Darkangel754
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2016–2021
2:50 · 328K views · Dec 2, 2009
A 1080p widescreen capture of the Deus Ex conversation between JC Denton and the AI Morpheus. It is a philosophical exchange that includes surveillance as a replacement for God.
Commenters call it one of the game's best dialogues and bring it up in discussions of mass surveillance.
3 comments from Hacker News
> to be honest it still just came across as conspiracy gibberish to my ear Warren Spector said that his initial idea for the game was "what if every conspiracy theory was true?", so that's pretty intentional. So as long as you buy into that conceit, there's a lot of amazingly clever writing in the game. My favorite conversation in the game is probably the one with the AI Morpheus: this video
There is that concept that people are comfortable with surveillance, even want it. A maybe somewhat fringe pop cultural reference to that is in Deus Ex (2000), the best video game made so far: > JC Denton: "Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance." > Morpheus: "The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms." > JC Denton: "Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence." > Morpheus: "God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary." > JC Denton: "No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera." > Morpheus: "The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment." One can watch it at this video , but it's stronger when experienced as part of the game.
We used to play Deus Ex 1 in a pair. The game was so different for each player and their playing style that it never got boring. We completed the whole game in this way. One highlight that I remember was the explanation of mass surveillance being a replacement for less religion in a society. In the past people censored themselves because God was always watching. It was hoped that people would continue to censor themselves because Echelon was always recording and datamining. this video This was an optional cut scene and not part of the main story -- my friend found this, I never got this cut scene when I played. I agree that Deus Ex 1 is so special that anything after does not compare. This does not belittle the sequels, its just that the original was so good.