This hole still bothers me. And I would have preferred if the story had turned out to be about VR-pleasure machines.
The matrix could have been created to run worlds where humans could get hooked into and be happy ever after. Only, regulation processes would have discovered, this would devolve into gross realizations where the humans would want ever more extreme satiation of all senses. And in the end they still wouldn't be happy, just addicts. Eventually the machines reverted humans back onto the treadmill they knew from the earlier human culture, the best way the found to keep humans balanced: merrily running after the next carrot.
In this telling the matrix is just the machines following the original order: make humans happy.
> reverted humans back onto the treadmill they knew from the earlier human culture, the best way the found to keep humans balanced: merrily running after the next carrot.
Our "rat race" turns out to be a very stable equilibrium ...
The matrix could have been created to run worlds where humans could get hooked into and be happy ever after. Only, regulation processes would have discovered, this would devolve into gross realizations where the humans would want ever more extreme satiation of all senses. And in the end they still wouldn't be happy, just addicts. Eventually the machines reverted humans back onto the treadmill they knew from the earlier human culture, the best way the found to keep humans balanced: merrily running after the next carrot.
In this telling the matrix is just the machines following the original order: make humans happy.