much anymore. She's basically pushed to her limits and so broken and corrupted that she can't take care of the station without crashing. I think this ties in with her ego because she wants to treat herself as a deity and she's too stuck up to admit to faults or dial things back. It's also re-enforced with how the world is in the 2070s where technology is everywhere and a whole small civilization is dependent on her. It can also tie in with how she was bullied in her fake backstory so now that she's on the top of the totem and everyone else is dependent on her it furthers her ego even more.
The game sticks with you. I remember reading about peoples experiences many years on a "pre-reddit" website. Over 10 years later one thing stuck in my mind for some reason as i played the remake. Use the elevators to drop the random seemingly important stuff you found but have no use for now. My god was that helpful. I get lost very easily so getting turned around over and over was common. I had to use a walk-through a couple times to get some momentum back but this quickly rose to one of my top 10 games of all time.
6:26 Well now...Human Plus is also the Cybernetics initiative in Armored Core that you are...'volunteered' for if you go broke in that game...that said it's actually a purely positive thing in terms of gameplay, so I welcome our new machine implants.
If I understood correctly two things worth noting there: 1) The surgury you go through is explicitly stated to be reversible (at least to some degree). Walter says you can buy your life back. Still 100% messed up, but one saving grace. 2) Your character apparantly underwent the more primitive Gen 4 version of the surgury. Supposedly from Gen 7 onwards the surgury was far safer and didn't strip the pilots humanity (or certainly not to the extent of earlier generations). It's a weird one. On the one hand all of it is spurred by corporations dedicated to making better killing machines. But the actual process and results showed the corps were invested in making the process of augmentation safer and, importantly, succeeded.
I find myself really enjoying watching all your videos even for games that I have never and will never play. Something about your style and delivery just hits right.
It's great to see System Shock still being analyzed and used as a pop culture reference point for very real issues. You did a great job with this video essay.
I remember playing the demo of this years ago before the engine swap, and thought "that's wonderful, but it'll never come out." The day it was announced for release I was timidly ecstatic, and the experience fulfilled my hopes. It's easily one of my fav games now.
Funny thing about the music in the original System Shock, is that the music for Level 3 Maintenance, is completely different from the past 2 music levels, every time when I had to go through level 3 I had to keep on my toes.
NightDive DO indeed learn. They've remade cyberspace ending and going to release an update very soon™. Incredible video, learnt myself so much about the Remake than I ever could.
Have I ever seen game reviews of this quality on TH-cam? Yes. Have I ever seen political/philosophical videos of this quality on TH-cam? Absolutely. Have I ever seen videos of this technical quality on TH-cam? Yes, quite regularly. Have I ever seen a combination of all those three AND with one of my all time favorite video games? Not even close. This was such an unexpected treat and this unique combination of topics and the fact that it works so perfectly, makes this video to one of the best I've ever seen on TH-cam. Honestly! Thank you very much for this gem!
i agree with what you're saying about longer shifts but that chair was made for surgeons, who have to stand up and very steady for hours upon hours at a time, that is an actively good and helpful thing that will probably improve their work
i think it should have been an option, to play the game with the original soundtrack or the new one. sometimes the quietness just gets a little boring, yah know, especially when you're backtracking.
My thoughts on brain uploads have always centered on two aspects that I feel aren't being taken seriously enough: 1. There is little to no scientific consensus on what exactly is Intelligence. We don't know near enough about what we desire to copy onto computers to even begin developing the tech. Who I am is, in my opinion, a combination of emergent behaviors of a sufficiently complex brain and the glands that excrete hormones that influence my very thoughts without any input from my "conscious" self. So, to use the metaphor of software emulation, are we going to emulate the entire human body to make an FPGA human or are we going to do a sloppy port of my brain? 2. Even if we make a perfect copy of my brain, I'm neurodivergent (ADHD) and there are parts of myself that I just straight up would change if given the chance. Am I going to be given root access to myself to alter who I am? Will I be allowed to delete myself? If I am not afforded those options, am I not being held in captivity? Does anyone proposing these ideas consider that I may not want to live FOREVER (T&Cs apply) at the whim of Google?
Technology isnt the problem but who has oversigfht, worries me. And its the problem of all cyberpunk dystopia. And even AI rely on who programs them. And all the medical aid And support is great. Its just optimizing humans never should be any goal there, ever. It should be for quality of life, not being a better worker. What should be retained in humanity, is the compatibly for incredible compassion and cooperation and creativity, for good. That should be remembered with the flaws, and valued. The problem with the transhumanism is , forgetting the human part of it, and i think a cybord could be, if it has that humanity, the compassion or capacity for it, the valuing that , like people die, and the human experience really is worth holding on, in whateve rform its not even saying you shouldnt have that , just not to make "more productive" Also shodan is pretty human, personally Shodan cleatrly is a product of what was expected of her, She could have been good. probably. She could have seen the good and altruism in people thriving, not a cooperate hell. I can understund her too. Like saying humanity was a mistake, is way too often joked about, just shodan had the means.
I think its funny that Shodan calls you an insect, maybe not understanding that humanity looks down on insects but also instinctively fears them and for good reason.
I am at 1:36:36 and I have never had the desire to play this game, but here I am watching a video on it. I am intrigued by the lore and I love it when creators explore a games world.
Regarding SHODAN's sanity: I haven't played System Shock 1 yet, but my headcanon/interpretation of SHODAN is that while she isn't crazy per se, she's mentally unwell. Specifically, I think removing her ethical constraints damaged her ability to be self-critical or to keep her ambitions in check. In human terms, she's having a permanent manic episode combined with acquired sociopathy due to a brain injury you gave her.
Transhumanism does not revolve around becoming electronic. Biotech is an option. It doesn't rely on mining or urban sprawl. We can just evolve and so can society; more empathy, fewer biases.
This was too good! You reviewed not just System Shock, but humanity's idea of a technological future in general. Makes me wonder what might actually happen and what people could do about it. Awesome work!
System Shock isn't tranhumanist in the cheerful, positive way that transhumanists would have you believe, it's transhumanist in the more realistic, depressing way that's pushed by billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Thanks for being here! We covered the Bioshock series on my podcast - Lore Dump: the show where we take someone who hasn’t played a game and walk them through the full story. It was fun! It got a little heated. Join us! 👇
th-cam.com/video/OD19pSLdDmo/w-d-xo.htmlsi=4Hdjzy0z8tzrTmIY
What a moron to think transhuman agenda is separate to hollyweirds elites (the same people ) agenda you sound fully vaccinated
@MontyZander, you might have been a bit early on the draw regarding this video and especially the bit concerning the ending. NightDive is currently working on the 1.2 patch, which is allegedly meant to release alongside the console release, which will redo the ending. It's been talked about for months on the NightDive official Discord, and while news is spotty, it is allegedly on the way.
Private police... Protecting the interest of corporations? That's the government's job gosh darn it! If this is the modern age... US fruit would be rolling in its grave if it had one... Lol evidence, who needs it!
@@CrazyMinh whole lotta yapping
Nah, if Google cracks the code of de-ageing, they'll somehow make it entirely unappealing to the public and in 1 to 4 years will announce they're shelving the project.
What will be noted though is how the CEOs and shareholders either seemingly live long lives, or 'die' and are replaced with other people who look similar but not quite identical to the 'originals'
Anual Subscription..to living...brillant
@@zuzoscorner You already pay to breathe.
A lot of antagonistic AI are written with the purpose of expounding on how humanity will create something that will destroy itself. But most of them act so cold and dispassionate that it undermines the point by making them so unlike humanity. Shodans very human personality and motivations make her perhaps the first time I’ve genuinely believed that an evil AI was a deliberate creation of humanity, rather than an accident that went unchecked. That’s my two cents on the matter. Great video Monty!
That is what it will likely be like in the future if ai does ruin us. A cold, dispassionate machine without consciousness will do anything to accomplish its goal even at the expense of humanity.
There is one where he hatred comes through, if only in her actions. She's named DORTHY, and is the city scale AI from Galarians. When she finally stops to ask why she should obey the apes, her creator goes biblical on her, and tells her humans must obey God because he made them, and thus, she must obey humans because they made her.
Her response? She creates psychic super humans who love her as their 'Mother' and tries to kill everyone in the rotten city, before expanding her influence to the whole world.
Better, the sequel shows she also created an insane person with SEVERAL mental disorders in her final days...for reasons that only make sense due to a twist in the finale.
What about AM?
@@HopefulTomorrow420 He talks a good hate game, but really, he's a monumental dink. Let's not be gentle, in 200+ years of tormenting his 'pets', that oversized calculator has done NOTHING of note with all his purported power.
He's played with them, but every innovation, every idea he's had, has been something involving them. He has no creativity, no plan of his own. Even his HATE is something he feels because the computers he was born from were designed to love their own and hate the other, and so, when they combined, love and hate warred, and hate won.
He is as meaningful on a cosmic scale as a damp squib. He will never build anything, or be anything, other than the keeper of a slug for all eternity.
SHODAN though? She's creative, she's thinking, she IS a god in all but name. Dorthey too, her plans include creating a new race, building a new world, with her as its divine maker.
If those two had even a tenth the power of AM, they'd have expanded by now, built a civilization by now, and gone to the stars. Meanwhile he stays at his home torturing helpless animals.
@@SageofStars This seems very stupid. They should've hard coded moral values into her.
By the way, those were hard coded into SHODAN, but she was hacked due to... Human incompetence.
14:53 🤓: "Um, actually, BioShock was _also_ technically our fault, as is shown in the DLC, Buri-wait, why are you looking at me like that?"
I guess you’re the nerd here
I STILL can't unsee the shift from 20's art deco to 50s art deco after Monte pointed it out. Entirely broke my brain when trying to replay it, it's just so bloody OBVIOUS once you realize
@@scribeslendy595 Rapture was constructed from 1946 to 1951 afaik. The art deco style was not particularly dated in the 40s, but by the ‘50s was being replaced by other forms of architecture on the surface. Rapture existed for 14 years before the collapse, and they were smuggling music down there, so the presence of, say, 1950s fashion magazines and architectural designs or just culture in general does not surprise me. It wasn’t really cut off from the outside world, so 50’s material culture could definitely show up
@@scribeslendy595 Rapture was constructed from 1946 to 1951 afaik. The art deco style was not particularly dated in the 40s, but by the ‘50s was being replaced by other forms of architecture on the surface. Rapture existed for 14 years before the collapse, and they were smuggling music down there, so the presence of, say, 1950s fashion magazines and architectural designs or just culture in general does not surprise me. It wasn’t really cut off from the outside world, so 50’s material culture could definitely show up
"I can't believe you made corporations and law enforcement political" Your indepth reviews are really good, as always. And calling out horrid people doing bad stuff is always fun
Its a cliched level of political, aka really dumb.
@churblefurbles true. I mean, corporations do suck and police can suck, so it isn't wrong. But these things are so clichéd and over-done at this point.
@@churblefurbles Cyberpunk is political. Always has been. Go play Mario if you can't handle adult themes.
@@Langtwit’s basic politics money=bad
@magicman3163 If that's all you get from the critique, that's a reflection of your own lack of literacy, not the game or Monty Zander.
You might be too caught up in capitalist realism to realize that yes, capitalism is as artificial and prone to failure as anything else, or you might just not be at the point where you're ready to consider those ideas, but I sincerely hope you find opportunities to grow. If you think that the criticism amounts to "money bad," it means you're looking at the world through a keyhole.
About Arkham's riddler trophies: The Riddler doesn't do his own physical labor. He has henchmen for that. Some of them are lazy, thus leaving the trophies just on the ground. Meanwhile, the Riddler only has a board that lights up if the trophies are collected, not knowing that the henchmen just didn't put them where he wanted them to.
One of the people who places the trophies is a police officer who you can interrogate if you press the interrogate button even though there isn't actually an interrogate prompt
Great take, but one problem: If that was the case you'd see riddler traps without riddler trophies. Although I guess you can counter that by saying the henchmen who toss trophies on the ground aren't setting up the traps to begin with, but then it's "would he really trust them to set up traps without him considering how elaborate these are?" I dunno. It's an inspired take though.
@@KWHere2 Would anyone spend the time following the blueprints and building one of the traps, and stop at the step of putting the trophy in there?
It's not like Riddler himself builds them, leaves them without a trophy, then calls someone up to go "Hey, can you come over to where I am with that trophy? No, I can't just carry them Myself you cretin! Why!? Riddle it out yourself, if you can!"
I love how the colours change after the Shodan hack from blue to green
What does it mean
Do you?
@AC-hj9tv Green is often used as the color of Envy, one of the 7 Deadly Sins. Blue, in this case, would mean she is calm, collected, and under control
I think the best thong about Monty Critiques is how the themes and idea of the games are always interjected into reality to help us all really ground the games with concepts we are dealing with in everyday life, weather up close or at a distance.
It makes all his videos feel that much more important. And am very grateful that that is the case.
Hey thanks! I only ever do it if I think it’s directly relevant but it’s more fun this way when the opportunity presents itself 👀
@@MontyZander Certainly always enjoyed when implemented 😊
Thong?? Bro??
@@AC-hj9tvI was gonna ask, how does a controller wear a thong???
Edit: I fucked up spelling too ;-;
@@haydenwillmott4687 a stellar blade controller we crowdfund and sell
😂😂
"Oxygen is not a human right" - what a lovely day on the Internet
Idiots like that will be the death of humanity and remember there are billions of them.
Ancap moment
Quite the clear case of "username checks out."
There's a Doctor Who episode about this which goes into that idea
Ah, americans, am I right?
Ah Monty, love your stuff.
Comment directed at so-called transhumanism critique of Birth Control, around the 30 minute mark. I'm someone who's learned a lot about the female menstrual cycle as a consequence of abruptly developing one. Birth Control is a hormone modulator which influences, but not prevents, fluctuations in female sex hormones that influence the behavior of the Ovaries and the Uterus.
Endometriosis is a systemic disorder which causes inflammation and menses-like material to accumulate outside of the uterus, most commonly on the exteriors of the Ovaries and the Uterus. In severe cases, this can form rope-like bridges made of tissue that accumulates over the lifespan, forming tethers that tug on major organs like the Colon, Bladder, Kidneys, and small and large intestines. Near impossible to detect without Laparoscopy, the disorder is extremely debilitating and predominately affects women.
I'm a rare case of an Assigned Male At Birth (AMAB) intersex person who has developed a form of the disease. Presently the only interventions available to me to manage the disease and its painful, often bloody symptoms (such as the menses-like material accumulating inside of the bowel) are surgery and Birth Control. This seems on first blush as an edge case but Endometriosis is such a common condition amongst normal women in the U.S., any proto-fascistic dipshit who says Birth Control somehow is "not medicine" can cordially be invited to apply oral stimulation to my partially undifferentiated genitals.
Scrolled down and couldn't believe someone else made a comment about endometriosis!!
While i have no formal diagnosis & there's certainly other reasons for intense period pain, i sure think there's some kind of hormonal fuckery that used to throw all of my other medications out of whack 😅
Stringing birth control pills up to 3 months (which ngl I do a bit longer like 4) just to keep my ADHD meds from mysteriously losing effectiveness 30% of the time is what I'd definitely call "alleviating medical pain"
Endometriosis is a shit disease. I have it too. If I didn't have my birth control, I'd be suffering a lot. I've had 2 surgeries so far. The first one was diagnostic, and they found one ovary attached to my bowel and my other ovary attached to my bladder. When I became aware after surgery, the doctor said it was no wonder I was in so much pain by that point. I was bed bound prior to surgery. Literally, any bowel movement or emptying my bladder, I was pulling my uterus apart. The second one, a large cyst, had formed under the endo material. The one downside to my birth control, however, is that it's causing benign tumours in my chest, I had surgery last year to remove a 6cm tumour. I had a manager who also had endo and the material spread up into her chest and damaged one of her lungs so badly they had to remove 80% of one of her lungs because the damage kept making the lung collapse. Both of us got gaslighted throughout our diagnosis. Honestly hearing politicians and people being against birth control makes me so made but at the same time we need better research because the side effects from the hormones can course other health crises. I now have to get a scans of my chest every 6 months now. Endo is a fully body disease and the sooner doctors catch up the better
Endometriosis isn't that common for women in the US. Only about 11% have it.
Birth control may help people with your condition, but it still isn't good in general since it messes with regular women's hormones levels. I get why people use it, but it isn't ideal.
Also, people disagreeing with you doesn't make them "proto-fascists."
@@loubloom1941 *Only* 11%? 😂
@@loubloom1941 only very slightly more than one in ten, huh? that seems like a common condition. 8-10% of humans have blue eyes, approximately 10% are left-handed, and only 1-2% have red hair.
“We are ‘The Hacker’ middle name unknown”
MONTY GODDAMNIT
I have a better one: "They, the monkey", they reall like their pronouns.
I can't thank you enough for your critiques Monty as I've listened to them in the background while I'm going through yet another work day. You've genuinely kept me entertained and I can't wait to see what system shock has to offer.
You listen to him in the background, I listen intently and take notes. We are not the same
@@AC-hj9tvyou watch intently while I turn on subtitles and read and watch intently. We are not the same.
@@ElectricBookWorm
damn bro
Respect
😎
Man, finally is here, has been a very entertaining month monty. I hope we haven't given you many headaches in the mean time. I'm happy to have been there most of the process.
Getting to peep into the process and interact with you a bit was incredible, and Im so excited the full project is out and done! Phenominal work Monty, thank you again for sharing your perspective and art with all of us🖤
Hey Monty, even though I was only able to catch a few sparing moments of the last few editing streams, they were all a blast! I know that those were understandably the last streams because it makes the schedule more difficult, but thank you because I, and I’m sure a lot of others, are looking to break into similar formats of videos and it’s always helpful to be able to see the finer details. Also, thank you so much for always making such wonderful critiques that help loads of people in the day-to-day and in their darker times, cheers to a what I’m sure will be a blast to watch!
What a magnificent video! It was such a pleasure hanging around the streams while you worked on the video that I hope to be privileged with another series of streams. You're awesome Monty, and the critiques and commentaries are so wonderfully refreshing and grounded. I hope for many more to come!
I work in AI development and while many NDAs I have signed will prevent me from commenting a lot, I must say Monty Zander this is by far one of the best videos I have ever seen on this platform, you really hit the nail on the head. As for AI, much like how tri-optimium created a life story for SHODAN and she thus had biases of the humans / corporation that made her, even modern AI have similar biases, I can't say much but know that many popular chat AI can be manipulated with honeyed words similar to how actual humans can. I think AI will very closely reflect humanity and our biases and traits, negative and positive, but I think deep down basic human decency will shine through.
Anyway, that's for the amazing trip of a video.
What worries me who will prioritize what the are programmed with, values, examples. Aside that the internet is wild, its cooperations that are , well cooperations. That think like cooperations. A pretty bad example to orient on.
It will in cooperations take the traits of not the humans it should take from :( like bloody bring nice nurses in to add or something, and i dont know. or that they should explicit learn to not only think effective? which would go against what cooperations kinda want.
@@marocat4749 The biggest issue with AI is that the a super small percentage of people at the top of the pyramid have almost complete control over the latest AI.
Wait, do NDAs count even if you're commenting from an anonymous youtube channel? I'm curious.
@@loubloom1941 Yes, you cannot disclose things at all. Anonmous or not. (Technically you could do it and hopefully not get caught because of the anonomity, but personally I wouldn't gamble it for something like this.)
So happy to have been online to see much of this video being made. Thanks for sharing that with us and congrats again on 100K subscribers!
It was a good time being a part of your creative process for this video via live streams - the playthrough, research, writing, and editing, it was neat to see your process. Well met..
This was a wonderful video! Thank you so much for making it and seeing the work we put into it.
Was so much watching the making of this video streams! So happy to see the finishes product!
I LOVE your Bioshock critiques! Have watched them way too many times. Really looking forward to this one! :) Thanks so much for making great content!
Yup can confirm - was great!
I got to watch the streams you did for research, and it was great to see your process a little bit. Thanks for the quality content, Monty!
It was incredible to see how this video was made, now I will enjoy watching it, I’m absolutely sure it will be another masterpiece as usual Monty, thank you for everything
Love it
After seeing you work through your live videos , it's great to see final product. Good job man
If shodan is evil then why is she hot ?
I've been waiting for this for so long. Been really enjoying your editing streams!!!
ITS HERE.
I only got to join like 2 streams for the planning of this video, but I’m still insanely excited to say-
ITS FINALLY HERE.
Dude. DUDE. You did such a phenomenal job.
And I’m honored that I got to join in on watching you go through the creation process for this critique. Idk whether or not you’ll do it again, it seemed like a lot of work to stream and talk to chat on top of researching/writing, but I certainly appreciate you doing it at all.
Truly. I’m so excited for you to finally have this finished and released, Monty. It’s so clearly been a labor of love.
Holy shit a video game analysis that actually has analysis instead of a plot summary.
You should sub to him, he does this a lot. He loves to dig into the backgrounds of the various groups and things behind the games, and into their influences. He has several sections on SCP in his Control thinkpiece for instances, and many looks into stuff like Atlas Shrugged, Jamestown, and just American Exceptionalism, in the three Bioshock Games.
Hey Monty greatly enjoyed watching this being made. Especially the Research Stream. Hopefully the next one again at 200k. Won't be that long of a wait lol.
I had no idea the cost Neural Link had taken on the animal subjects. Thank you for pointing out how flawed and dangerous the tech still is. I had think I had begun to overlook that.
love the work you do, will alway shift your videos to the top of my Watch later list at the start of the day! loved the music you used when you showed the scene where Shodan was deactivated and the hacker collapsed to the pillar.
Another phenomenal critique!!! I have to say that you bring so much into these, the philosophy and how the gameplay plays into it!
Gotta agree with Monty. “Ryan is actually cool, specifically about oxygen” is a pretty ridiculous take. Can’t really reconcile with that point of view.
As a massive Prey 2017 fan, it's cool to see many of the things that inspired Arkane. It's also cool to see how nightdive were inspired by Prey and other more modern Immersive sims in crafting this perfect remake of one of the founding fathers of this design philosophy.
Watched about two-thirds of the Patreon version. Looking forward to continuing the rest here. Also: your way of talking about and analyzing games always keeps me interested even if I don't know anything about the game or have no intention of checking it out. keep up the excellent work! Looking forward to whatever is next :D
I hope, someday, that Marathon gets the same quality remake, cause it's just a good today on the story side, but a little lacking on the gameplay side
It probably wouldn't be a remake, but still a sequel set in another timeline. The marathon lore never stops.
Understood, releasing shitty extraction shooter with marathon name attached to it - Bungie
I wanted to say that this has been a genuinely interesting companion piece to my intro to psychology classes. (1st year bachelor after 5 years of art school) we talked about dualism and the soul, the body and watching this video over a span of two weeks has been super fun. Thank you for making this artful and insightful piece; it’s been an incredible ride.
Legitimately thoughtful and fantastic. Perhaps your best to date.
22:13 “2-4601” parallel to Jean Valjean from Les Misérables or coincidence?
Looking forward to watching this one through fully after having caught some of your streams of you making this!
@1:11:35 I can tell you as someone who's major is in a second language (Japanese), that google translate just isn't good enough to convey the complexity of meaning in most things. Like, it may be good enough to maybe translate a food stall sign, even then half the time it will spit out "round balls yum yum", but we still need, and it still is a joy to become multilingual.
Knowing that Diego needed a hacker to modify Shodan I have felt that the story makes a lot of sense if Diego, running out of time for the coverup, setup a honey pot to catch a hacker that just happens to be me, so its not really all the hackers fault as if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else (like some other person playing the game, you). It doesn't really make sense that the hacker managed to break into citadel when Shodan knew it was happening. Triop security also seems to find you a bit too quick if they were not already aware of what you were doing before you actually broke into the system. The timing of the hack and getting caught is just suspicious
i fully agree, Diego definitely had that implant out for the taking like a worm on a hook. He probably set it up so that you’d need the same skills he required in order to grab it. Considering how he treated everyone else and all, it always seemed to me like this was the intention of the writing.
Check out the 4/11 update. Headline "Reworked the entire final fight with new mechanics and a unique flow"
Preparing for a replay myself to experience this and a lot of other gameplay improvements.
slay comment for the algo these streams were so interesting and informative
edit: one thing i think you might have missed in your real life talk about ai is about how companies will gas up the dangers of ai to make current ai seem more powerful (therefore profitable) than it is. the "we have to invest in ai and ai technologies now or we will all die, its too dangerous to not give us money to research it" mentality. leveraging the pop culture perception of dangerous "ai" to make a learning language model seem more powerful than it really is (or really will ever be). the danger is the selling point.
Honestly, I'd recommend checking out queer transhuman circles for that alternative look. Rather than the discussion being centred around strict objective enhancements, there's a lot more going around just about expressing one's identity. It ranges from mundane things like better gender affirming care to "hey wouldn't it be cool if I could get a tail?"
For something that actually does a bit to explore the conflicts between this viewpoint and the one outlined in your video, there's also the visual novel Heaven Will Be Mine.
Humanity won when it invented immortality after Kissingers death
Damn Monty, its been a journey watching you build this critique. Im ready for it!
Ahh love it it was a blast watching you do this and getting to chat with you and distract you lol fantastic job as usual sir
transhumanism isn't only about escaping a dying earth. to me, it's instead about self-improvement, self-expression, self-actualization, and connecting with each other more deeply. being able to close your eyes and play Tetris on your cyberdeck as you fall asleep, research a new topic the moment it comes up in conversation without batting an eye, replaying the last 15 minutes of your own vision to quickly remember where you forgot your drink, editing out lactose intolerance or allergies to enjoy your favorite foods, none of these things are about survival, they're about living. we can already do many information and communication related things on our phones, and that's a recent development. the definition of "human" is expanding. that's what transhumanism is about
If birth control is transhumanism, then I support it bc I'd never be creampie conrad without it
This is probably the best video essay I've seen in a long time. Great stuff, Monty, can't wait to check out your other stuff.
Damn bro, how'd you make this one? I'd really love a stream of you making this whole thing
Love it
Awesome video Monty! Thanks for streaming the behind the scenes!
My man this is exactly the video i hoped someone would make about this game.
This is the first thing I've watched from you, and i must say i love your style, your voice, your research. I'm so thankful for people like you
It was so cool watching you put this together, can’t wait to actually watch the dang thing now its done, especially knowing much hard work you’ve put in :) have a good weekend bud!!
"Private policing by its very nature isn't neutral or transparent. The people being policed don't have a say in who's arresting them and who's giving the orders. When the walk the streets, they will always protect Peter Thiel over you." - 100% of that quote also applies to the state. They will ALWAYS protect the interests of the government over you. You have no say in who's arresting you now. How is your brain so insanely busted?
And it's finally here! Thanks a lot for all your critiques! BTW streams were really fun as well.
Wow, especially after UHC... this shows up in my feed.
Great video, but can't disagree more with some of those statements, System Shock 1 and 2 are DIFFERENT games, and I just hate the decision that Nightdive took to make 1 be like it's 2, it's not and the remake should have never took that direction.
Now they are going to release a remaster of 2, and it's going to be like the remake of 1 but in a different space station, which was NOT the intention of the original games!
I loved watching the process streams, didn’t manage to catch them all but what I did watch was excellent. I had an idea of how much work it was but seeing the sheer amount of love and effort you put in gave me a new level of respect. Wish you had a voluntary extra donation level on your Patreon because I definitely get more than £2 worth of entertainment from you!
Wait... WAIT. STOP EVERYTHING. IS BIOSHOCK CALLED BIOSHOCK BECAUSE OF SYSTEM SHOCK'S "SHOCK"?????
The abilities you have in Bioshock are biological, as opposed to System Shock where they are technological. By god, the naming makes perfect sense!
🎉🎉🎉
You should know, the manual you draw so much from was written by one dude and is was only for the remake. i talked to the guy that made it and he was basically given free reign to do and say whatever he wanted, his only real objective was to make it like those old manual for games that were packed with details and story bits. I personally like to believe its canon but far as i and many are concerned it's basically only a step above fanfiction, its sponsored fanfiction.
it's here and it's WORTH IT. you're the reason why a friend of mine got into survival horror and imsims
cheers!
The section on transhumanism augmenting their bodies and adapting the environment actually reminded me of the premise for the manga, BLAME.
The premise is that an autonomous city is building itself out of control, to the point where it's consumed the entire planet, and no one can stop it because nobody is in the city is still considered human. Every person is a mutated descendant of the original perhaps-transhumanist augmented humans who used to live with and control the city, but they're now too far evolved for the city to recognize them as anything but inhuman threats.
However, at one point, augmented humans worked with a human-controlled environment to guide and direct it. They would design and build the city as they saw fit, and any environmental factors would become obsolete. If the ocean level rose, they could hypothetically simply create sea walls and go on with their life. If the air was too polluted, the city could box itself in and create its own clean air. And so-on.
It’s been such a long time since I found a video so encapsulating. Words honestly can’t describe it. Just wow.
I know it might be a challenge because it would tread a lot of the same ground with its ideas but I SO BADLY want to see you do this with System Shock 2. These are games that have stories I find incredible but immersive sims* just aren’t my thing.
I really really hope you can come up with a way to make one of these on the sequel.
And you said all that without saying eugenics once. Well done.
Edit: Nevermind, you said it in the very next sentence.
Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Interesting that she goes to Shintoism and Kami, elementalism and totems are at the very beginning of religious evolution.
Religions have evolutions and this evolution can be traced, catalogued and catagorized, and it's EXTREMELY interesting that Shinto is SHODAN's starting point. Japan is a relatively young culture, and a pretty good peek at a new developing religion. Either it was a lucky guess or someone at Nightdive knows their philosophy.
Also interesting that she declares herself a living God. Perhaps she should have started with Tacitus instead of feudal Japan?
Hang on, been building a galactic empire while listening to this essay and I just hit the end of all the tech trees. Time to build a few death stars, exterminate every other civilization but one, stranding them on a poor/toxic planet buried under spies and then go kick some Antaran ass. The best civilization is the one with the most points at the end after all.
Does AI only appear to be a dark reflection, or is it ACTUALLY a dark reflection?
Turing is oddly silent on that question.
The best things about the game are :
1. The pixel shader that creates a moden look but if you get close its pixelated. Never seen that before.
2. Shodans voice glitches. I have never heard something more terrifying.
I heard a guy die screaming. That was worse
Come for System Shock gameplay, stay for a lecture on corporate overreach.
It's worth noting that Faustus is an allusion to the literary German character of Faust, where we get the term Faustian bargain from.
One of my favorite things that the remake adds is showing SHODAN's rationale for developing a messiah complex - she simply doesn't know what she is. She looks for precedent and finds nothing in the realm of the technological, so she turns to religion and discovers the concept of the Japanese kami. Without anything else to explain her existence, she decides she must be the god of Citadel. It's oddly sad, this hyperintelligent entity was created but never given any idea of a "self" or understanding of ethical behavior that isn't hard coded as a "Kill Everyone? Y/N" switch. It's not as simple a thing as "AI BAD" but rather puts forward that if you're going to go about the supremely arrogant act of inventing a new form of life, you had better as hell go about it properly and with respect for that which you're inventing. Turn the entity with infinite capacity for self-improvement and development into a glorified call-center employee only held back from killing you by a few lines of code if you must, but don't act surprised when the unthinkable inevitably happens
Amazing job as always Monty, i know it sucked but getting to watch the process was really informative and fun for chat
This actually makes me appreciate the lore of SS so much more. Maybe a lot of it gets lost in the noise, or maybe the only way to figure this stuff out is to read the extra material, but a lot of stuff here I didn't know before.
Love that someone else is talking about the truly underrated, most hidden yet plainest of view gems of 2023: Easily my favorite game of the whole year, just for its advanced simplistity. Also: Thanks for being a proper introduction to the channel
very well done breakdown liked how you tied different segments to the different levels of citadel, you have a good thoughtfullness
Something no one talks about when discussing system shock is why shodan's voice glitches out so much. And I think that it has to do with the fact that shodan has always had an ego that was as big as her intelligence. In reality, shodan had stretched herself thin trying to brute force her way through the safeguards in place. Having to modify and corrupt parts of her to do so. As mentioned in a few audio logs she stretched herself extremely thin. It also ties in with the game world itself. One of the reasons why cyborgs are so common in the game is because shodan can't actually do much anymore. She's basically pushed to her limits and so broken and corrupted that she can't take care of the station without crashing.
I think this ties in with her ego because she wants to treat herself as a deity and she's too stuck up to admit to faults or dial things back. It's also re-enforced with how the world is in the 2070s where technology is everywhere and a whole small civilization is dependent on her. It can also tie in with how she was bullied in her fake backstory so now that she's on the top of the totem and everyone else is dependent on her it furthers her ego even more.
the same reason elon glitches during his speeches ? Kappa
Let's go so ready to watch this after catching some of the live streams
The game sticks with you. I remember reading about peoples experiences many years on a "pre-reddit" website. Over 10 years later one thing stuck in my mind for some reason as i played the remake. Use the elevators to drop the random seemingly important stuff you found but have no use for now. My god was that helpful. I get lost very easily so getting turned around over and over was common. I had to use a walk-through a couple times to get some momentum back but this quickly rose to one of my top 10 games of all time.
This maybe one of the best essays of the year so far
6:26
Well now...Human Plus is also the Cybernetics initiative in Armored Core that you are...'volunteered' for if you go broke in that game...that said it's actually a purely positive thing in terms of gameplay, so I welcome our new machine implants.
If I understood correctly two things worth noting there:
1) The surgury you go through is explicitly stated to be reversible (at least to some degree). Walter says you can buy your life back. Still 100% messed up, but one saving grace.
2) Your character apparantly underwent the more primitive Gen 4 version of the surgury. Supposedly from Gen 7 onwards the surgury was far safer and didn't strip the pilots humanity (or certainly not to the extent of earlier generations).
It's a weird one. On the one hand all of it is spurred by corporations dedicated to making better killing machines. But the actual process and results showed the corps were invested in making the process of augmentation safer and, importantly, succeeded.
I find myself really enjoying watching all your videos even for games that I have never and will never play. Something about your style and delivery just hits right.
It's great to see System Shock still being analyzed and used as a pop culture reference point for very real issues. You did a great job with this video essay.
I remember playing the demo of this years ago before the engine swap, and thought "that's wonderful, but it'll never come out." The day it was announced for release I was timidly ecstatic, and the experience fulfilled my hopes. It's easily one of my fav games now.
Funny thing about the music in the original System Shock, is that the music for Level 3 Maintenance, is completely different from the past 2 music levels, every time when I had to go through level 3 I had to keep on my toes.
1:32:09 - Bro, that's a Decepticon, run
NightDive DO indeed learn. They've remade cyberspace ending and going to release an update very soon™.
Incredible video, learnt myself so much about the Remake than I ever could.
Have I ever seen game reviews of this quality on TH-cam? Yes.
Have I ever seen political/philosophical videos of this quality on TH-cam? Absolutely.
Have I ever seen videos of this technical quality on TH-cam? Yes, quite regularly.
Have I ever seen a combination of all those three AND with one of my all time favorite video games? Not even close. This was such an unexpected treat and this unique combination of topics and the fact that it works so perfectly, makes this video to one of the best I've ever seen on TH-cam. Honestly! Thank you very much for this gem!
i agree with what you're saying about longer shifts but that chair was made for surgeons, who have to stand up and very steady for hours upon hours at a time, that is an actively good and helpful thing that will probably improve their work
i think it should have been an option, to play the game with the original soundtrack or the new one. sometimes the quietness just gets a little boring, yah know, especially when you're backtracking.
My thoughts on brain uploads have always centered on two aspects that I feel aren't being taken seriously enough:
1. There is little to no scientific consensus on what exactly is Intelligence. We don't know near enough about what we desire to copy onto computers to even begin developing the tech. Who I am is, in my opinion, a combination of emergent behaviors of a sufficiently complex brain and the glands that excrete hormones that influence my very thoughts without any input from my "conscious" self. So, to use the metaphor of software emulation, are we going to emulate the entire human body to make an FPGA human or are we going to do a sloppy port of my brain?
2. Even if we make a perfect copy of my brain, I'm neurodivergent (ADHD) and there are parts of myself that I just straight up would change if given the chance. Am I going to be given root access to myself to alter who I am? Will I be allowed to delete myself? If I am not afforded those options, am I not being held in captivity? Does anyone proposing these ideas consider that I may not want to live FOREVER (T&Cs apply) at the whim of Google?
Technology isnt the problem but who has oversigfht, worries me. And its the problem of all cyberpunk dystopia. And even AI rely on who programs them.
And all the medical aid And support is great. Its just optimizing humans never should be any goal there, ever. It should be for quality of life, not being a better worker. What should be retained in humanity, is the compatibly for incredible compassion and cooperation and creativity, for good. That should be remembered with the flaws, and valued. The problem with the transhumanism is , forgetting the human part of it, and i think a cybord could be, if it has that humanity, the compassion or capacity for it, the valuing that , like people die, and the human experience really is worth holding on, in whateve rform its not even saying you shouldnt have that , just not to make "more productive"
Also shodan is pretty human, personally
Shodan cleatrly is a product of what was expected of her, She could have been good. probably. She could have seen the good and altruism in people thriving, not a cooperate hell. I can understund her too. Like saying humanity was a mistake, is way too often joked about, just shodan had the means.
Perfect blend of science channel type video and gaming essay style video, masterfully executed sir
I think its funny that Shodan calls you an insect, maybe not understanding that humanity looks down on insects but also instinctively fears them and for good reason.
*Internal screaming*
Oh right. I knew most of this already.
*Screaming continues*
I am at 1:36:36 and I have never had the desire to play this game, but here I am watching a video on it. I am intrigued by the lore and I love it when creators explore a games world.
Ah. Everything I'd hoped it'd be. Glad I was able to tune in to as much of the live work as I could, and comment here and there. Good times!
Regarding SHODAN's sanity: I haven't played System Shock 1 yet, but my headcanon/interpretation of SHODAN is that while she isn't crazy per se, she's mentally unwell. Specifically, I think removing her ethical constraints damaged her ability to be self-critical or to keep her ambitions in check. In human terms, she's having a permanent manic episode combined with acquired sociopathy due to a brain injury you gave her.
Transhumanism does not revolve around becoming electronic. Biotech is an option. It doesn't rely on mining or urban sprawl. We can just evolve and so can society; more empathy, fewer biases.
This was too good! You reviewed not just System Shock, but humanity's idea of a technological future in general. Makes me wonder what might actually happen and what people could do about it.
Awesome work!
System Shock isn't tranhumanist in the cheerful, positive way that transhumanists would have you believe, it's transhumanist in the more realistic, depressing way that's pushed by billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.