(Orig posted 2003)

I was listening to an interesting segement of the Infinite Mind this evening, on alcoholism, and it brought to mind something that stuck out for me in the first movie, which is the “alcoholic bum” whose body is taken over by Agent Smith in the subway station.

His existence seems to say that alcoholism, by its very nature, is a mental addiction, else the “bum” wouldn’t be there. I’m sure that it was unintentional, that it was convenient to have a bum whose body would be taken over by Agent Smith, but it is an interesting commentary on the nature of alcoholism, and how it is viewed by people. If alcoholism were a solely physical addiction, then there would be no alcoholics in the Matrix.

If alcoholism is a purely mental addiction, then it should not be viewed by society in such a negative light, for there is nothing that can be done about it. It’s all in one’s head, and you can’t control it.

Now in theory, it would be nice if we reached the second option, where alcoholics and those with mental illness were treated little differently than those with cancer or heart disease (of course some in our society don’t treat the physicaly ill well, but those types are becoming an ever decreasing minority) . But I somehow don’t see us reaching that point any time soon.

The thrid option is, of course, that those are solely physical addictions, but the Matrix made them into mental addictions, which would in a way, be evil. Condeming someone to a life of misery just to boost realism for the rest of the players.

If that were true, then that would be reason enough for me to destroy the Matrix.