Why the red pill doesn’t wake people to our world’s true reality

Note: Originally published in the March 2017 issue of the Czech SF/F magazine XB-1.


Few science fiction symbols are as powerful as red and blue pills. In the 1999 film The Matrix, the main character Neo is offered a choice of two pills to take. If he takes the red pill, the truth of an extremely painful reality will be revealed. If Neo takes the blue pill, he’ll return to his happy illusion of life.

As Morpheus tells Neo, “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Since the release of The Matrix various political groups have seized on red and blue bills as a symbol describing people who have “woken” to their different belief systems. Among the many political groups using red and blue pills to describe what happens when someone understands and accepts their beliefs are anarchists, various progressive causes, environmentalists, the men’s rights movement, conservatives, neo-nazis, white supremacists, and many more.

Obviously all of these groups don’t possess the truth of reality, and some such as neo-nazis and white supremacists are so far from the truth that they wouldn’t recognize a red pill if it was shoved down their collective throats.

Despite this, I find it fascinating and disturbing that the red/blue pill symbol is seen as a metaphor for understanding the truth of reality. After all, The Matrix uses these pills in an extremely destructive manner. In the film once someone takes the red pill they are physically removed from the dream-like world the machines craft to keep humanity enslaved.

Despite being freed Neo and the other red pill people frequently return to the machine-crafted illusion most of humanity lives under, wanting to free their fellow humans from endless slavery. But to do this, Neo and his followers do almost as much harm as the machines they’re fighting.

As Morpheus says, “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

The truth of what the red pills reveal is boiled down to these words from Morpheus: “If you are not one of us, you are one of them.”

In The Matrix, this “us or them” belief means Neo and his band of followers slaughter any enslaved human who stands in their way, secure in the knowledge that theirs is the path of righteousness and that, in the end, they’ll reveal the truth to the world.

“If you are not one of us, you are one of them.” That’s a hell of a political statement. That’s the type of statement embraced by history’s worst political movements, movements which have killed millions in pursuits of their goals.

The Matrix is a great SF film, one of the best of the last few decades. But as political theory the film is extremely simplistic. After all, there’s a word for people who go through life with such an extreme “us or them” attitude: psychopaths.

While simplistic “us or them” arguments resonate with many people, our greatest achievements come when we put this attitude aside. When we stand with those we have disagreements with but with whom we can still find common ground.

And it’s this human determination to reach for common ground which makes me stay optimistic about the future. Because I believe in people. I believe most people try to do good and try build a better world.

This truth holds true in any successful community, be it a large, diverse community like the United States of America or a small community like SF film fans.

Our communities exist even when people disagree on issues. Our communities exist because we are more alike than different. Our communities exist because so many people make a decision to reject a red pill “us or them” view of the world.

And that’s one reality the red pill will never reveal to anyone who believes in a “us or them” world.

Podcast of "We Eat The Hearts That Come For You"

The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine has released an audio version of my story "We Eat The Hearts That Come For You." Here's the story's teaser:

Brother Marrow has taken a monastic vow to live within the real world, and avoid opening his neural connection to the virtual, but one day something forces its way into his connection, and at the same time in the village below someone is killed…

Originally published in Jennifer Brozek's anthology Bless Your Mechanical Heart, "We Eat The Hearts..." has been called "a compelling story about love, loss, obsession, and perception."

Many thanks to Big and Rish, who have created a number of excellent audio versions of my stories in the past. And special thanks to Justin Charles for producing the story.

The story is available on streaming services, the Dunesteef website, and their YouTube channel.

"Nine Lattices of Sargasso" in Asimov's Science Fiction

My science fiction novelette "Nine Lattices of Sargasso" is now available in the November/December 2017 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. The novelette tells of a future where dreams and memories can be shared among people and the unintended consequences which result.

This is Asimov's final 40th Anniversary issue and includes a personal essay about my life-long connection with the magazine. Spoiler: I've been reading Asimov's for a long time. 

The issue is also a star-studded one, featuring fiction by Connie Willis, Greg Egan, Rick Wilber, Nick Wolven, Jack McDevitt, James Patrick Kelly, Michael Cassutt, Emily Taylor, Tom Purdom, James Gunn, Joel Richards, and Norman Spinrad.

Many thanks to Sheila Williams for accepting and publishing my story alongside so many of the authors I grew up reading in Asimov's.

The issue is currently available in bookstores. You can also purchase the e-book issue for Amazon's Kindle, the Nook, Google Play, and other platforms.

Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2017 Edition

The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton, is now available and includes my novelette "Blood Grains Speak Through Memories."  The novelette originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies and was a finalist for the Nebula Award.

And in a total "wow!" moment, Horton says in the book's introduction that I am "one of the most original and adventurous writers of strange sf for the past decade." Let me repeat: WOW!

Many thanks to Horton for the kind words and for selecting my story. The anthology is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores. 

Below is the anthology's table of contents.

• “Seven Ways of Looking at the Sun-Worshippers of Yul-Katan” by Maggie Clark, Analog
• “All that Robot Shit” by Rich Larson, Asimov’s
• “Project Empathy” by Dominica Phetteplace, Asimov’s
• “Lazy Dog Out” by Suzanne Palmer, Asimov’s
• “The Visitor from Taured” by Ian R. MacLeod, Asimov’s
• “Openness” by Alexander Weinstein, Beloit Fiction Journal
• “In Skander, for a Boy” by Chaz Brenchley, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• “Laws of Night and Silk” by Seth Dickinson, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories” by Jason Sanford, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• “Rager in Space” by Charlie Jane Anders, Bridging Infinity
• “Ozymandias” by Karin Lowachee, Bridging Infinity
• “The Bridge of Dreams” by Gregory Feeley, Clarkesworld
• “Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home” by Genevieve Valentine, Clarkesworld
• “Things with Beards” by Sam J. Miller, Clarkesworld
• “Innumerable Glimmering Lights” by Rich Larson, Clockwork Phoenix 5
• “Between Nine and Eleven” by Adam Roberts, Crises and Conflicts
• “Red of Tooth and Cog” by Cat Rambo, F&SF
• “The Vanishing Kind” by Lavie Tidhar, F&SF
• “A Fine Balance” by Charlotte Ashley, F&SF
• “Empty Planets” by Rahul Kanakia, Interzone
• “Fifty Shades of Grays” by Steven Barnes, Lightspeed
• “I’ve Come to Marry the Princess” by Helena Bell, Lightspeed
• “RedKing” by Craig deLancey, Lightspeed
• “A Non-Hero’s Guide to The Road of Monsters” by A.T. Greenblatt,
• Mothershipship Zeta
• “Dress Rehearsal” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Now We Are Ten
• “The Plague Givers” by Kameron Hurley, Patreon
• “Gorse Daughter, Sparrow Son” by Alena Indigo Anne Sullivan, Strange Horizons
• “The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory” by Carlos Hernandez, The
• Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria
• “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was” by
• Paul McAuley, Tor.com
• “That Game We Played During the War” by Carrie Vaughn, Tor.com

The Ending of Rigid Time

A section of the Prague astronomical clock.

The history of humanity is the history of tracking and managing information. Need to grow enough wheat or rice to feed your village? Then you must track the seasons to determine the best times to plant your seeds. Want to remember society's history so you don’t continually repeat it, or determine how many of your kingdom’s subjects pay their taxes? Then you’ll need systems of writing and counting.

And central among humanity’s informational tools is the measurement of time.

Exactly how humanity began tracking time is lost in the unrecorded millennia of human prehistory. But it’s safe to assume that before recorded history began our ancestors tracked time. For example, there's ample archaeological evidence that ancient hunter-gatherers tracked the seasons. In addition, sites like Stonehenge take account of celestial time indicators such as the solstices. Our ancestors obviously knew how to track time well before recorded history began.

But as more complex civilizations developed so too developed the need for specific methods of measuring time for religious ceremonies, trade, and military and administrative duties. So at some point in our history humans began to track the individual parts of each day.

One way we did this was by measuring the passage of time using recurring natural phenomenon. The passage of the sun through the sky. The dripping of water through a small hole. The resulting devices — shadow clocks, sundials, water clocks, hourglasses — flourished for centuries. Now we track time with technologies up to and including atomic clocks, which measure the frequency with which electrons move from one energy level to another. With atomic clocks we have reached the point where we track time with far more precision than humans can notice with our physical senses.

But precision comes at a price: the chaining of a sizable portion of humanity to an extremely rigid form of time. You must be at school at this exact time. You must begin and end work at other exact times. You must never be late because that is disrespectful to our notions of time management.

Taken to the extreme this sense of absolute time management results in the dystopian world of Harlan Ellison’s classic science fiction story "‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman,” where everyone must obey a rigid time schedule throughout their lives or suffer the consequences.

Thanks to technology, I suspect Ellison’s time-keeping nightmare won’t come true. Instead, it’s possible we’re about to enter a period which we might well call the ending of rigid time.

But whether this will be good or bad has yet to be determined.

To understand the pending change in how humanity uses time, look in your pocket. Is a smartphone hiding there? If so you have access to systems which can chart and manage every aspect of your life — the digital equivalent of a personal assistant who ensures you never miss an appointment or your kid’s birthday.

And we’re merely at the beginning of such interconnected personal scheduling. In the near future this type of technology will no doubt evolve until some aspect of wearable or implantable tech allows your personal assistant to whisper in your ear or access your mind during every moment of your life. Spent a few minutes setting up your life preferences and you won’t need to worry about when to work or go to school or study or exercise or have a beer with friends.

In such an integrated scheduling system, why would the average human need to even pay attention to time? After all, your personal assistant will be able to connect with an entire world of other people’s lives and schedules. Tell your assistant to schedule a doctor’s visit and the assistant will contact the doctor’s office, determine when you’re available, schedule the appointment, and even tell you when to leave your home and stick out your tongue.

Instead of people being forced to track time so they can schedule their lives, their personal assistants will track time for them. In such a world people will more likely focus on living in the present than caring what the time of day might be. And time keeping itself may even be seen as antiquated. After all, your assistant will be there to worry about time, and the future, for you.

Now obviously such a world would disturb many people, including myself. But imagine how our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have felt in modern New York City or Beijing, where continually tracking the minutes and hours of each day determines whether you can keep a job and support yourself and your family. They'd have been appalled at such a life.

There might be some good in achieving a time-free future, at least for people like myself with a horrible sense of time. I often find the hours and minutes of each day slipping away from me. I’ll be focused on my writing or staring at a beautiful sunset and suddenly realize I forgot to meet my friends at the neighborhood bar.

But I also fear such a time-free world. Who knows how humans will change if we no longer have to actively track time on a personal level. Will we still plan for the future? Will people descend into an eternal hedonistic present where all that matters is moving from one scheduled moment of excitement to the next?

Even more troubling, perhaps employers will require their workers to use specially-approved scheduling inputs. In this scary version of Ellison’s "Repent, Harlequin,” your employer will be assured that your life and happiness never interfere with work-related duties because they’ll schedule your life so that never happens.

One of the things which make us human is our species’ use of tools. Our tools both define and shape who we are. And few tools are as subtly powerful as how we track and measure time.

None of these speculations mean humans will ever stop tracking and measuring time. Of course we won’t. Scientific and technological systems will always require accurate time measurement. But I suspect that on a personal level, humans will one day give up watching the clock for an even more controlling form of life scheduling.

So forget repenting for the Ticktockman. Because in such a future humans will be so intermeshed with life scheduling that time itself might appear to disappear.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.