Annotated 31-22
I really want to single out John here. Flo’s script gave him some good instruction, but the sort of pure joy that takes hold of HR when he speaks is very difficult to convey in a way that makes him look not like a raving madman, but someone whose ideas you would want to follow. Look at panel 3, especially: it’s like I can feel misting rain on his face.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with falling in love with abstractions, in seeing the face of God in them, even in hoping to become a little more godlike by exploring them with our minds. It’s only that last little step in panel 4 that moves into hubristic territory, and at this point it still halfway sounds like he’s just continuing his lovely thought experiment.
As some have pointed out, this isn’t too far from Plato’s own Theory of Forms, but HR’s putting his own spin on it. In Plato’s view this was a realm we could only just picture with the mind: in HR’s, it’s an attainable goal.
Whenever I get thrown in some open sandbox game where you can do “whatever you want” I end up leaving almost immediately out of lack of direction. Imagine turning God. I’d be bored out of my mind. Maybe create some dumb monkeys in my image and likeness and log off reality and forget about it entirely.
But that’s just me, y’know?
Perhaps it’s the former game tester in me, or my latent urge to develop games, but I don’t think I’d be bored. There’s too much experimenting to do, even if you ignore the potential to create life (which is easy; life already does that).
My problem would more likely be that, having attained freedom from concerns of survival, want, and danger, I’d quickly lose the necessary perspective to determine what is in my own best interest – because nothing would be an obstacle to satisfaction.
Though I suppose a sufficiently omnipotent being could redefine criteria like that without a thought.
Which is equally unnerving.
I seem to recall this was the first of a great many pages where I thought about making “Object-Oriented Programming” jokes in the comments
I see nothing wrong with anything HR says here. It only becomes evil when he decides it’s ok to do things like murder people to pursue his ideals. If he could attain “godhood” by doing good deeds, then it would be an awesome way of life.
Yeah, for all we know he just dreams of creating the most amazing giant Pad Thai mountain right now.
Honestly though, who is going to stop playing cultist simulator just because you need a tiny bit of human sacrificing to get through a gate that isn’t really a gate or whatever. I mean, having gotten that far it is only ‘fair’ that some other shmuck do their part.