As useful and appropriate as the NPC meme might be at this time, I can't help but wonder if being an NPC is the natural state of humanity.
For much of history, most people had to keep their heads down and avoid being the tallest blade of grass in the field. Even in a relatively civilized place like ancient Greece, Socrates was killed when he tried to teach people how to think critically and question things. It wouldn't surprise me that the tendency to be an NPC is in our DNA, since those who acted otherwise were removed from the gene pool. I've read elsewhere on this forum that modern Europeans are less violent due to the execution of murderers culling violent tendencies from the gene pool, so it's not unreasonable to expect nonconformist, critical thinking tendencies to have been similarly removed.
The only difference is that today, there is so much more programming of the masses by the elites: through TV, movies, internet, ads. This is a necessary step by the elites to maintain control in a democratic society: they can't just kill people for their beliefs, so instead they bombard the masses with media programming to instill the right set of beliefs.
In short, the NPCs were not created by the elites, they are simply fertile minds waiting to be programmed by whatever societal indoctrination machine that comes along.
If this is true, then it really calls into one of the great sacred cows of modern society: universal suffrage. If the masses are so easily led into groupthink, then why are they all given a vote without any kind of qualifications or selective filters?
For much of history, most people had to keep their heads down and avoid being the tallest blade of grass in the field. Even in a relatively civilized place like ancient Greece, Socrates was killed when he tried to teach people how to think critically and question things. It wouldn't surprise me that the tendency to be an NPC is in our DNA, since those who acted otherwise were removed from the gene pool. I've read elsewhere on this forum that modern Europeans are less violent due to the execution of murderers culling violent tendencies from the gene pool, so it's not unreasonable to expect nonconformist, critical thinking tendencies to have been similarly removed.
The only difference is that today, there is so much more programming of the masses by the elites: through TV, movies, internet, ads. This is a necessary step by the elites to maintain control in a democratic society: they can't just kill people for their beliefs, so instead they bombard the masses with media programming to instill the right set of beliefs.
In short, the NPCs were not created by the elites, they are simply fertile minds waiting to be programmed by whatever societal indoctrination machine that comes along.
If this is true, then it really calls into one of the great sacred cows of modern society: universal suffrage. If the masses are so easily led into groupthink, then why are they all given a vote without any kind of qualifications or selective filters?