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Are We All Turning into NPCs?
Imagine this: you’re walking down the street when suddenly, someone pulls out a gun and opens fire on an unsuspecting victim. This is exactly what happened recently in the United States, where the CEO of a medical insurance company was shot dead.
The man responsible for this was a young guy named Luigi Mangione, who had been struggling with his own thoughts and beliefs about life.
Mangione was a fan of a writer who had written an article comparing humans to NPCs (non-player characters) in video games — those characters who just go through the motions without any real freedom or agency.
This idea really resonated with Mangione. He even tipped this writer $200 and spent hours on video calls discussing it. They talked about how people are becoming more like robots, losing control over their lives and doing whatever rules dictate.
One example Mangione gave was a time when he was in Japan and saw an man collapsing on the street due to epileptic seizure. He ran to get help from nearby police officers who insisted on waiting for a green light at a
crosswalk even though it was empty and the patient was ill, mentally confused and in danger of death — a perfect demonstration of people blindly following rules, according to Mangione.
