Rapture and Republicans

Now BioShock is a very interesting game.  Sure it has wonderful graphics, great gameplay, and a unique combat system, but its the writing that adds so much to it.  In BioShock we see an objectivist dystopia created by a man named Andrew Ryan.  Oh, he didn't intend for it to be a dystopia.  He intended to be a truly free city.  Free of Government, and Government intervention in the private property of individuals.  He also believed, strongly, in the right of an individual to make a profit from said property.  That being said, Andrew Ryan was the largest property holder, and employer, in his city of Rapture, therefor Ryan was the main one profiting from the city.

There was no real government in Rapture, except the whims of Andrew Ryan, and Ryan preferred it that way.  There was no one to speak up for the poor, and nobody cared, because Ryan's Rapture was based on self-interest alone and altruism (the belief in a greater good) was considered a great evil of the surface world.  Rapture, you see, was built miles below the surface of the ocean, hidden, so Ryan could preserve his so-called utopia from the governments of the world.

And in Andrew Ryan's city, Free Enterprise is the only economic philosophy allowed.  Everything is for sale, from the air that one breaths to a walk in the woods.  Nothing, absolutely nothing is offered for free.  And in Free Enterprise, because enterprise is allowed to regulate itself, there is nothing protecting the people from predatory business practices.  Also there is no safety regulations, no checking of goods and services for anything that could harm the customers, no medicine is checked for side effects, and none of the regulations that keep people relatively safe did not exist.

In Rapture, a scientist discovered that a sea slug's bite had cured a man's hands that had been crippled.  Research proved that this sea slug created a substance that modified a person's genetic code to make all of a person's cells into stem cells.  This it had great curative properties, and the potential for a great many other things.  Thus Adam, the genetic altering substance secreted by the sea slug, was born.  Adam caused a new business of selling of custom genetic modifications, called Plasmids, to be created.  People could gain fantastic powers such as the ability to shoot lightening from one's hand, light fires with a snap of one's fingers, or even lift and move objects with one's mind.  Adam revolutionized plastic surgery making it possible to simply sculpt flesh like clay, and even gave a botanist the idea for a formula to resurrect dead plant tissue.

However, the side effects of Adam were not discovered, until it was too late.  Adam as it turned out was addictive, caused insanity, and induced deformities.  By the time these side effects were discovered, the hard way, Rapture had become a city filled with insane deformed Adam addicts with fantastic powers, who turned against each other to extract the Adam from each other, and from wherever they could get it.

And in the real world, we have Politicians, especially Republicans, calling for the striking down of regulations that protect the people, especially the poor, from things that could cause them harm.

"Oh, but we're good Christian people," the Republicans would say, "we have the divine moral compass that the atheists refuse to have."  However, I've seen "Good Christians" overcome by greed.  I've seen "Good Christians" say that altruism is evil, when living for the Greater Good is what was taught by Jesus Christ.

The lesson, here, is that any philosophy, especially economic philosophy, will look good on paper.  However, when you add people, that's when things get complicated, because people are a mixed bag of self-centeredness, and a belief in community.

The second lesson is that anything taken to extremes will always fail.

I'll cover that, in my next entry.