Talk:The Old Man in the Cave

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There is an attempt at analysis of this episode, that it revolves around faith. Faith in what? Goldsmith? The Computer. The Soldiers?

What starts out as a good treatise against the thuggery of Statism, the soldiers pushing people around and asserting their authority simply because they can. But then there's the other authority, Mr. Goldsmith. Is this what we're supposed to believe in? His say so? Because that's what the townspeople have been given. And he failed.

Why the "Old Man in the Cave" hoodwinking? Goldsmith must have known it was a computer, he knew how to open the door. Why the injection of Faith by him? Why not simply allow the townspeople to know that it is a computer, one equipped to detect lethal levels of radioactivity? Wouldn't everyone been better served to know the truth and the reality without shenanigans? That seems to be the lesson.

Yet the episode winds up bolstering blind faith in "betters" and go with it, 'cuz they're right. That's the worst moral lesson of all. There are two types of States of the 20th centuries, or a blending of both, those that physically coerce and those that brainwash. French was the former, Goldsmith the latter. It was French AND Goldsmith together that killed those people. Goldsmith knew the truth and played games with these people. He set himself as the IMPORTANT one, the intermediary between the great unwashed and THE TRUTH. He held a monopoly on where the information was coming from, and treated everyone else like sheep. Goldsmith was greedy too, greedy for bureaucratic power. Once he was revealed to be a liar of sorts, the people revolted. Instead of an informed mass making decisions with all the known data, they were kept intentionally ignorant. That's what you get from the State, fictions and half truths to lull you into complacency. And if that doesn't work, you get the jackboot. And in typical fashion, the failed bureaucrat is left pondering where everyone else went wrong.

But who would have expected any different lesson than the one tossed out by this episode? The whole series exudes Liberal Statism.--12.28.101.34 15:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)