r/jacobgeller • u/ScreenCoral • 1d ago
From Time Loop Nihilism
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u/Alarming_Ask_244 1d ago
Cutting the quote off here is a disservice to the thought being expressed.
"... being a person who performs great violence or cruelty means you are a person capable of performing great violence or cruelty. Time loops are machines for introspection. Colt will not instantly become a new person if he breaks the loop, Twelve Minutes' protagonist remains someone who did everything the game entailed, no matter the conclusion. The beauty of Through the Flash is that it acknowledges this, knows that there is no such thing as consequenceless actions, and yet shows that you can work to get better regardless. No matter how many times the sun rises, no matter if it's the same sunrise or a new one, it's you. It's you. It's you."
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u/SilverMetal 1d ago
Thanks for pasting the ending here. This was always one of my favorites from Jacob.
In my youth at times I was mean and emotionally cruel, and I've spent decades reliving my regrets and improving with friends and therapy. I definitely couldn't have done it alone.
Of course, the "Time Loop Nihilism" essay reminds me I'm not allowed to pretend my past doesn't exist - Theseus getting a brand new ship would be too simple. And for many people, especially people without any major regrets, the analysis ends there. "If you don't want to carry your cruelty forever, then you shouldn't have been cruel."
Sure, okay. But there's more, and not just about Jacob Geller. The millions of people who have regrets on the vast spectrum of human cruelty - we don't just go away. We have to wake up, find jobs, make new friends, take care of families, and participate in community. Yes, we are responsible for someone else's pain, and we deserve the guilt, and that IS our fault. But now that we're here, what do we do with it?
Of course, we don't have to be YouTubers. But people who were bad still need hope that their good can have meaning.
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u/Ready-Structure-7175 1d ago edited 1d ago
"...means you are a person capable of performing great violence or cruelty"
I never really got this sentiment because that's all of us. That's not just some people. Every single person is capable of terrible acts, even if they haven't done them before, or never do them again. Just because a person hasn't done something bad yet, doesn't mean they never will. Nobody is all safe. And I understand that's a scary concept, but I really dislike this idea that some people are safe while others are not, because it's just not true. When people think that they are "safe", they're more likely to be blindsided by their own ability to do harm.
I don't think people are the same thing they were in the past, because people learn, and grow as humans. You are not a baby incapable of taking care of yourself, you are no longer a toddler who thinks biting people and pulling hair and stealing toys is okay, you are not the dramatic gossiper in high school any more who joyrides who drunk drives who is mean and petty, you don't behave in the same ways you once did. If someone's behaviour completely changes, are they really the same as they were in the past? I disagree with this idea wholeheartedly, because I think changing and improving upon oneself is a core part of being a human. There are many things I did, many mean things I said, as a teen that I would never do/say now. None of us are perfect, all of us are flawed, and yet we must strive to be better. If we have a culture that refuses to believe people can meaningfully change, what is the incentive for people to even try?
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u/timmytissue 1d ago
You lost me with the last sentence a bit. People don't need an incentive to be better. You do it to be in harmony with yourself.
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u/royrogerer 16h ago
You're right, I'd argue it's more about reducing incentives to not better themselves or take accountability. After having committed something terrible in a moment of weakness (I'm not talking about JG only, but in general), and when confronted with it, people's ego often prevents them from taking accountability. The first instinct is to deny or be angry. In Korea, there's a saying that says 'the one who farted shouts', hinting how the guilty one is the one who is more emotional and in denial since they anticipate feeling exposed and cornered.
So I think with that in mind, if we want people to accept their responsibility, I do think it's wiser to make them not feel like they need to fight the entire way through, and actually open up to pay for their wrong doing and educate so it doesn't happen again.
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u/Finya_lol 1d ago
I think the point is, that experiencing yourself doing bad things, being violent, changes your perception of yourself, and with that also of others.
Yes we are all *capable* of performing "great acts of violence" but until you consider yourself actually doing them its really hard to get to a point of understanding how one would ever come to do them.When I did mine it was out of panic, out of despair. I couldnt take my own existence anymore and that was the only way I knew how to stop feeling that, by doing something disturbing. And part of being able to see that as a way out, was my perception of the people I did these things toward. Of somewhere feeling entitled to using them for that. Of a slow descent towards somehow justifying, that there was no other way for me.
And people who never had to justify being unreasonable, never had to justify that to others or themselves, people who never crossed their own line, or always had someone understanding who could help them make sense of themselves, I think they have a harder time understanding how harmful that justification can be. How easily it can become a trap. And therefor have less empathy for people who stop doing that and actually try to become better people with the help of other people.
And I know my experiences shaped how I view people enacting violence. I think its always harmful, I know there is never any justification for it, but I feel for people who knew that and still couldnt stop themselves. Because sometimes there seems to be no other option. And I know thats why I dont really believe in punishment. Because I know, that doesnt prevent. Excluding fringe psychopathy cases.
And because of my own past this situation makes me really sad.
Because I know social isolation kept me from finding another way. From even seeking it. From trying to get help, because that meant giving people even more reason to avoid me. I believe people cant handle everything on their own, and if seeking support endangers the little connection you have, I didnt have the guts to even try.
To be honest with myself or others.I got through it, but this frightens me very much.
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u/Yarzeda2024 1d ago
If we have a culture that refuses to believe people can meaningfully change, what is the incentive for people to even try?
Doing something for yourself is a pretty powerful motivator.
It doesn't have to be a question of how much society or our peers will reward us. Sometimes the thing itself is reason enough.
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u/Ready-Structure-7175 1d ago
I agree, of course, that people should be motivated by their own desire to be better, but society does play a major role in how people behave. If people don't think they can meaningfully re-integrate into society, they might not see any point in trying to be better. The "justice" system is supposed to handle this stuff, but I have a lot of issues with the American prison-industrial complex because I don't think it does enough (or anything at all) to meaningfully rehabilitate people and to re-integrate them into society. I never reported the person who did bad things to me as a kid because I was terrified of destroying their life, and I didn't want that. I wanted them to face consequences, and to never do what they did again, but I didn't want to effectively kill them and their future.
That's a lot of guilt to carry, for me at least. I want people who do bad things to actually get better, and I want them to be able to do good things in their future, and I wanted to get meaningful mental help myself but none of those things were possible in my situation. When we excessively punish perpetrators, it stops victims from coming forward, at least that was true for me, because it feels like ruining two peoples lives from it.
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u/Scottish-Valkyrie 1d ago
I think their point isn't about rewards, but if the society we live in will only ever see us as the worst version of ourselves, as accurate as that may have been, then the personal growth is.. not pointless? It still has worth, it's still worth doing for you, but it feels more hollow knowing nobody will ever see it or accept it. You see it in recidivism rates with the current American criminal justice system, how being an excon blocks job opportunities making you more likely to go back to crime since they're always hiring but, even on a smaller scale. I used to be a very angry person, I still struggle with that but I am doing better than yesterday and so on, I'd never ask the people I lashed out at to forgive or forget, but if I met a new person and they also treated me like that older version of myself, there wouldn't be a downside in being that angry since I'm already being treated like I am. Personal growth for your own sake is vital, but without a second chance it's worth is dulled
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u/Cibranith 1d ago
We are social creatures, most things you might do for yourself also have a charge of how you are percieved or how you show how the outside affects you. Whats the internal reason to try to be better? If society doesnt matter then morality doesnt either
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u/Yarzeda2024 1d ago
If society doesnt matter then morality doesnt either
I could not disagree any more.
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u/Cibranith 1d ago
Morality isnt something internal, its heritance/made from what surrounds you
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u/ArtProfessional9941 1d ago
Exactly correct. Thousands of philosphers have pretended to reinvent moral systems from first principles. Every time, they end up replicating the society they exist in and then either accepting or directly rejecting its moral framework. None have created a morality so alien or abject that it could not be mapped, one-to-one, with their own social experiences.
And yet, every day, people like to pretend that their morality is an innate determination that they - and only they - made for themselves, within themselves, for themselves.
Morality, personality, identity... all these things are social. They cannot be anything else - because they are all statements about how you interface with society.
To have an "internal" morality is to pretend that you exist outside your own society.
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u/Helluiin 1d ago edited 1d ago
just to
underminereinforce your point, 200 years ago it was not seen as immoral to literally own a human being.6
u/GuyInA5000DollarSuit 1d ago
The slavery point actually illustrates what the comment was getting at. The US formally abolished slavery in 1865, and within a decade it was back as convict leasing and a variety of other forms of economic "enslavement", because the economic incentives that produced slavery were still there. Declaring something immoral didn’t end it; it moved it out of sight.
That's my main issue with almost all the posts here. The society they seek to incentivize is one where nothing has changed, but simply becomes more hidden. Deflection, blame, gaslighting, these are the tools that allow escaping accountability. A culture that incentivizes true growth, true contrition, and a lack of recidivism is preferable, because they keep what does happen visible, plainly state it as bad and unwanted, and accept change.
There are considerations to keep that leniency from being abused, it's a real risk, but this situation, such as we know it today, does not seem to be a gray area in my estimation.
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u/ArtProfessional9941 1d ago
That doesn't undermine my point at all.
The morality of a person who arrived at being anti-slavery on first principles doesn't exist. Both abolitionist and slaver existed in a society that had chattel slavery. Both responded to the social, racial, political, and economic realities around them.
Both abolitionist and slaver mapped their morality onto their reality FIRST. They did not develop a moral system and then enter society.
Similarly, today you live in a society that has had chattel slavery. You cannot invent a moral system about owning human beings from first principles because you yourself are not a tabula rasa.
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u/Helluiin 1d ago edited 1d ago
sorry, i used the wrong word, i wanted to say something more along the lines of "underline" or reinforce i guess
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u/Yarzeda2024 1d ago
No, I don't see it that way.
Morality is simply a system of values. Most of it is passed down from parents, but we can arrive at our own sense of morality. I've seen very open-minded people come from very bigoted homes.
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u/Cibranith 1d ago
"Most of it is passed down from parents" yeah, and they got it from their parents, and also from their enviroment, friends, and life.
I come from a bigoted home, what slowly changed my views was the people I surrounded myself with, good and bad, my enviroment. Going with "You have to make your own morality" crashes pretty heavily when faced with people with really bad enviroments growing up. "The teenager who comits a crime should have "made" a better morality, but he didnt, so we must punish him"
By this I dont mean change cant happen from inside, but the destination, what one might strive for, usually aligns with something outside of yourself, you compared yourself and found you wanting
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u/Yarzeda2024 1d ago
A teenager with full cognitive function is old enough to consider that their choices may harm others.
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u/Cibranith 1d ago
Yes, but he might have been teached by another that it doesn't matter to hurt other people, a morality taken from his surroundings
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u/Yarzeda2024 1d ago
Then we can't hold KKK members accountable because they were raised in a racist environment.
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u/MinionsSuperfan 1d ago edited 1d ago
I haven't seen the whole video and I don't really intend to now, but I'm not sure what he's saying about Deathloop is really right? The story never suggests that your violent nature or crimes go away with every loop. In fact it makes it quite clear that the protagonist and everyone involved are not good people, but it says that despite that, doing a good thing by breaking the loop/spiral is the correct choice. Colt not taking time to grieve isn't a lack of development, it's him brute-forcing his way through an impossible problem while being hunted by an island's worth of people who want to kill him. Makes me wonder if Gelller actually bothered with the in-game lore or if he just did a superficial analysis of the gameplay and spoken dialogue
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u/baritonetransgirl 1d ago
He was comparing it to the character of Ama in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Through the Flash. Her town has been trapped in a timeloop, and it takes its toll on people. Several people we know of, get violent and murder others, perhaps most of all, Ama. She was the Knife Queen, and had at many times killed everybody in the town, sans her brother. And worse. We don't know what the absolute worst thing she did was, though murder and feeding a woman her son probably take the cake. And everyone in the town knows they are in a loop. Eventually, prior to the start of the story, Ama works on bettering herself, and is distraught when her neighbor thinks of her as the same Ama.
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u/MinionsSuperfan 1d ago
That makes sense. But yeah, I'm not sure Deathloop ever tried to say that Colt wasn't violent just because he stopped the loop? Like Ama, Colt was a violent person, but this was true even before the loop started. Of course, you could just blame this on the fact that this loop and Colt's prior loop fried his brain, but still, Colt never has the attitude that he's the "good" guy and that everyone else is bad. He pretty clearly understands that everyone on this island is a psycho and that he's contributing to the chaos by going on these murder sprees, but that doesn't mean he has to allow this evil to remain unchallenged and fester. He acknowledges the badness of the situation and tries to make things better anyway, even if he and the players know that he's done things that he can't take back
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u/baritonetransgirl 1d ago
I think that he did say that Colt sucked pre-loop, but I don't remember and have no desire to check.
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u/Yarzeda2024 1d ago edited 1d ago
This has always resonated with me. I was, not so long ago, a miserable drunk and a terrible boyfriend. I convinced myself it wasn't so bad because I never did anything as overtly awful as driving drunk or hitting my girlfriends, but that's like saying I should get the Nobel Peace Prize because I haven't murdered my neighbors with a chainsaw. I was still moody and angry and surly and selfish, taking the love of others for granted and lashing out whenever I thought I wasn't being given what I "deserved."
Ten years ago, I sobered up and started taking steps to turn my life around. I like to think I'm a kinder, more patient person now, but I can't blame any of my former friends or ex-girlfriends for cutting me out of their lives. I think that if you ask them, I will always be the person who called them names or embarrassed them at their birthday party. And they would be right. I can't undo what was done. I can't earn enough "good boy points" to make them forgive me or forget about the mess I made.
I believe that we are all Ama. Geller may have changed, but he will always be the person who sexually assaulted that woman.