Bioshock: Andrew Ryan is the worse kind of person in human society.

[Samtemdo8]

That kind of person, is a hypocrite, to an egregious degree.

Here in Ryan Amusements we see this part of the tour regarding what Andrew thinks of "The Artist":


Here is what the Artist who created this very Amusement Tour has to say about Ryan:

The Old Sheepdog

Location: On a desk in the Manager's Office.

bioshock.fandom.com

 

[Chimpzy]

Makes sense tho, considering Andrew Ryan is a stand-in for Ayn Rand, the person who developed the philosophical system of objectivism, and who was by all accounts also a pretty shitty person as well as a hypocrite herself.

 

[Palindromemordnilap]

I mean...yes? Isn't that the point? He creates Rapture to be the ultimate expression of the free market and creation without limitation...but the minute Frank Fontaine becomes a legitimate competitor Ryan brings the hammer down and seizes his assets. Ryan isn't some great philanthropist whose dream was marred by other people, he's a ruthless dipshit whose dream was toxic from the start

 

[MrCalavera]

Yes, Andrew Ryan was kind of a raging hypocrite, which was the point of the game.

But why bring this now?

 

[Xprimentyl]

Yes, Andrew Ryan was kind of a raging hypocrite, which was the point of the game.

But why bring this now?

Was wondering this myself. The video in the original post was posted in 2010; I'd imagine not much "new" news has come out of Rapture in the past decade.

 

[Breakdown]

Yeah Andrew Ryan was probably a bad guy and all that, but at least he had style. Rapture was so much cooler than Columbia.

 

[Agema]

That kind of person, is a hypocrite, to an egregious degree.

Ryan made a society guaranteed to eat itself. In the absence of the state, individuals preyed on and dominated each other as their power permitted. Eventually, Ryan had no choice but to make himself the biggest fish in the pond in order to ensure his own survival.

Such is the problem with capitalist libertarianism generally. In a society ordered upon individuals negotiating with each other, the stronger party will use that leverage to secure favourable terms over the weaker. Thus power and wealth will tend to relentlessly concentrate upwards to leave an ultra-powerful few and a heavily dispossessed majority. The likely end result is that the ultra-powerful few will eventually secure themselves by supplanting the old apparatus of the libertarian state and forming an oligarchy, autocracy, or neo-feudal state.

 

[Samtemdo8]

Yes, Andrew Ryan was kind of a raging hypocrite, which was the point of the game.

But why bring this now?

Because after playing the game recently and playing both games back to back, this part that I made an example of in my OP hit the nail on the head for me after all these years.

 

[Gyrobot]

I mean...yes? Isn't that the point? He creates Rapture to be the ultimate expression of the free market and creation without limitation...but the minute Frank Fontaine becomes a legitimate competitor Ryan brings the hammer down and seizes his assets. Ryan isn't some great philanthropist whose dream was marred by other people, he's a ruthless dipshit whose dream was toxic from the start

Ryan simply didn't thought about enslaving the underclass or creating an underclass given Rapture's.pack of moral ethics means if someone in Ryan's employ realized that there will be some unlucky person forced to scrub toilets. They should genetically engineer a subclass of workers from wartorn countries, colonial holdings and other places where you can take a bunch of people and no one is going to bat an eye and turn them them to slaves who hates the idea of freedom and cannot hold rebellious thoughts except to serve Ryan's ideals.

Cold blooded, but perfectly in line with objectivism and given how racist the 50's and how Schuong has to racelift himself to not get beaten to death by the police. It sounds like a good solution

 

[BrawlMan]

Because after playing the game recently and playing both games back to back, this part that I made an example of in my OP hit the nail on the head for me after all these years.

It took you 12 years to figure that out? I am happy for you, but there is not much else add. As far as video game scumbags go, there are people worst than Ryan. Look up guys like Kun Lan or Curtis Blackburn. They ain't hypocrites, but they have done far worst than Ryan. Now Harlan Wade and Genevieve Arstide are far worst than the 3 I just mentioned.

 

[Kae]

Because after playing the game recently and playing both games back to back, this part that I made an example of in my OP hit the nail on the head for me after all these years.

Hey don't worry about it, I personally don't think there's such a thing as an expiration date on talking about games, movies, books and stuff like that, obviously there are times where it's more appropriate since it's still fresh on people's memories but there's not like a bad time.

So disregard all these mockeries about time and feel free to bring up any game even if it's 40 years old or older.


That being said there's not much for me to say in the topic that hasn't been mentioned by other users, at least not right now and the game isn't really fresh on my mind for me to think of something.

 

[Hawki]

I don't know if Ryan is the worst kind of person, nor is he a hypocrite. He clearly believes in his own ideals. It's just that his ideals are ones that aren't condusive to society.

Even in BioShock, I'd say Comstock is more of a monster. Ryan's ideals are "lassaire faire capitalism is awesome, so I'm going to create a city under the sea where people can conduct their business unrestricted." Comstock's ideals were "America is great, I'm the Prophet, I'm going to bring order to the Sodom Below, and anyone who isn't blessed with pure white skin is sub-human." They're both assholes, but at least Ryan's assholery was confined to Rapture.

 

[Gyrobot]

I don't know if Ryan is the worst kind of person, nor is he a hypocrite. He clearly believes in his own ideals. It's just that his ideals are ones that aren't condusive to society.

Even in BioShock, I'd say Comstock is more of a monster. Ryan's ideals are "lassaire faire capitalism is awesome, so I'm going to create a city under the sea where people can conduct their business unrestricted." Comstock's ideals were "America is great, I'm the Prophet, I'm going to bring order to the Sodom Below, and anyone who isn't blessed with pure white skin is sub-human." They're both assholes, but at least Ryan's assholery was confined to Rapture.

Then again, he forgot to create an underclass with the lack of ethics. Why starve and scrub toilets when you have genetically modified slaves who love to serve to do it for you?

 

[Houseman]

Comstock's ideals were "America is great, I'm the Prophet, I'm going to bring order to the Sodom Below, and anyone who isn't blessed with pure white skin is sub-human."

I think the racism was just a product of his time, as opposed to something stemming from his philosophy. It's likely that Booker had the same racist beliefs too. The only one who didn't understand racism was Elizabeth, and that's because she was locked away for her whole life. When she comments on it as you walk through the bathrooms, Booker says "it's just one of those things".

 

[Hawki]

I think the racism was just a product of his time, as opposed to something stemming from his philosophy. It's likely that Booker had the same racist beliefs too. The only one who didn't understand racism was Elizabeth, and that's because she was locked away for her whole life. When she comments on it as you walk through the bathrooms, Booker says "it's just one of those things".

I'm pretty sure Booker has sub-concious racist bias. That particular line though seemed to be more a recognition of how it's a horrible fact of reality that he/society can't change, even if he dislikes it.

But even if that's the case, Comstock acted upon his own twisted philosophy. Booker, for all his sins at Wounded Knee, at least owned them.

 

[Samtemdo8]

It took you 12 years to figure that out? I happy for you, but there is not much else add. As far as video game scumbags there are people worst than Ryan. Look up guys like Kun Lan or Curtis Blackburn. They ain't hypocrites, but they have done far worst than Ryan. Now Harlan Wade and Genevieve Arstide are far worst than the 3 I just mentioned.

And I have played FEAR recently too.

YOU HAD TO STOP ME AND CORTANA IN FEAR 2 GENEVIEVE, YOU HAD TO LET ALMA MAKE AN APOCALYPSE BABY WITH ME! I HOPE THAT LEVERAGE WAS WORTH IT! BECAUSE YOUR THE REASON WE ENDED UP WITH F.3.A.R.

 

[BrawlMan]

YOU HAD TO STOP ME AND CORTANA IN FEAR 2 GENEVIEVE, YOU HAD TO LET ALMA MAKE AN APOCALYPSE BABY WITH ME! I HOPE THAT LEVERAGE WAS WORTH IT!

Considering we don't see her in three and the board directors made her the scapegoat of everything that went wrong (hence her attitude in the 2nd game), most likely not. Either Alma (Genevieve Arstide was playing right in to her hand. That is true and canon) killed her, or those bastards sent one of their soldiers to do the deed. That's what I like to imagine.


See at 29:10

 

[Agema]

Now Harlan Wade and Genevieve Arstide are far worst than the 3 I just mentioned.

Maybe. But perhaps Harlan earns some sort of redemption, in that in the end I think he owns up to his sins and offers his vctim her retribution, despite surely knowing how badly it's going to go for him.

 

[BrawlMan]

Maybe. But perhaps Harlan earns some sort of redemption, in that in the end I think he owns up to his sins and offers his vctim her retribution, despite surely knowing how badly it's going to go for him.

That is nice and all, but he still released the murder crazy kill b!tch out onto the world. That ain't much redemption; especially when the guy inseminated his own daughter! Twice! And last I checked, Alma only cares about Numero Uno.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Given that I don't think Ryan would even make the top 100 list for the most evil antagonists/villains in games since we have characters like Kefka all over the place, I don't really understand the outrage here, especially so long after the fact.