This is at least my conclusion:
Red pill makes you rejected by the system, which is why it purges the body into the water after ejecting them from The Matrix. Blue pill makes you forget the experience, putting you back into your former life.
I'd imagine either having no idea where you are and why you're naked, slimy, and swimming, or outright going full blown amnesiac from having no data to reset toward.
Being outside of The Matrix with no memory of what it's like on the inside I'd imagine would be... very different.
Yeah. If they ever they create the holodeck, I might well be screwed, on account of a propensity for abject hedonism.
But honestly, I'd want the power that comes from knowledge, and the rush elicited by doing something that requires true courage.
That's the real juice. I love pushing my limits.
Pushing limits indeed. Imagine being able to train yourself to being used to fighting with injuries without actually hindering yourself for the experience? Being able to fight realistic AI enemies with (what feels like) your own body? Being able to program a simulator where you suddenly have access to super powers? Programming unrealistic foes like Mortal Kombat's "Goro" to learn how to think outside the box in combat scenarios? Even just building maps that can be explored in the first person makes their VR scenario extremely appealing.
It'd probably just make me dissociate from myself overtime, but it'd be a real trip and a half until that point. If I became capable of doing courageous things, it'd be purely from not connecting when my life is actually on the line versus when it's not.
Yeah, but you're forgetting that Neo was just a patsy until he had the courage to take the red pill. Before then, it was office schlepping for him, along with all the other clueless. He fell in line, just like the rest of them.
He got to try those amazing simulators only because he was willing to push his limits in the first place. It is easy to be "brave" within the context of some fake simulated reality, where true danger never poses a threat...
Call me old-fashioned, but that is not the stuff of real courage. I'd prefer the real deal.
Oh of course it's not the source of real courage, but you know it'd be damn fun to be able to go beyond the limits of your mortal frame in a setting where it feels realistic (at first anyway).
I also concede that I am not brave. I am more of the type to follow calculated risks. If I suddenly seemed brave, it'd be from me becoming desensitized more than anything (think Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2, not for the chronic whining, but for his creepy disconnection from reality). In a movie setting, trope-wise, I'd be the Lancer at best. I am far from main character material.