 But the argument to stay is look how much money and what do I have out there? I have nothing out there. These are all losers and we'll get that's an important important theme about this. All of the people playing the game for one reason or another, their fault or not their fault are losers. And they vote 50-50 and then one vote says to leave. So they leave. Now they have a chance to stay on the outside. They know what the game's about. They know it's a life or death. And yet 80% of them choose to return to the game. Even the people who voted to leave choose to go back because when they go back, they realize how lousy, crummy, horrific, horrible their life is on the outside. Now this is all set in modern day South Korea. Now in what sense are these losers? They're poor. They're in debt, all of them in debt, some form or another. Almost all of them though are losers because they're losers. The gamble, I mean the hero of the show. The person who wins the squid game at the end. The guy who is center focus of the Thai series. Is somebody who cannot make a living. Who steals money from his mother who's dying throughout the show. In order to gamble. Who then loses the money he gambled to a pickpocket. Somebody who cannot, who has a daughter and a wife that have left him. He's trying to regain the trust of a daughter but can't. He's just a loser. He's poor. He lives with his mother. He's probably, I don't know, 40 years old, lives with his mother. His daughter's going to leave for America. He can't do anything about it. He has no money. He's massively in debt. The gangsters are after him. They're going to take his eye out and take his organs to pay off the debt. It's like Shylock from the merchant of Venice. They're going to extract a pound of flesh. And he can't do anything about it. The only time he gets in money is because he gets lucky in gambling on horses. And then the money is stolen from him. But he's a nice guy loser. Nice guy in quotes because he's not really nice. He's an altruist. Maybe that's why he's a loser. He values other people's lives above his own life. And this is part of the theme. He wins the Squid Game in spite of the fact that he is constantly making stupid decisions. He's constantly making decisions for the benefit of others where his life is at risk. He's constantly behaving altruistically for the sake of other people. Not to win and yet he's the one who wins. It has to be him because he's the only one who doesn't consistently constantly act to win. And the other main character who is the finalist with him at the end of the show is the brains of the operation. This is the smart guy. Now he grew up with our quote hero in the same slums. His mother works a fish stall in the slum. He started out dirt poor. But he is the pride of the neighborhood. He went to university. He got out. He got a great job. And his mother thinks he's in America on a business trip. What actually has happened and again crucial to the theme is he has committed fraud. He's embezzled millions and millions and millions of dollars. Money he can never repay unless he wins the game. But he is the example of the guy who got out. And yet didn't. There were a bunch of other characters, a criminal, a male criminal, a desperate female, a female with a child that she can't support, a couple. It's not clear why they're their husband and a wife. But of all the characters, there are only two that are, well, actually three that are sympathetic. Only three that are decent human beings. None of these people are decent human beings. And this is the thing that the hero is a loser, but a horrible loser, an addict to gambling. Somebody who doesn't actually love his mother because he steals money from it, doesn't actually love his daughter because he betrays her constantly. And yet this is the guy. Yeah, Ali, we'll get to capitalism, we'll get to that. I think the theme of this movie is far deeper than capitalism. I think capitalism is one of the themes. That is one of the themes is this question of capitalism. But I really think the theme of it is much deeper than capitalism and we'll get to that. So there are only three characters in this game, 456, that we get to know who are decent human beings. One is an immigrant from Pakistan, not very smart, strong, but no smarts who is ultimately brutally and disgustingly betrayed by the man he comes to respect and admire and form a friendship with, which is the smart one, the embezzler, the fraudster. And he is, he dies knowing that he was completely betrayed, he was cheated and betrayed. The second positive character is a girl who's there because she's been in jail. We don't see much of her. We see her in one episode really. We really get to know her in one episode and then she's killed in that episode. But she basically decides that she'd rather die. Oh, I need to talk to you about this episode because it's a powerful episode. It's only episode that's really powerful, but it's also super evil. She has killed her father and she was in jail for that because her father killed her mother and abused her. So she's innocent. And then the third is a North Korean refugee, a girl who's escaped North Korea with a brother whose father was killed during the escape, whose mother is still in North Korea, and she's trying to get the money to get her mother back and to get her brother out of an orphanage. Those three, so, and they're all, you know, they're all killed. Two of them are killed in episode six and the last one is killed in episode seven or eight. And they're killed brutally and again betrayal and the one basically she chooses her own death. Think about this game for a minute, right? Your odds of winning, let's say it's luck, is one in 456. If you lose, you die. Who would play this? Who would play this? Yeah, like the Marvel episode is the best episode by far because it's the most touching, it's the most emotional. It's the most interesting and reveals the characters for who they really are. It's the most personal. They team up in twos to play a game, but they don't know what the game is going to be. So many of them team up strategically. The smart one goes with the guy who has a lot of muscle. And the idea is that they're going to be partners. They're going to play against other teams. Our hero teams up with the old guy who's dying anyway because somebody needs to team up with the old guy and it's the altruistic thing to do. It's the stupid thing to do. It's the losers thing to do. And the two girls team up because they kind of trust each other. But it turns out that the game is not against other teams. The game is these couples playing against each other. For example, a husband and wife have to play against each other where one of them must die. And this episode is hard to watch because the smart guy manipulates the strong guy even though they're supposed to be friends, uses his trust, abuses his trust and kills him basically. Our hero lies to the old man, which is the right thing to do in that circumstance because the old man is dying anyway and we'll get to the old man in a minute. Cheats him and the old man dies or at least we think he does. And the two girls after telling each other their life stories, the girl who was in jail basically commits suicide, gives in, loses the game on purpose so that the North Korean can live. The only act of nobility I think in the entire series, I'm interested in anybody else thinks otherwise, the only act, really noble act, the only act of any worth in the whole freaking series. Anyway, all kinds of games and they keep figuring out new ways to kill people so the violence is gratuitous. It's all the time. There's blood everywhere. They're mangled organs. There's brain splattered over the walls. You know, the bodies just pile up nonstop throughout the show. No, no thinking over more snow questioning just bodies upon bodies upon bodies. At some point the players in the game realize that they could kill each other even in their off time, even when the game's not on. So they start fighting among each other and try to kill each other and some of the key deaths happen not in the game but during the off time and that's not cheating. That's part of the game. Now of course, who is running this game or rich people? Why are they running this game? For their own amusement and we'll get to that in a minute. Rich people are being entertained by these people slaughtering each other, killing each other, dying for each other. So what is the theme of this? What is this trying to convey? What is the message that this is telling the viewer? The message is that human beings are pathetic miserable evil creatures. And the things that corrupts them beyond identification but beyond anything is money. Money is the root of all evil. To everybody, everybody there. It's less about the ruling classes. It's less about capitalism. It's much broader than capitalism. People are fundamentally evil and that evil is triggered, exacerbated, manifest when money is involved. It's not about the inability of the poor to rise up and become rich because the guy who goes to university and leaves the thing is poor, becomes rich but they need battles and commit fraud, right? Because money did it because he wanted even more. The guy who starts the game, the guy who invents the game, the guy who sets it up, the guy behind it all turns out to be the old man who was playing. And why did he do it? It turns out he had risen from poverty to wealth. He grew up good poor and he made it. He succeeded. He made a lot of money and then when he had a lot of money he was bored. He didn't know what to do with it. He was looking for something to do. And human beings, he says, are horrible, evil people. Of course, remember that the context here is altruism. So everything's in the context of why are they evil because they won't help a homeless man who's dying in the street. That's the standard, right? Yeah, I like that one of Friedman. Money kills, people don't. Well, money causes people to kill. People are predisposed to kill. People are evil and money brings it out in them. See, he's doing it because he's bored because he doesn't believe in human beings because they're all evil anyway. So why not have a good time? The people who come to watch the games are mostly Americans. I think maybe there's a Chinese there, they're wearing masks. They're just ugly, horrible, you know, caricatures of rich dudes who just want to see people slaughtering each other. It's the games of Rome, but there's a difference. It was hard for me to watch. So Landon says, how did you want stomach watching? It was very hard for me to watch. I did not enjoy it one bit. I did it for you guys. It was a sacrifice. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I got paid to watch it. I would have never watched it if nobody paid me. Because how truly horrible it really is, particularly in its theme. Again, the only redeemable characters are people who need money in order to save themselves, save their family because of North Korea, but you would think in a proper society, a refugee from North Korea wouldn't have to do this to save themselves. So it's definitely a criticism of capitalism that creates this. But in South Korea, there's this deep distrust of inequality that goes back to South Korea's history. South Korea's history of basically a feudal country in which they were lords and serfs. If you think about Mr. Sunshine, they are lords and they are serfs. And that kind of inequality is abhorrent and it's abhorrent to the South Koreans. And most of the TV shows that are good, that I found in Korean, that have been good, that I've really enjoyed have dealt with that. But this is, of course, modern South Korea, where many of those old, you know, fixed inequalities based on birth are gone. Where much of society, maybe not all, maybe still problem society is determined by merit. But there is still that ingrained hatred of inequality. You saw that in the Academy Award-Wording Movie Parasite, which I reviewed here, and you can go back and find the video of me reviewing Parasite. I think it was a really good review. But Parasite basically deals with the question of inequality and how inequality seems to inevitably lead to bloodshed. But Parasite was a brilliant movie, visually, dramatically. It was unexpected. It was beautiful visually. And it was somewhat interesting. I have to say that Squid Game has no redeeming feature. It is evil through and through, evil through and through. Again, the guy who wins the game doesn't deserve any of it. He was helped by other people in various times. He benefited from somebody being smart. He benefited from somebody being strong. He was mainly lucky, altruistic. He indeed actively engaged in activities throughout the show that should have resulted in his death, like teaming up with the wrong people. He did all these strategies wrong. So in the end, to win the Squid Games is a matter of luck and altruism. As in life, the winners, the people who rise to the top are lucky, not able. And the money is going to corrupt them. Here's another example of money corrupt. So there's a number of examples of money corrupt. First of all, everybody playing the game for money and putting their life at risk and killing other people for money. But then you've got people who rose up from poverty but commit fraud and stuff. Why? Because of money. Then you've got, by the way, Parasite is a good movie, but again, an evil, horrible theme. Parasite is worth watching because it's as aesthetic value, but the theme, the philosophical theme of the movie was evil. I can't remember what it was right now, but it was wrong. It was bad. It was no good. And then you've got the rich people who stay rich, but then they get bored. So they exploit people to the extent of killing them en masse, hundreds of people. By the way, in Squid Game, it is said that while this Squid Game was being played in 2020, it had started in 1988. It said it had been going on for 32 years. So hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people had died. It had been, no, thousands of people had been killed because some rich guys were bored. But then, just to be clear of how corrupting this is, so you don't mistake this, the winner of the 2015 Squid Game lands up being the guy who runs Squid Game today. He too was corrupted by the money, corrupted to the point of joining the team that puts these on. By the way, the actor who plays that character is the lead actor in Mr. Sunshine. That was pretty horrible. But he's a good actor. He's good. His brother, by the way, in the show in Squid Game is a cop who's trying to figure out all this stuff. And season two will probably have the cop coming back because he was kind of killed, but we never saw the bodies. He's probably not dead. And he's learning all the secrets behind what's going on. All right. So this is a show that is targeted at trying to show you how nasty, evil, pathetic people can be. And people are when they are desperate for money, when they want money, and when they get money. It's not that the poor are noble. The poor might be noble until, no, because the portrayed as scumbags. I mean, the hero is a bad person, even when he's poor. But let's say some of the poor are noble. They're noble until they either get money or they have the opportunity to get money. They're completely corrupted by money. They're no good rich guys. They're no good rich people. By implication, it suggests that capitalism is a system of luck. It's a system of zero sum. I mean, one of the things that Squid Game is illustrating is it's zero sum. Only one person can get that money. All the rest have to die. Talk about zero sum. Doesn't get much more zero sum than that. So this is, I don't think it doesn't really bring up capitalism. It brings up people getting rich. I mean, for all we know, they're getting rich by doing something else. We don't know. There's no economic theory here. Genomic Jam says, what do you think of Tim Paul's take made by someone who doesn't understand capitalism and actually demonstrate communism? I don't think it demonstrates communism. Or capitalism. Why does everything have to be political? In art, it's unusual that things are political. This goes to metaphysical nature of man. That's the theme. Man is rotten. It doesn't matter what system they're in. If they're in communism, they're rotten. If they're in capitalism, they're rotten. Whenever, and if there's opportunities to rise up, they're rotten. And even they'll do horrible things to their loved ones. They'll do horrible things to their friends. They'll do horrible things in order to advance, in order to achieve whatever it is that's going to be achieved. Because human beings are metaphysically horrible. That's the point of the show. That's what the show is trying to conceive. That is the theme. That is the point. And then of course, the criticism of capitalism is that capitalism is what creates inequality of wealth because money is the corrupting factor, the primary corrupting factor. That doesn't take much. But money is the corrupting factor. And of course, money is the symbol of capitalism. But no, this isn't communism. There's no communism here. You don't know how the rich guys made their money. Maybe they made their money by stealing it for everybody else. Maybe they made their money. But there is some criticism of, I think at the end in the final episode, the old man says something about, I made money lending money. So there's a criticism of kind of capitalist, the idea that making money for money is immoral and people that make money from money are the pinnacle of evil. But no, I think it's a mistake to view this as, but people will take it as a criticism of capitalism. People will identify it with capitalism. They'll identify the zero of some nature. They'll identify the rich and the poor. They'll identify this idea that, you know, one of the lead character tells a story about a strike when he was at an auto company where they were attacked by the police. They were striking and they lost his job and his life deteriorated since then. But these are all excuses because he has described in the show as a loser from beginning to end. So, yeah, you could view it as a criticism of modern South Korea to the extent that that's capitalist. Then it's of capitalism. It's a critique of any system that creates inequality of any kind. A lot of the, during the games, some of the rhetoric of the people organizing the games, the people putting them on, is here you're all equal. None of you have more than the other. But of course they're not because some of them are smart, some of them are strong. But that doesn't matter in there because in a sense the games are set up that no one characteristic will get you to win. A lot of it's just plain luck. But it's set up as if here we have real equality. Here there's real equal opportunity or equal outcome. You're either dead or you're rich. That's it. So it's not, it's definitely egalitarian in its projected ideal but then what it shows as egalitarianism is death and destruction. So the movie has, it's not advocating for anything. And really what it's advocating for, really what it's advocating for is nihilism. It's nothingness. It's death, destruction and really the worship of zero in Iron Man's terminology. This is, it's altruism is a virtue. Nobody lives up to their altruist ideal. Everybody, everybody is corrupt. The ones who are not corrupted just gonna die miserable. Everybody's corrupt. Everybody's corrupt a bill. Money is the primary means in which people are corrupted. What's the point? There is no point. There is no point fighting this. This, by the way, in the squid game there's a scene in which it's indicated that every country has its squid game. This is not just one squid game in the world but these things are going on everywhere in the world supposedly. The Americans say, oh the Koreans, they put on the best squid games. But what's the positive point of the movie there is not? It's just life sucks. It's dark, depressing, violent, gross. Again, well made, well acted. I think particularly the episode about playing marbles is particularly powerful from a character development perspective and you get a sense of the characters, their emotions, their lives, their back story. But in my view, do yourselves a favor and don't watch it. Don't watch it. The real question we should be asking ourselves is why is this the most watched series ever on Netflix? It's got mixed reviews from places like The New York Times. The New York Times did not give it a good review, quite a negative review actually. But it's getting some very good reviews. Certainly on Rotten Tomatoes it's got a 90-something percent of score. Why do people like this? And I really do think this show reflects back to the sudden despair that people seem to have. A set of beliefs that are coming together in our culture, cultural value deprivation, very good Travis, absolutely. A set of, a sense in our culture that something in the world is very wrong. A real distrust of one's fellow man, growing sentiment towards capitalism, but towards money, towards inequality. There's the story about inequality that's been told now for over 10 years, for 12 years, over and over and over and over again about the evils of inequality. And it's become a cultural thing. And there's an idealism in the culture. There's an evil under the surface. Remember not that long ago, we had Nazis and communists pulling the trigger on innocent people, slaughtering them in massive numbers. And there are people like Richard Wolff who still defend those slaughters. They pretend they're not slaughters, but that's what they pretend. We have a world in chaos, a world where millions of people have died from a disease, nobody really understands, and nobody believes anybody about everything is suspect, everything is politicized. Some people made a lot of money during this period. Some people did not. Yeah, I mean, this is, this is, this series is about the nihilism of Antifa. This is, this is equity, not equality, not equality before the law and not equality of rights, but equity. Certainly this is a good illustration of the conservative equality of opportunity. Think about life. Life is a game. Life is squid games. You either succeed or you lose. And the way to succeed is to make sure others lose this, because only some people can win. Not everybody can win. I don't know. There's not enough food on the planet. There's not enough stuff. There's too much pollution. There's too much CO2. Not everybody can be winners. So the world is structured where only some people can win. And the winners win it all. And the losers lose it all. And, oops, it looks like I deleted some, that's one of your comments I deleted by accident. Can't un-deleted, unfortunately, sorry. It's completely zero sum. In a sense, it's negative sum. And that's just the world. That's just life. And I don't know. You know, the fact that this has done so well, the fact that this was so successful, it really makes you wonder about the human race and what it's coming to. And what values of any do they have? It's, I have to say, it's pretty depressing to know that the show was as successful, as popular as it turned out to be. Now I'm curious if anybody liked it. So I'm curious if anybody wants to ask a super chat question from the perspective of liking the show. But it's clearly a show about the evil of money and the evil deep in human beings' hearts. Deep in human beings' hearts. And again, nothing redeemable. The nice guy is an altruist. He's not a good guy. And at the end of the day, this is nihilism. There's nothing else. It's not the theme of the movie is not nihilism. The theme of the movie is the gravity of human beings. But the only positive message, the only positive idea that can come out of such a view of humanity is to hell with it all. What's the point? There is no point. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. 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