It's unethical and unconscionable, and yet they still do it.
---
MORPHEUS: For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living -
NEO (politely): Excuse me, please.
MORPHEUS: Yes, Neo?
NEO: I've kept quiet for as long as I could, but I feel a certain need to speak up at this point. The human body is the most inefficient source of energy you could possibly imagine. The efficiency of a power plant at converting thermal energy into electricity decreases as you run the turbines at lower temperatures. If you had any sort of food humans could eat, it would be more efficient to burn it in a furnace than feed it to humans. And now you're telling me that their food is the bodies of the dead, fed to the living? Haven't you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics?
MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo?
NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!
MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?
(Pause.)
NEO: ...in the Matrix.
MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.
(Pause.)
NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook?
MORPHEUS: There is no such thing, Neo. The universe doesn't run on math.
But I don't think it's been confirmed or denied in any of the material from the franchise. It's just been assumed.
Morpheus could just be wrong.
And the power explanation makes no sense either. Organic life's shtick is that it occupies a niche where complex mechanisms can be actuated through astonishingly low inputs of power via artificial lowering of chemical reaction energy thresholds via creation of ideal reaction conditions by way of catalytic enzymes.
I loved the movies, and they posed some interesting questions at the time, but my God, they have not aged well.
Just thinking of the energy requirements of the Hunter/Killers with their laser thing and the hover nonsense...
I'd be a hit at all the parties I'm not invited to for the curious.
energy is all about the capacity to do work.
how do you make humans do work? you give them money
so money is all about the capacity to make humans do work.
Money is the most quantifiable form of energy we have today.
I don't know if I buy this argument.
Think pre-Columbus Native Americans in North America. Members of tribes still did work without money.
What about people with the most money? Do they do the most work? We need to define what "most work" or "capacity" for work is.
Money is a tool/technology that acts as a bridge between two quantities/qualities. More simple, money is a common means of exchange.
Money is only an incentive to work for poor people because they will die without it. But this has to do with the capitalist system we live in, and it is not inherent to money itself.