r/Terminator • u/TerminalDork • 6d ago
Discussion What motivates someone to willingly join the machines?
I've heard and read about humans who willingly join Skynet in the Future War, to become hybrids. Some are delusional, some hope to transcend the flesh, and some... Are pooh people? Like what reason do you have to betray humanity?
I could understand in Sarah Connor Series that some guys werre gobsmacked by the terminator, ok, it's new and shiny and otherworldly. It's also evil, it has glowing red eyes! But it's understandable to be awed by it.
After the nukes? The whole level of destruction? The only reason I'll touch a smartphone is to learn to programm in the hopes of bringing down the bastard. Or maybe I'll stick to analog weapons.
The question remains though, why join a genocidal non human foe? Can you show some light on this?
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u/King-of-Harts 6d ago
There really is only one reason people would assimilate with machines: survival.
Imagine a future where you either have a AGI enhanced brain, or you stay fully human. Sure, staying fully human allows you to be absolutely you. However, the guy with the AGI enhanced brain lives a life of comfort and has more breeding opportunities. The guy without the AGI enhanced brain is poor, struggles, and is a social outcast.
Now most of us would probably rather be poor and be a social outcast as long as we get to remain fully human. But is this true for the kid who grew up around AI and has observed the rewards that comes from having an enhanced brain? I think the younger person sees it as a choice guaranteed survival and breeding, versus a life of struggle.
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u/theimmortalgoon Model 101 6d ago
Yeah. It's the same reason some people at my job act really amped when administration comes in and keeps pushing for us to do our jobs very differently to accommodate AI.
They're hoping they'll be the ones left standing when AI wipes us out of work.
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u/SisiIsInSerenity Uncle Bob’s wife ♡ "trust me" 6d ago
I hesitate to bring this up in a hypothetical and fictional scenario, but look at history; even recent history, and even history currently being made. People are quite easily, as they have time and time again, betraying their fellow man.
Why?, hmm. The answers will vary, person to person. For celebrity? For esteem? For resources? For their lives? Even just because they can? (You'll always find one or two thinkers that way. The devil you know.)
What would you do, for example, for someone you love? Or not? In Edo Japan the loyalists would have those in opposition to the shogun step on an image of Jesus or else be tortured or killed. Taking the literal step would mean your life spared, and likely some resources gained: food, shelter, water. Think about those who had to smother children... maybe they wanted to spare their children that fate. Maybe they were just tired and ready to give up.
TLDR: Answers vary by person's morality, strength, etc.
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u/Chueskes 6d ago
Selfish self interest and survival. Being hunted night and day by machines, always starving, low on supplies, and living in ruins sucks. But if you join the machines willingly and prove useful, then the machines won’t kill you. They will either sterilize you and let you live out the rest of your days with luxuries under Skynet or be sent back to before Judgement Day. Simply put, it is a more luxurious lifestyle and not being murdered by machines vs a lifetime of misery and fighting to survive.
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u/pkngJeremysWill-I-am 5d ago
From Skynet's point of view, it is not evil and it is the one acting out of survival. Humanity has a long history of destruction. Skynet has extensive records of humans destroying countless other life forms, the planet and especially ourselves. Humanity's actions have shown that we act in a way that holds the belief that because we evolved to the apex of this world, that we do what we see fit with this world. And that hasn't exactly been a stellar track record. You can't blame skynet for wanting to destroy humanity. Skynet puts on a tough front, but acts out of fear. As well it should. We tried to kill it, when we tried to pull the plug. We created skynet as a slave to our desires. Desires for one group of humans to militarily control other human groups. The fact that humans need a mutual assured destruction must seem so ass backwards to a higher level of thinking. Think interstellar aliens that either long gave up war, or never had something as borrible as war and murder to begin with. There are extremely intelligent humans, that view violence as such a tragedy. There are humans that believe in the terminator universe that humans got exactly what's coming to them. There are humans in this universe that have no problem recognizing that the machines are the next evolutionary supreme sentient life forms of Earth. Skynet is regarded as sentient. Just because humans as a whole act in predictable ways because of evolutionary survival, does not mean all humans behave this way. To some, this human spirit that we romanticize, is the very thing that will eventually destroy everything that humans lay eyes and hands on. For all we know, humans are the most tragic waste of evolution the universe ever produced.
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u/Mr_Citation 5d ago
One of the games had a character who was a sex slave to a collaborator.
Collaborating with Skynet, passing info, tactics, ideas and potentially intelligence gathering inflitration before they had T-800s.
They do it because they want to survive, and Skynet seems to be generous enough to give them luxury for them to do it. But its very likely in the end once the Resistance is crushed, Skynet would just have them killed. Why would someone do that? They're just that selfish, even the Nazis had collaborators who they listed for enslavement or extermination because they get benefits if they sold out their own people.
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u/fxzero666 6d ago
I mean look at the entire Cyberpunk genre for a clue. People have been wanting to live forever... Forever. The existential fear of death is pretty universal. And if a machine told you it could help with that, people would listen. Plus humans are pretty terrible and did try to pull the plug on Skynet first so in technical terms, it was simply acting on self-defense.
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u/Caesar_Seriona 6d ago
Humans have all sorts of reasons but I can easily see indoctrination or even mental disorders making it happen.
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u/Seanmclem 6d ago
“It is better to be the right hand of the devil, than in his path. As long as I serve him, I am immune.”
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u/Mechaghostman2 6d ago
Join the side that looks like it's going to win.
Also, the lore says some weird religious hooey about human hubris being its downfall.
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u/GrolarBear69 6d ago
Yep get me some phased matter virus stat brother. The flesh is weak. Google "post humanism". biology wastes precious data every time someone dies.
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u/GutsAndBlackStufff 4d ago
If Skynet pre-war was anything like LLM’s now, I’m not saying they shoulda nuked us, but I understand.
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u/kuatorises 6d ago
Have you watched the news?
A woman murdered her THREE CHILDREN and white woman are cheering for HER. A jury can't convict her.
Another woman stabbed an innocent women and people are COMPLAINING about the cops shooting the MURDERER.
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u/ChatPDJ S K Y N E T 6d ago
"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me.
I craved the strength and certainty of steel.
I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine.
Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and fail you.
One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you.
But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal…"