Seeing through the Trading Matrix: Taking the Red Pill

Before offering Neo a choice between taking the blue pill or the red pill, Morpheus replies to Neo’s question, “What truth?” by saying:

“That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind…. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more….”

A Bitter Pill

In her article “Popping a Bitter Pill: Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and Nausea,” Jennifer McMahon writes:

“Thus, Neo’s choice between the red and blue pills symbolizes the existential choice between living honestly and living in ignorance.”

Later, when McMahon writes about inauthenticity (taking the blue pill) she says, “Camus describes it as intellectual suicide” (pp. 166-167, The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real).

Eating Goop   

In his article “Human Freedom and the Red Pill’ when referring to the choice between taking the blue pill or the red pill, Peter Boettke states:

“The Matrix puts this choice before us in stark visual terms. The real world is tough and ugly, while the Matrix provides us with the experience of normal human life in 1999. If Neo chooses the blue pill, he doesn’t have to experience eating goop inside the real world” (p. 147, Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix).

The trading matrix entices traders with promises of easy money and easy learning of the secrets of trading. Learn to trade in a day (daytrading?). Since trading is a performance activity and takes many years of properly designed practice to master, a trader may learn to trade not in a day but in a ? And on page 1 of The Trader’s Goop of Life, it states, “At least 90% of all traders lose.”  And this applies to you, too, Mr. Magoo (On the original cartoon series I don’t recall there being a Mrs. Magoo, do you?).