Westworld's Deep Reading: How Stories Shape Us

Westworld is an extended metaphor for storytelling. We look at what the series tells us about writing good stories and how stories shape the way we think about our reality.

Transcript provided by Youtube:

00:00
[Music]
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you practice witchcraft we speak the
00:09
right words and we create life itself
00:13
out of chaos Westworld is about more
00:17
than consciousness androids and whether
00:19
freewill is actually possible the show’s
00:21
premise is also an extended metaphor for
00:24
storytelling would you like that today
00:26
small part of my new narrative fiction
00:29
works like all great stories is rooted
00:32
in truth as we watch Anthony Hopkins
00:35
Ford and his team oversees a theme park
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of androids we think of a writer or
00:40
director making his characters imitate
00:42
life and maybe even come truly alive
00:44
bring yourself back online
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hello West world gets it how to tell a
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good story what the point is and even
00:55
more fundamentally how repetitive story
00:58
tropes dominate the way we think about
01:00
our real life most people tend to
01:02
dismiss fictions as harmless apes but
01:04
season one sets out to show us that the
01:07
way we internalize and believe in
01:10
fictional stories is the key to shaping
01:12
our choices identity and actual reality
01:15
beware this video contains major
01:18
spoilers for Westworld season 1 the very
01:23
first images in the opening credits
01:25
allude to the history of film and
01:27
television we see an iris like the human
01:29
eye or a camera lens then a moon an
01:32
allusion to George Melies 1902 early
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special-effects movie a trip to the moon
01:37
and a horse resembling the 1878 moving
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image of a racehorse by Eadweard
01:43
Muybridge
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considered to be the first film ever the
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androids body emerges first in a mold
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shaped like the Vitruvian Man recalling
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Leonardo da Vinci’s painting and thus
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art but also the idea of creating the
01:56
ultimate mystery of life embodied in a
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human beings ideal proportions and
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playing God we then see more images of a
02:03
camera itself in people having sex which
02:06
is a fundamental act of creation at
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least organic creation in this opening
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sequence alone
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Westworld reveals its master plan it
02:15
wants to take us on a journey to explore
02:17
the history of visual storytelling it’s
02:20
making us realize that the things beings
02:22
and tropes we choose to create from our
02:24
own world as we become heuristic godlike
02:27
creators or storytellers reveal our
02:30
deepest natures we should note that the
02:32
meta interest in storytelling shouldn’t
02:34
be surprising given that Westworld is
02:36
co-created by Jonathan Nolan the brother
02:39
of Christopher Nolan whose inception can
02:41
also read as an extended analogy for
02:44
filmmaking we also have a video on that
02:46
if you’re interested all commercial
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storytelling is defined by the pole
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between entertainment and art the series
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talks to us about what good stories
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should be about they should be more than
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basic uses entertainment that
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underestimates the audience even if it’s
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true that most viewers are seeking some
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primary releases the maze represents
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that hidden sacred meaning we’re seeking
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in stories while entertainment answers
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basic desires like sex violence or the
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need to laugh art grabs the heart via
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subtle nuances and feeds our big-picture
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quest to understand the mysteries of our
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own lives on the outer level of the park
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is the superficial blockbuster style
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entertainment for entertainments sake
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questing grits and Braves seducing new
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ball maidens Logan whose family business
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owns a stake in the park
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and resize more the narrative director
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who resembles a hotshot studio header
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producer believe most people just want
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flashy spectacle and easy cheap thrills
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gun hits
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and the numbers indicate these surface
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entertainments are why most people come
03:56
to the park just as our box office stats
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suggest that’s why most people want
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movies in TV
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most of the guest is one a warm body to
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shoot or to fuck it would be perfectly
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happy with something a little less broke
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but viewing the Clarks solely as a means
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of getting off with robots or making
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money is unenlightened not accesing is
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full death even worse it can turn the
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park into an excuse to let out darker
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crews for borderline sociopathic
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tendencies like a repressed urge to kill
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and use women the only thing your story
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tells me mr. Sizemore it’s who you are
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the mistake is thinking that pushing the
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storyline to outrageous inhumane depths
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will heighten people’s enjoyment what
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they’re missing is that deep down people
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want intimate connection to put
04:47
themselves in the shoes of the
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characters and ultimately imagine their
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best selves not their worst to keep
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audiences returning stories must inspire
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us they’re not looking for story that
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tells them who they are they already
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know who they are they here because they
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want a glimpse of who they could be the
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sacred core of the place is embodied by
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the maze the man in black chases the may
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symbolizes the idea that a good story
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has a deeper meaningful truth at its
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center and we must doggedly pursue this
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truth to uncover what the story and our
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lives are really about the man in black
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has spent decades in the park trying to
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give meaning to his life yet he’s been
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frustrated games not worth playing if
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your opponent’s program to lose one of
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them to be free free to fight back but
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then in the final moments of season one
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Jiri engages the characters fighting
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back to make him believe again that the
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story has a life of its own and the
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meaning of his life is still to be found
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there
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many details in Westworld can be read as
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advice to other Creators living in this
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world is Magic acceptable attrition when
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foreign tells his staff to be ruthless
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with the Android he resembles a
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screenwriter who might remind his pupil
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not to pull their punches doesn’t get
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cold doesn’t feel ashamed doesn’t feel
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assault to think that we haven’t told it
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a good story teller must remember the
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artifice not get sucked into feeling too
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much or be deceived by their own tricks
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the show compares the artistic creator
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to both a god and a parent Bernard
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satisfaction when to Laura shows an
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original thought is likened to a parents
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feeling at seeing a child develop did I
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ever tell you about the time I taught
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Charlie to swim for hours he clung to my
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arms while practicing his kicks he was
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too scared to let go and I was too
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scared to let him but I had too many
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parents do at first a writer creates
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characters that are really like robot
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programmed predictable not living but
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the ultimate dream is to create
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characters that come alive and think for
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themselves even if that’s also
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terrifying for both a parent or
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storyteller the ultimate goal is to see
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the creation outgrow the Creator on one
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level the conflict between West world’s
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two original creators Arnold and Ford
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can be read as representing the ongoing
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struggle between total commitment to the
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creative goal which can lead to madness
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or compromise which can lose track of
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artistic intent whereas Ford is
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initially happy just to imitate
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consciousness Arnold wants to go all the
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way and actually recreate it like a true
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God at the end of season 1
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Ford’s final repetition of Arnold’s act
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shows his committing totally to his
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creation and this time it’s pure because
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theoretically Delores as Wyatt has a
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choice the act entails sacrificing
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oneself to let the art live on its own
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for invokes musicians like Chopin whose
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work thought live them in order for it
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to be real music
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it has to have life beyond the musician
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Mozart Beethoven and Chopin never died
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they simply became music some have
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speculated that hoard could have created
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a droid version of himself simple
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handshake would give them away with this
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twist for it could be extending his own
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storyline and quite literally fashioning
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his form to act like an immortal god the
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choice of the western genre as the theme
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of the park signals that the show is
08:37
deconstructing entertainment westerns
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dominated TV in its infancy with popular
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shows like The Lone Ranger Gunsmoke the
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Roy Rogers show maverick and Bonanza by
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choosing a Western Westworld evoke that
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early era of television the 1940s to the
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early 60s the ancestor to HBO is
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self-conscious it’s not TV TV
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it’s as if Westworld the series itself
09:01
is an Android coming into consciousness
09:03
a TV show looking at itself it’s
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imitating the actions of early
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straightforward TV westerns while
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developing a metacritic of what’s going
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on on screen the creation itself is
09:14
self-aware the Western is also one of
09:17
the most analyzed and studied genres one
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is constantly revived and revised and
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repetition is a key theme in Westworld
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Evan Rachel Wood Dolores is programmed
09:27
to drop a can every day so that some
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lucky guy can come to her rescue into
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small moment highlights that were hooked
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by the same small and simple things over
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and over and stories are often about
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finding beauty in slight variations on
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the same theme man economy we constantly
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revisit the same basic plots and
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character tropes from real angles think
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of a hero overcoming a monster
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rags-to-riches a quest likewise our
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favorite memories in our own lives are
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revisited over and over each time almost
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the same but slightly edited the
10:01
repetitions in Westworld also
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demonstrate how much of our actual
10:05
speech and thinking and our daily lives
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is so predictable and mindless that it
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might as well be scripted or programmed
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some people choose to see the ugliness
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in school stuff lose all scripted
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responses improvisation only we can
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easily come to prefer self-contained
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memories in crypto world that requires
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us to constantly edit and rewrite a
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messy ongoing story Ford even comes to
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regard his own perfect characters as
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better than real humans repetitions can
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become a comfort to us but one that
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doesn’t challenge us may be like Dolores
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or may we’re following the mindlessly
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repetitive path without questioning it
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until something comes along it Pierce’s
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that bubble and we start to think
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differently I want you to break it to
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hell with me and rub the gross blind
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stories are also our means of change in
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transformation they empower us to reach
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for more than our given life the crux of
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the Aquarian impulse our desire to be
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more is both heuristic and dangerous but
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also it is most beautiful and deeply
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human about us as Dolores transitions
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from droid to conscious being it is this
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very lust for more that makes her feel
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suddenly human casas the appealing
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damsel in distress
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feminine Dolores boldly sub salt over a
11:25
role to claim a bigger story I mentioned
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a story read in Naknek damsel she
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becomes the hero and then the supposes
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villain it’s not a linear process so we
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learn she’s been here before he knew we
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find you and eventually he did right
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back where we started
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shining with that same light
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[Music]
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that you were nothing if not true
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[Music]
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deciding to change isn’t a moment that
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happens as many movies lead us to
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believe in the blink of an eye we don’t
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have one revelation and then everything
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is permanently different real change is
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iterative Westworld complicates all this
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by casting doubt on whether we can even
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be fully in control of our choices in
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consciousness the recurring player piano
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makes us wonder it’s a conscious player
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in our own minds is never actually there
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after Maeve seems to be rebelling
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against her programming to escape we
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learn that someone’s been reprogramming
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her to do just that escape so while the
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show inspires us to step out of our same
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old stories it also tells us we may have
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to accept a new level of powerlessness
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or not it’s possible we don’t have free
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will
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perhaps the key to these questions lies
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in the moment when Maeve chooses to go
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find her daughter even knowing that the
13:02
park owners are controlling her with
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false memories they implanted to make
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her care for an unrelated Android –
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Maeve the knowledge that her mother bond
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isn’t real
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doesn’t matter the same goes for us and
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the stories that embed themselves deeply
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in our heart it makes no difference how
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thoroughly they can be disproven in fact
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an intellect once it takes root that
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story becomes our truth since I was a
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child
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I’ve always loved a good story
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I believe that stories helps us to
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ennoble ourselves to fix of his broken
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on us and to help us become the people
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we dreamed of being lies that told a
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deeper truth
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]