Just a few extra arms needed

There's conflicting stories about it so it's hard to verify, but apparently the battery thing was a rewrite.

Apparently originally the people plugged into the matrix were meant to be the very hardware the matrix was run on. As in all their brains together formed a literal neural network that provided the processing power to run the matrix. This is then why knowing it's not real and believing you can do "the impossible" within the matrix can cause you to be able to bend reality. The story goes that executives thought it was too high of a concept for audiences to grasp and demanded the change to the battery explanation to make it simpler to follow.

the trans allegory kicks ass so we can ignore an inconsistency or two

Yeah, humans would never destroy natural resources in favor of some tech fix or just kinda assume that the planet would fix itself... /s

My headcannon on the human battery thing is that the machines have core programming to make reasonable efforts to preserve human life. Designing power reactors (look how thick the cores are on the towers) with humans slapped to the side technically aligns with the core programming while allowing them to stick it to us apes. It's also why the attack on Zion was one tentacle abductor machine for each human instead of dumping super plague down the hole and calling it a day.

Let people grow, man.

Was referring to the Animatrix 1st and 2nd Renaissance genius.

Fight Club really hits different when you realize the main character is Tyler Durden

Avatar really hits different when you realize the Navi are just defending themselves.

Indiana Jones really hits different when you realize the bad guys are Nazis.

Jurassic park really hits different when you realize John Hammond ignored all the warnings.

John Wick really hits different when you realize they killed his dog.

Star Wars really hits different when you realize the chosen one bringing balance meant revitalizing the dark side.

... Old men like me don't bother with making points. There's no point.

They don't say that in the first movie.

Sometimes I worry about 40k fans. Like "most times I hear about it."

Why wouldn’t they have made the simulation awesome for everyone? Of course if you make it shitty some people might start to wonder about battery pod life in the cave.

So you choose The Matrix? 🤔

I’ve worked in open plan offices my entire 20 year career and I yearn for the cheap fabric covered mines.

That's the fun part, in that time, cubicles were seen as terrible, dystopian, cheapass things because folks used to have offices, and how much cheaper could it really get than some flimsy modular furniture for you to sit at?

Then the companies gestured to just some tables in a room and said "figure it out, and no assigned seating, so just figure it out each day" to show how cheap and how little regard they have for the employees.

At this rate, I fully expect in the next few years for the next wave in office space optimization:

This was 1999; it was standard.