this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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Anon lacks media literacy
What's your take on it? (I just like reading takes on Bioshock)
It's been a long time since I played it. And honestly, it doesn't have to be a take. Things are spelled out for the player from what I remember.
The 'intellectuals' in the rapture considered activities such as plumbing, cleaning etc to be beneath them. Which led to having an underclass of workers doing these things and eventually there was a rebellion.
Basically, cooperation is far more important than intelligence (or any other talent for that matter) in isolation.
An example I can give is Josh Trank. After Chronicle, his directorial debut which received great reviews, he got opportunity to direct Fant4stic. The production was an absolute shitshow.
Compare that to David Fincher. He was directing music videos before he got Alien 3. That movie had a lot of studio interference. David kept his head down, did his job and moved on. Only spoke negatively about Alien 3 after more than 15 years.
That executive meddling ruins final bosses.
But on a serious note, look at modern society and the tipping points we’re reaching. AI, climate change, ultra-individualism bred by class disparity. Rapture just happened to get capitalism’d a hundred years earlier.
There are points to be made about comparability to Hitler’s rise, slavery through class busting and then mind control, races to the bottom, oligopolies, regulatory capture, and-and-and- but this is a greentext community.
Does he though? In Atlas Shrugged, which Bioshock seems to be somewhat of an antithesis to, it's not the capitalists that go crazy, but the socialists, who enact more and more draconian laws depriving the productive class of all their profits in order to funnel more money to the unproductive, which ultimately makes working entirely unprofitable.
Both works are basically at opposite ends of the spectrum — Atlas Shrugged depicts a communist utopia gone wrong, while Bioshock shows a capitalist utopia gone wrong. They're both myopic in their own way, but the common thread seems to be that absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is a truth no one can escape. In reality, a functioning society requires a delicate balance between both forces, not a winner-takes-tall approach. Unfortunately, that idea seems to be lost on both of them, which is probably what anon is trying to hint at.
This is not at all the intended message of Atlas Shrugs.
Perhaps not, but that was what I took away from it.
Sue me, I guess.
The entire theme of Atlas shrugged is about how capitalist oligarchs are the critical class desperately needed in the world to make any real progress.
That they should be handed unregulated power because they'll do more with it than the "workers".
It's the polar opposite of what you're describing as the takeaway, and it's not even subtle or mysterious about it. It repeats that point ad nauseum from about chapter 2 until the end of the book.
So my question to you would be: are you sure you're thinking of the correct book? If so, it might be time for you to refresh yourself on it because there's not another interpretation about the point of it. It's not a hidden meaning or left up to the reader. It literally beats that into the reader during every capitalistic sychophantish chapter.
Yes, I get that, and it's just as cringe as communist power fantasies if you ask me. Like, I understood what was bad about the communist dystopia she painted, and I didn't resent her heroes for trying to escape that and rebuild society from the ground up, but I also didn't think they were good people. Rand's heroes are just as insane as the villains they're fighting.
That's not to say they didn't have a point, though. Excessive pandering to people who simply will not lift a finger to change their own condition is just as harmful as excessive pandering to those who will.
The communist fantasy is that we should all work doing what we can to all have our needs met. That none of our work should be controlled by oligarchs or an oppressive state. That we express our needs democratically and work towards that goal together according to our ability. That in this pursuit we're all treated as equals with no one systematically above others.
The capitalist fantasy is like you agreed with that the capitalist class should own everything and use that to control everyone unfettered by regulations.
Yeah, both of those fantasies are both equally unhinged and cruel.
I'm not going to argue about what happens in practise, but to argue that the communist fantasy is as explicitly evil and cruel as the capitalist fantasy is unhinged.
"Nice argument, unfortunately I already depicted you as the soyjack and me as the chad."
Come on, man, this is strawmanning 101. Do you really think I'm dumb enough to fall for that?
Are you serious
Difference is, everyone knows bioshock is entertainment. And no one bases their actual political philosophy on it.
LOL
LMAO, even