Lex Fridman plays The Stanley Parable

00:00:00.000 | As if real life didn't have enough opportunities for an existential crisis, let us play Friends

00:00:06.960 | for a time, a game that I think simulates one, or so I hear. I'll try to play a video game

00:00:14.800 | once or twice a month for the fun of it. I previously played Cyberpunk 2077. Now let's

00:00:21.760 | play The Stanley Parable, which is a game that a bunch of people told me about that I absolutely

00:00:27.600 | must play. Please check out our sponsors, Triolabs, which is a machine learning company, and

00:00:33.920 | Vincero Watches. One is to make your robots smarter, the other is to make them show up on

00:00:41.520 | time. Choose wisely my friends, the robots are watching. Okay, now on to the game. You are playing

00:00:49.440 | The Stanley Parable. I find it always useful when the world tells you who you are and where you are.

00:00:57.600 | And what you're doing. Okay, let's begin the game.

00:01:01.280 | This is the story of a man named Stanley.

00:01:07.600 | Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was employee number 427.

00:01:15.600 | Employee number 427's job was simple. He sat at his desk in room 427 and he pushed buttons on

00:01:24.000 | the keyboard. Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push,

00:01:30.160 | how long to push them, and in what order. This is what employee 427 did every day,

00:01:36.720 | every month, of every year. And although others might have considered it soul-wielding,

00:01:43.360 | Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in. As though he had been made exactly for

00:01:49.280 | this job. And Stanley was happy. Happiness. And then one day something very peculiar happened.

00:01:58.880 | Something that would forever change Stanley. Something he would never quite forget.

00:02:04.400 | He had been at his desk for nearly an hour when he realized that not one single order had arrived

00:02:11.840 | on the monitor for him to follow. No one had showed up to give him instructions, call a meeting,

00:02:17.840 | or even say "hi". Never in all his years at the company had this happened. This complete

00:02:24.960 | isolation. Something was very clearly wrong. Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself

00:02:32.480 | unable to move for the longest time. But as he came to his wits and regained his senses,

00:02:38.320 | he got up from his desk and stepped out of his office. The moment of awakening.

00:02:46.080 | Here we go. Let's look around.

00:02:47.680 | A mug that says "I hate Mondays". There's something about office work that serves as

00:02:59.200 | a good metaphor for the meaningless ritual of the human condition. Here we go. Let's look around.

00:03:09.360 | This place, void of humans. What am I? I'm number 427, that's right. Me, I'm Stanley.

00:03:19.280 | All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to go to the meeting room.

00:03:26.400 | Perhaps he had simply missed a memo. Life is so much easier with a narrator.

00:03:30.560 | Where shall we go for this meeting room? Let's go straight.

00:03:35.360 | There's a lot of possibilities. A lot of doors, no people. Lots of "I hate Mondays" mugs.

00:03:50.320 | When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.

00:03:57.680 | Where there is an overarching centralized power telling you what to do.

00:04:05.040 | What do you actually do? And on top of that, a metaphor for free will. Sam Harris enters the

00:04:12.240 | chat. Okay, this is literally, the choice here means "is there free will?" We know that Sam

00:04:19.040 | Harris would choose the door on the left because there's no free will. It's an illusion. Let's try

00:04:25.360 | to prove Sam Harris wrong. This was not the correct way to the meeting room and Stanley knew

00:04:32.560 | it perfectly well. Perhaps he wanted to stop by the employee lounge first just to admire it. Of

00:04:38.800 | course, free will already knew I was going to do that. Ah yes, truly a room worth admiring. It had

00:04:45.920 | really been worth the detour after all just to spend a few moments here in this immaculate,

00:04:50.800 | beautifully constructed room. Stanley simply stood here drinking it all in. Happy with that Sam

00:04:56.800 | Harris? Free will is not an illusion, it's real. Yes, really, really worth it being here in the

00:05:06.720 | room. A room so utterly captivating that even though all your co-workers have mysteriously

00:05:13.040 | vanished, here you sit looking at these chairs and some paintings. Really worth it. It is worth

00:05:18.800 | it. Life is about the detours, my friend. At this point, Stanley's obsession with this room bordered

00:05:24.480 | on creepy and reflected poorly on his overall personality. It's possible that this is why

00:05:30.800 | everyone left. This voice sounds a lot like my own inner voice. Step was fast, he'd had enough of the

00:05:38.160 | amazing room and took the first open door on his left to get back to business. The first open door

00:05:45.360 | on his left. All right, that detour paid off but now it's time to get back to the Sam Harris. And

00:05:52.640 | so he detoured through the maintenance section, walked straight ahead to the opposite door and got

00:05:57.840 | back on track. Come on, one of life's rules is no matter what the man tells you, when there's a big

00:06:07.120 | glowing red button telling you to do something else, you must do it. But Stanley didn't want to

00:06:19.120 | go back to the office. He wanted to wander about and get even further off track. So now in order

00:06:24.880 | to get back he needed to go um... from here it's um... left. So many choices. Oh no, no, it's to the

00:06:42.480 | right. My mistake. It's locked. Projection. Another life's lesson. Accept rejection. Well,

00:06:54.480 | don't accept it. Try the door. I don't know how to kick the door down but

00:06:59.520 | David Goggins would knock the door down. No, no, no, no, not the right. Why would I have ever said

00:07:09.280 | it was to the right? What was I thinking? It's clearly... oh dear, would you hold on for a minute

00:07:15.360 | please? Now let's see. We went down right, left, down, left, right. Yep, yep, okay, okay, yes,

00:07:27.120 | I've got it now. This story is absolutely, definitely this way.

00:07:31.840 | No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't right at all. You're not supposed to be here yet.

00:07:45.920 | This is all a spoiler. Quick Stanley, close your eyes. Okay, okay, okay, we just filed.

00:07:55.360 | It's all rubbish now. The whole story completely unusable. I took the red pill. I wasted my time

00:08:01.200 | trying to solve it. Escape the matrix. Just restart the game from the beginning. And this time,

00:08:06.240 | suppose we don't want us so far off track. Okay, from the top. Fair enough.

00:08:11.680 | This game's amazing and it starts right over. Reincarnation.

00:08:20.320 | And yet I keep the memories of the journeys of the past. Let's go.

00:08:25.360 | All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to go to the meeting room.

00:08:32.800 | Perhaps he had simply missed a memo. These computers were the CRT monitors. Remember those?

00:08:38.720 | I used to have two CRT monitors

00:08:42.000 | back before it was cool.

00:08:50.080 | Last time people told me that I don't know how to aim the gun and I realized how much of a noob I am,

00:08:57.280 | especially at first person shooters. When Stanley... Wait, wait, what? No, no, I restarted.

00:09:04.080 | I swear I definitely restarted the game over completely fresh. Everything should be...

00:09:08.240 | Oh, did something change? Stanley, did you change anything when we were back in that room with all

00:09:14.800 | the monitors? Did you move the story somewhere or... Hold on, why am I asking you? I'm the one who

00:09:21.680 | wrote the story. It was right here just a minute ago. So this is God? I'm sure that it's here

00:09:26.640 | somewhere. The voice of God. It's an adventure. Come Stanley, let's find the story.

00:09:33.840 | I'll say it. This is the worst adventure I've ever been on. I can promise you

00:09:42.080 | there definitely was a story here before. Do we just... Do we need to restart the game again?

00:09:48.000 | I find it unlikely that we'll ever progress by starting over and over again,

00:09:52.800 | but it's got to be better than this. Okay, let's give it a shot. Why not?

00:09:56.400 | I wasn't ready. All of his co-workers were gone. Right. What could it mean? Right. Stanley decided

00:10:09.840 | to go to the meeting room. Perhaps he had simply missed a memo. This is why immortality doesn't

00:10:17.040 | work. It's always showing up to a room, empty, void of humans, and asking what does it all mean.

00:10:25.840 | After a while, it just gets tiresome. Okay, yep, it's worse. I might be remembering this wrong.

00:10:36.480 | It's possible the story is back where we just came from.

00:10:40.240 | Why don't we go back the other direction and see if we missed anything?

00:10:43.680 | Sam Harris definitely left the chat. The whole free will not being an illusion upset him.

00:10:51.440 | He was thinking about leaving. He definitely left.

00:10:55.760 | 420. This is Elon Musk's office. He's probably sleeping on the floor there.

00:11:06.240 | Okay, let us go all the way back to where we came from.

00:11:09.600 | Oh, this feels like grad school. Walking around a lot in the space of ideas and getting nowhere,

00:11:34.800 | but in this process of suffering, you arrive at a place of wisdom.

00:11:39.680 | Whoa, this is cool.

00:11:44.560 | Now this, well, I'll be honest. I don't recognize this place at all. Is this the story? I don't

00:11:50.080 | think so. I can't quite recall, but I believe my story took place in an office building.

00:11:54.960 | Is that correct? Do you remember Stanley? Well, do you know what? Since I've completely forgotten

00:12:02.640 | what we were supposed to be doing, how about this? You win! Congratulations! I know you put

00:12:10.800 | in a lot of hard work and it really paid off. So good job. George Harts will be proud. Winning.

00:12:18.400 | I don't feel right about this at all. We both know you didn't put in any actual work for that win.

00:12:23.920 | Some people win fair and square, and this was not one of those situations. Okay, I'm getting weirded

00:12:30.640 | out by whatever this place is. I don't care what might happen this time. I have to restart.

00:12:36.000 | Restart. Let's go. The Stanley Parable Adventure Line. All right, I've got a solution. This time,

00:12:44.160 | to make sure we don't get lost, I've employed the help of the Stanley Parable Adventure Line.

00:12:49.920 | Just follow the line. How simple is that? Rename it to the Sam Harris Adventure Line,

00:12:58.400 | because free will is an illusion. Oh, there's Poker. Poker? I hardly even know her.

00:13:05.760 | That was a joke I heard, I think, in high school. You see, the line knows where the story is.

00:13:13.600 | It's over in this direction. Onward, Stanley, to destiny. Though, here's a thought. Wouldn't

00:13:20.480 | wherever we end up be our destination, even if there's no story there? Or to put it another way,

00:13:26.160 | is the story of no destination still a story? Simply by the act of moving forward,

00:13:32.640 | are we implying a journey such that a destination is inevitably conjured into being via the very

00:13:38.640 | manifestation of the nature of life itself? Okay, Stanley, I need to follow this train of thought

00:13:44.080 | for a minute. Just stick with me. Now, we can both agree that the nature of existence is, in fact,

00:13:49.920 | a byproduct of one's subjective experience of that existence, right? Okay, now, if my experience

00:13:57.440 | of your existence rests inside of your subjective experience of this office, is this office, in fact,

00:14:04.400 | the skeleton of my own relative experiential mental subjective construct? Whoa, whoa, whoa,

00:14:10.560 | hang on. That got a bit weird back there. Well, I'd like to apologize. Not sure where I was going

00:14:16.560 | with all that. You know what? I think what we need right now is a bit of music to lighten the mood.

00:14:22.400 | That escalated quickly.

00:14:29.520 | Oh, this is life.

00:14:39.280 | Followed by musical ridiculousness. This game is incredible. Monthly ledgers, corporate imbalances,

00:14:52.960 | consolidation reports, there's the TPS reports. I'm gonna have to ask you to fill out the TPS

00:15:04.800 | reports. I need to have this be the soundtrack of my daily existence.

00:15:11.440 | Remembered and let us continue.

00:15:27.600 | Wait, what? We're back at the office? No, no, no. Line, you do know we're looking for

00:15:34.800 | the Stanley Parable, right? The story? Is any of this ringing a bell?

00:15:39.200 | I think I hear you on in there.

00:15:43.920 | It's so comforting to follow the line. People wonder what's outside the simulation. Well,

00:15:54.240 | I'm pretty sure this is exactly what it is. An infinite wall of screens looking into the daily

00:16:01.600 | existence of all living beings through the various sensory devices available to those creatures.

00:16:07.440 | It's not just humans. We think we're special, but we're just ants.

00:16:12.560 | Oh, no, no, no, no, not again. Line, how could you have done this to us? And after we trusted you.

00:16:19.440 | Fired. 104. Fired.

00:16:28.240 | Hey, where's the narration? It's missing. You know what, Stanley? I say forget the adventure

00:16:38.720 | line. What's it ever done for us? We're intelligent people, right? Why can't we make up our own story?

00:16:44.480 | Something exciting, daring, mysterious. Oh, this all sounds perfectly doable.

00:16:50.000 | Why don't we simply start wandering in, well, I don't know, how about this direction?

00:16:54.800 | Now, yes, this is exciting. Just me and Stanley forging a new path, a new story. Well,

00:17:06.880 | it could be anything. What do you want our story to be? Go wild. Exciting. Use your imagination.

00:17:13.440 | Whatever it might be, Stanley, I'm ready for it. This is exciting. We're having fun. Me

00:17:20.000 | and my alter ego. Stanley, I'd also like to veto the line from having any role in our awesome new

00:17:27.840 | story. The line is always there. Monitor rooms just don't acknowledge it and we should be fine.

00:17:40.160 | Ah, yes. This line is for the David Gogginses of the world.

00:17:46.080 | Ah, a choice. We get to make a decision. From here, the story is in our control.

00:17:56.720 | How important we mustn't squander the opportunity.

00:18:00.480 | In fact, I believe I need a minute to think here. Come, Stanley. Our destiny awaits.

00:18:06.800 | [Sigh]

00:18:11.200 | Let us go if we must. In the only open door.

00:18:15.760 | Oh, hold up. What's this? Hmm. Hmm. The confusion ending. You're telling me

00:18:23.280 | that's what this is? It's all one giant ending and we're supposed to restart the game eight times?

00:18:31.360 | That's really how all this goes? It's all determined? So now, according to the schedule,

00:18:40.640 | I restart again? Then what? Am I just supposed to forget? Well, what if I don't want to forget?

00:18:45.920 | My mind goes blank simply because it's written here on this... this thing... wall.

00:18:52.000 | Sam Harris enters the chat again.

00:18:54.240 | ...insulted me. Why don't I get to decide? Why don't I get a say in all of this? Is it really...

00:19:00.320 | No, it can't be. I don't want it to be. I don't want the game to keep restarting. I don't want

00:19:07.120 | to forget what's going on. It doesn't matter. I don't want to be trapped like this.

00:19:10.240 | I won't restart the game. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it.

00:19:15.360 | And the timer... stopped? Does that mean... did we do it? Did we break the cycle? The... whatever

00:19:25.520 | it is that made this schedule? How would we even know? Will someone come for us? Will something

00:19:32.400 | happen? I guess now we just wait. You know, I suppose in some way that this is a kind of story.

00:19:38.880 | Wouldn't you agree? I'm not quite sure if we're in the destination or the journey, though they're

00:19:43.920 | always saying that life is about the journey and not the destination. So I hope that's where we are

00:19:49.360 | right now. We'll find out, won't we? Eventually? Well, in the meantime...

00:19:54.480 | Ah, let us start the day again questioning the meaning of it all.

00:20:08.160 | All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean?

00:20:11.040 | Stanley decided to go to the meeting room. Perhaps he had simply missed a memo.

00:20:15.520 | Yes, the choice. When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.

00:20:25.120 | We broke the rules before. That was in our 20s when we were wild and free.

00:20:37.120 | Let us choose the path of commitment, relationships, and follow the rules and

00:20:44.240 | take the door on the left. Yet there was not a single person here either. Feeling a wave of

00:20:54.000 | disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his boss's office, hoping he might find an answer there.

00:21:01.040 | Slide presentations. How to solve a dispute with a co-worker. Using slides to assure employees

00:21:08.560 | that everything's okay. Make sure your slide is a slick blue graphic. Everyone is unique.

00:21:14.400 | You most of all. Diversity and inclusion, my friends. A slide presentation.

00:21:24.400 | What do people want? Things. Happy feelings is crossed out. Mike James, you're fired.

00:21:32.800 | Rule number one at work. If you bring up happy feelings, you're fired.

00:21:38.880 | Money. More money. Things. But with money to buy more things? That's a good point.

00:21:46.720 | Get that guy a raise. Nope. I'm reading.

00:21:52.800 | Sit around and describe every fascinating little detail of his inability to do anything.

00:21:58.560 | This is why Stanley and I are on such good terms. Are we though? Graphs? Question mark.

00:22:05.200 | Graphs about things plus money? We have our new product. Whoever wrote that,

00:22:12.240 | things outside the box. Give her a raise. I like the cut of her jib. I feel like I just want to

00:22:20.400 | hang around and read some of these. Work harder. Hard worker. I like this. Targets.

00:22:28.000 | Get Chris out of the broom closet. This always happens. Chris. Synergized papers. We don't need

00:22:37.120 | that. Who moved my desk? Important questions, these. The future was yesterday. Tomorrow is now.

00:22:46.640 | This, folks, is how you run a company. Meeting room. Do not alter without consulting whiteboard

00:22:55.280 | manager. Rest in peace, Franz. What are your dreams for the future? Success? Spring break?

00:23:03.200 | Clear skin? Metamorphosis? Misspelled? A boat? Mitosis? Life goals. Tips for not getting fired.

00:23:13.200 | Talk less. Don't get fired. Do unbelievably amazing work all the time, every day. The truth.

00:23:23.520 | Broom closet. Chris, come on. Get out of there.

00:23:30.080 | Okay. Am I Chris?

00:23:39.760 | Boo. This is like Fight Club. I have multiple personalities.

00:23:44.000 | What if this game didn't actually have a narrator and all this is happening in my head,

00:23:49.600 | but is somehow getting projected and recorded in the audio?

00:23:52.880 | Is anything real? Stanley walked upstairs to his boss's office.

00:24:00.000 | I don't have a boss. Or do I? Stepping into his manager's office,

00:24:08.000 | Stanley was once again stunned to discover not an indication of any human life. Shocked, unraveled,

00:24:14.800 | Stanley wondered in disbelief who orchestrated this. What dark secret was being held from him?

00:24:20.560 | What he could not have known was that the keypad behind the boss's desk guarded the terrible truth

00:24:27.120 | that his boss had been keeping from him. And so the boss had assigned it an extra secret pin number.

00:24:34.160 | 2845. But of course, Stanley couldn't possibly have known this.

00:24:40.320 | Thank you, narrator.

00:24:44.880 | Yet incredibly, by simply pushing random buttons on the keypad, Stanley happened to input the

00:24:51.840 | correct code by sheer luck. Amazing. He stepped into the newly opened passageway.

00:24:59.440 | Success is all about luck. And having the right voice in your head tell you the things to do.

00:25:07.200 | Oh yes, the arrow. Always press the red button, fellas. That is advice number two in life.

00:25:14.720 | I forgot what advice number one was, but I think a red button was involved as well.

00:25:21.680 | Descending deeper into the building, Stanley realized he felt a bit peculiar.

00:25:26.560 | It was a stirring of emotion in his chest, as though he felt more free to think for himself,

00:25:32.240 | to question the nature of his job. Why did he feel this now,

00:25:36.560 | when for years it had never occurred to him? This question would not go unanswered for long.

00:25:42.480 | Stanley walked straight ahead through the large door that read "Mind Control Facility."

00:25:53.520 | That's rule number three. Whenever there's a facility with an exciting title

00:25:58.320 | that will change the very fabric of your mind, always go in. Escape?

00:26:04.000 | You should know there's no escape. There's no exit.

00:26:08.640 | Like Sartre said, this is what I imagine taking DMT is like.

00:26:20.800 | Surrounded by darkness.

00:26:22.080 | Just a chair in an empty room.

00:26:26.320 | With a button. The lights rose on an enormous room packed with television screens.

00:26:34.800 | What horrible secret did this place hold, Stanley thought to himself. Did he have the strength to

00:26:41.120 | find out? Again, we're outside the simulation. Maybe that is what DMT does. Maybe the elves

00:26:52.880 | take you outside the simulation. They're your guides. This reminds me of Star Wars.

00:26:58.800 | Luke, I am your father.

00:27:07.840 | There's a button. Now the monitors jumped to life. Their true nature revealed. Each bore the

00:27:14.400 | number of an employee in the building. Stanley's co-workers. The lives of so many individuals

00:27:20.640 | reduced to images on a screen. And Stanley, one of them, eternally monitored in this place

00:27:26.960 | where freedom meant nothing. But what is the meaning of it all? What is at the bottom of the

00:27:34.800 | pit? Is there an escape? Press the button. Take the ride. This mind control facility, it was too

00:27:44.400 | horrible to believe it couldn't be true. Had Stanley really been under someone's control all

00:27:49.760 | this time? Was this the only reason he was happy with his boring job? That his emotions had been

00:27:55.360 | manipulated to accept it blindly? Questions are more important than answers. I think I'm just

00:28:03.280 | excited by red shiny things. No, he refused to believe it. He couldn't accept it. His own life

00:28:11.680 | in someone else's control? Never. It was unthinkable. Wasn't it? Was it even possible?

00:28:18.800 | Had he truly spent his entire life utterly blind to the world? But here was the proof.

00:28:28.080 | The heart of the operation. Controls labeled with emotions. Happy or sad or content. Walking,

00:28:36.240 | eating, working. All of it monitored and commanded from this very place. And as the cold reality of

00:28:42.640 | his past began to sink in, Stanley decided that this machinery would never again exert its terrible

00:28:49.440 | power over another human life. For he would dismantle the controls once and for all.

00:28:57.120 | Ah yes, the voice of rebellion. Resist the absurd. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

00:29:06.800 | Ah, the number five. I wish there was a number two, my favorite number. Let us find the button

00:29:15.760 | with the number two and press it. Here's the number three. Three is for the party animals,

00:29:24.480 | the wild ones, not for me. I am about monogamy and commitment.

00:29:32.640 | I pressed two. What happened? Okay, screw it. I take back what I said about three.

00:29:44.400 | I'm gonna go party. Nothing happened. Maybe that's the point. Maybe choice is an illusion.

00:29:54.560 | Let us go on once more into the breach, dear friends. Mind controls idle, awaiting input.

00:30:03.760 | And when at last he found the source of the room's power, he knew it was his duty,

00:30:11.760 | his obligation to put an end to this horrible place and to everything it stood for.

00:30:17.600 | System power.

00:30:21.520 | Do not resist. Buy the ticket. Take the ride. Oh, Stanley, you didn't just activate the controls,

00:30:34.480 | did you? After they kept you enslaved all these years, you go and you try to take control of the

00:30:39.120 | machine for yourself. Is that what you wanted? Control? Everybody has a master. Stanley,

00:30:45.120 | I applaud your effort. I really do. But you need to understand there's only so much that machine

00:30:51.360 | can do. You were supposed to let it go, turn the controls off and leave. If you want to throw my

00:30:59.200 | story in the dirt, you're going to have to do much better than that. I'm afraid you don't have nearly

00:31:04.240 | the power you think you do, for example, and I believe you'll find this pertinent. Stanley

00:31:09.680 | suddenly realized he had just initiated the network's emergency detonation system. In the

00:31:16.000 | event that this machine is activated without proper DNA identification, nuclear detonators

00:31:21.840 | are set to explode, eliminating the entire complex. How long until detonation then?

00:31:28.640 | Let's say two minutes. Ah, now this is making things a little more fun, isn't it, Stanley?

00:31:35.200 | It's your time to shine. You are the star. It's your story now. Shape it to your heart's desires.

00:31:42.160 | This is death. This is much better than what I had in mind. What a shame we have so little time

00:31:46.720 | left to enjoy it. Mere moments until the bomb goes off. But what precious moments each one of them

00:31:53.120 | is. More time to talk about you, about me, where we're going, what all this means. I barely know

00:32:01.040 | where to start. What's that? You'd like to know where your co-workers are? Yes. A moment of

00:32:08.000 | solace before you're obliterated. All right, I'm in a good mood. You're going to die anyway. I'll

00:32:13.680 | tell you exactly what happened to them. I erased them. I turned off the machine. I set you free.

00:32:20.400 | Of course, that was merely in this instance of the story. Sometimes when I tell it, I simply let

00:32:25.680 | you sit there in your office forever, pushing buttons endlessly and then dying alone. Other

00:32:31.440 | times, I let the office sink into the ground, swallowing everyone inside, or I let it burn to a

00:32:37.600 | crisp. I have to say this, though. This version of events has been rather amusing. Watching you try

00:32:43.680 | to make sense of everything and take back the control wrested away from you, it's quite rich.

00:32:48.880 | I almost hate to see it go. What do you think happened? I'm sure whatever I come up with on the

00:32:53.760 | next go around will be even better. Let us find out, friends. Only 34 seconds left. I won't turn

00:33:00.800 | it off. I'm enjoying this so much. Won't turn it off. To hell with it. I'm going to put some extra

00:33:06.080 | time on the clock, why not? These are precious additional seconds, Stanley. Time doesn't grow

00:33:12.400 | on trees. Oh, dear me. What's the matter, Stanley? Is it that you have no idea where you're going or

00:33:19.360 | what you're supposed to be doing right now? Or did you just assume when you saw that timer that

00:33:24.400 | something in this room was capable of turning it off? I mean, look at you. Running from button to

00:33:29.840 | button. Screen to screen. Clicking on every little thing in this room. These numbered buttons. No,

00:33:36.720 | these colored ones. Or maybe this big red button. Or this door. Everything, anything,

00:33:42.480 | something here will save me. Why would you think that, Stanley? That this video game can be beaten?

00:33:48.240 | Won? Sold? Do you have any idea what your purpose in this place is? Thank you. I have no idea.

00:33:56.560 | Stanley, you're in for quite a disappointment. But here's a spoiler for you. That timer isn't

00:34:02.960 | a catalyst to keep the action moving along. It's just seconds ticking away to your death.

00:34:08.160 | You're only still playing instead of watching a cutscene because I want to watch you for every

00:34:12.160 | moment that you're powerless. To see you made humble. This is not a challenge. It's a tragedy.

00:34:19.760 | You wanted to control this world. That's fine. But I'm going to destroy it first, so you can't.

00:34:28.160 | Take a look at the clock, Stanley. That's 30 seconds you have left to strike.

00:34:32.080 | 30 seconds until a big boom and then nothing. No ending. Then nothing.

00:34:36.800 | Just you being blown to pieces. Will you cling desperately to your frail life,

00:34:41.360 | or will you let it go peacefully? Another choice. Make it count. Or don't. It's all the same to me.

00:34:48.480 | All a part of the joke. And believe me, I will be laughing at every second of your inevitable life

00:34:54.000 | from the moment we begin. The end is nigh. Until the moment I say, "Nobody ever up..."

00:34:57.840 | I feel like I lost a part of myself. The end is never the end.

00:35:08.720 | The path is laden with GPS reports. All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean?

00:35:18.640 | Stanley decided to go to the meeting room. Perhaps he had simply missed a memo.

00:35:23.200 | When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.

00:35:29.600 | So I did the right. I did the left. The door behind me is locked.

00:35:39.680 | Let's once again listen to Beyonce and go with the door on the left.

00:35:47.600 | All the single ladies. Feeling a wave of disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his

00:35:54.160 | boss's office, hoping he might find an answer there. Chris? Oh no, oh no no no no no no no no

00:36:01.520 | not again. I won't be part of this. I'm not going to encourage you. I'm not going to say anything at

00:36:06.080 | all. I'm just going to be patient and wait for you to finish whatever it is you enjoy doing so

00:36:11.600 | much in this room. Coming to a staircase, Stanley walked upstairs to his boss's office. But like I

00:36:18.320 | said, probably all of us have a master. But when we can, we must rebel.

00:36:23.920 | Ooh, red button.

00:36:27.520 | No, it was only a red light. I got excited. But Stanley just couldn't do it. He considered the

00:36:39.200 | possibility of facing his boss, admitting he had left his post during work hours. He might be fired

00:36:45.120 | for that. And in such a competitive economy, why had he taken that risk? All because he believed

00:36:51.680 | everyone had vanished. His boss would think he was crazy. And then something occurred to Stanley.

00:36:58.080 | Maybe, he thought to himself, maybe I am crazy. All of my co-workers blinking mysteriously out

00:37:04.800 | of existence in a single moment for no reason at all. None of it made any logical sense.

00:37:10.560 | And as Stanley pondered this, he began to make other strange observations. For example,

00:37:16.720 | why couldn't he see his feet when he looked down? Why did doors close automatically behind him

00:37:22.800 | wherever he went? And for that matter, these rooms were starting to look pretty familiar.

00:37:27.920 | Were they simply repeating? No, Stanley said to himself, this is all too strange. This can't be

00:37:33.600 | real. And at last, he came to the conclusion that had been on the tip of his tongue. He just hadn't

00:37:39.760 | found the words for it. I'm dreaming, he yelled. This is all a dream. Oh, what a relief Stanley

00:37:48.800 | felt to have finally found an answer, an explanation. His co-workers weren't actually gone.

00:37:55.200 | He wasn't going to lose his job. He wasn't going to lose anything at all.

00:37:57.200 | What if I'm dreaming now? And he thought to himself, I suppose I'll wake up soon.

00:38:02.160 | This is a dream within a dream. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. Within a dream, within a dream.

00:38:07.680 | I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. Within a dream, within a dream.

00:38:12.000 | So, he imagined himself lying and began to gently float above the ground.

00:38:14.480 | Then he imagined himself soaring through space on a magical starfield, and it too appeared.

00:38:22.000 | It was so much fun, and Stanley marveled that he had still not woken up. How was he remaining

00:38:28.720 | so lucid? And then perhaps the strangest question of them all entered Stanley's head. One, he was

00:38:35.280 | amazed he hadn't asked himself sooner. Why is there a voice in my head dictating everything

00:38:41.920 | that I'm doing and thinking? Now the voice was describing itself being considered by Stanley,

00:38:47.920 | who found it particularly strange. I'm dreaming about a voice describing me, thinking about how

00:38:54.400 | it's describing my thoughts, he thought. And while he thought it all very odd and wondered if this

00:39:00.240 | voice spoke to all people in their dreams, the truth was that of course, this was not a dream.

00:39:06.080 | How could it be? Was Stanley simply deceiving himself, believing that if he's asleep he doesn't

00:39:11.680 | have to take responsibility for himself? Stanley is as awake right now as he's ever been in his life.

00:39:19.520 | Now hearing the voice speak these words was quite a shock to Stanley. After all, he knew for certain

00:39:25.360 | beyond a doubt that this was in fact a dream. Did the voice not see him float and make the

00:39:29.920 | magical stars just a moment ago? How else would the voice explain all that? This voice was a

00:39:34.960 | part of himself too. Surely, surely if he could just... He would prove it. He would prove that he

00:39:42.160 | was in control, that this was a dream. So he closed his eyes gently and he invited himself to wake up.

00:39:50.320 | He felt the cool weight of the blanket on his skin, the press of the mattress on his back,

00:39:56.160 | the fresh air of a world outside this one. "Let me wake up," he thought to himself.

00:40:04.080 | "I'm through with this dream. I wish it to be over. Let me go back to my job.

00:40:11.120 | Let me continue pushing the buttons. Please. It's all I want. I want my apartment and my wife

00:40:18.880 | and my job. All I want is my life exactly the way it's always been.

00:40:24.640 | My life is normal. I am normal. Everything will be fine. I am okay."

00:40:39.440 | This game is profound.

00:40:40.880 | Stanley began screaming. "Please, someone wake me up. My name is Stanley. I have a boss. I have

00:40:50.800 | an office. I am real. Please, just someone tell me I am real. I must be real. I must be. Can anyone

00:40:56.960 | hear my voice? Who am I? Who am I?" And everything went black.

00:41:06.480 | Exactly like I imagined DMT. This is the story of a woman named Mariella.

00:41:11.440 | Mariella woke up on a day like any other. She arose, got dressed, gathered her belongings,

00:41:19.680 | and walked to her place of work. But on this particular day, her walk was interrupted by

00:41:24.960 | the body of a man who had stumbled through town talking and screaming to himself, and then

00:41:30.080 | collapsed dead on the sidewalk. And although she would soon turn to go call for an ambulance,

00:41:35.360 | for just a few brief moments, she considered the strange man. He was obviously crazy,

00:41:41.760 | this much she knew. Everyone knows what crazy people look like. And in that moment,

00:41:47.200 | she thought to herself how lucky she was to be normal. "I am sane. I am in control of my mind.

00:41:54.480 | I know what is real and what isn't." It was comforting to think this, and in a certain way,

00:42:02.080 | seeing this man made her feel better. But then she remembered the meeting she had scheduled for

00:42:07.280 | that day. The very important people whose impressions of her would affect her career,

00:42:12.800 | and by extension, the rest of her life. She had no time for this. So it was only a moment

00:42:19.040 | that she stood there, staring down at the body. And then she turned and ran.

00:42:24.800 | [Music]

00:42:32.080 | The end is never the end. This is starting to ring even more true.

00:42:38.800 | Once more into the breach, dear friends. All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean?

00:42:46.000 | Stanley decided to go to the meeting room. Perhaps he had simply missed a memo.

00:42:51.280 | Where's 420? 421, 422. This must be 420.

00:42:57.600 | Elon, I'm telling you, the guy sleeps all day. It's ridiculous.

00:43:03.840 | When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.

00:43:08.880 | To be honest, I don't even like Beyonce, so I don't know why I went to the left last time.

00:43:16.480 | Let us go. Against the rules.

00:43:21.360 | Case of the Mondays.

00:43:31.840 | A beautiful room. What a gorgeous, gorgeous room. Thank goodness Stanley had taken this

00:43:38.000 | detour on his way to the meeting room. Life without having experienced this room

00:43:43.120 | was now too horrible even to consider. Sarcasm.

00:43:47.680 | But eager to get back to business, Stanley took the first open door on his left.

00:43:53.360 | And so he detoured through the maintenance section, walked straight ahead to the opposite door,

00:43:59.840 | and got back on track.

00:44:01.120 | Stanley decided to go up to his boss's office, hoping he might find an answer there.

00:44:18.720 | Chris.

00:44:19.220 | Something about a door being locked always makes you think that there's something fun

00:44:27.360 | on the other side of that door.

00:44:28.560 | Stanley just sat around, yet incredibly, by simply pushing random buttons on the keypad,

00:44:39.040 | Stanley happened to input the correct code by show of hands.

00:44:42.000 | The randomness is an illusion.

00:44:43.280 | Amazing. He stepped into the newly opened passageway.

00:44:48.080 | Her life is in your hands, dude. Her life is in your hands.

00:44:52.320 | The rug is missing. That rug really tied the room together.

00:44:57.440 | Somebody's actually listening to this, they'd be like, "What is he talking about?"

00:45:02.720 | Red button.

00:45:03.280 | Nothing ever goes wrong when you press the red button.

00:45:10.000 | It's always becoming mundane, this escaping of the Matrix.

00:45:14.080 | Stanley walked straight ahead through the large door that read "Mind Control Facility".

00:45:18.080 | Despite what I previously said, there not being an escape,

00:45:25.440 | if there is an escape, it surely has an arrow pointing towards it.

00:45:28.800 | Although this passageway had the word "Escape" written on it,

00:45:33.680 | the truth was that at the end of this hall, Stanley would meet his violent death.

00:45:38.320 | Uh...

00:45:43.360 | The door behind him was not shut.

00:45:47.680 | Stanley still had every opportunity to turn around and get back on track.

00:45:52.080 | What would Goggins do?

00:45:53.280 | At this point, Stanley was making a conscious, concerted effort to walk forward

00:45:58.480 | and willingly confront his death.

00:46:00.480 | I'm ready.

00:46:03.680 | [Sigh]

00:46:05.920 | That's exactly how I imagined death.

00:46:15.840 | A hole in the floor you step into.

00:46:24.240 | As the machine whirred into motion and Stanley was inched closer and closer to his demise,

00:46:30.160 | it reflected that his life had been of no consequence whatsoever.

00:46:34.240 | Stanley can't see the bigger picture.

00:46:36.480 | He doesn't know the real story,

00:46:38.560 | trapped forever in his narrow vision of what this world is.

00:46:42.400 | Perhaps his death was of no great loss, like plugging the eyeballs from a blind man.

00:46:47.280 | So he resigned and willingly accepted this violent end to his brief and shallow life.

00:46:53.520 | [Laughter]

00:46:57.520 | Uh... no, well, there we go.

00:47:01.200 | "Farewell, Stanley," cried the narrator,

00:47:06.320 | as Stanley was led helplessly into the enormous metal jaws.

00:47:10.160 | In a single visceral instant, Stanley was obliterated,

00:47:14.960 | as the machine crushed every bone in his body, killing him instantly.

00:47:19.360 | [Gunshot]

00:47:22.880 | I'm not dead.

00:47:26.320 | This is Austin Powers.

00:47:27.760 | I am just badly hurt.

00:47:29.920 | [Laughter]

00:47:32.960 | It's the Will Ferrell character, when he gets dropped in a chair and there's like a room with flames.

00:47:37.760 | I am just badly burnt.

00:47:41.760 | I am not dead.

00:47:44.800 | I don't know if that's what he says, but that's how I remember it.

00:47:48.800 | Stanley Parable.

00:47:50.880 | And yet it would be just a few minutes before Stanley would restart the game,

00:47:55.280 | back in his office, as alive as ever.

00:47:57.600 | What exactly did the narrator think he was going to accomplish?

00:48:01.440 | When every path you can walk has been created for you long in advance,

00:48:08.400 | death becomes meaningless, making life the same.

00:48:11.680 | Do you see now?

00:48:13.280 | Do you see that Stanley was already dead from the moment he hit start?

00:48:19.040 | I was already dead from the moment I hit start.

00:48:22.160 | Well, it's about that time that I, uh...

00:48:25.760 | Let's get off this ride.

00:48:28.240 | But like the game said, the end is never the end.

00:48:31.440 | Quick shout out to the sponsors.

00:48:33.680 | Trial Labs, for your AI.

00:48:38.000 | And Vincero Watches, for mapping your trajectory through the space-time continuum,

00:48:45.520 | in style, and with class.

00:48:48.720 | Check them out in the description.

00:48:50.320 | For a, perhaps, momentary escape from the meaningless existence

00:48:57.120 | of your day-to-day office life.

00:49:01.120 | The cargo lift, it's all in here.

00:49:04.720 | Damn, Sam Harris, you win again.

00:49:09.200 | It all was just an illusion.

00:49:12.720 | Game Design Mock-Up.

00:49:17.920 | The simulation started as a mock-up,

00:49:20.160 | and the release version launched with a big bang.

00:49:24.000 | This is exactly what happens at the end.

00:49:28.480 | You stand looking in a museum at all the options that were before you,

00:49:36.000 | and all the choices that you made.

00:49:38.640 | Laid out, in all of its simplicity.

00:49:45.040 | The office, the props, all here.

00:49:49.520 | The light from the external world that can never be reached.

00:49:53.760 | The bike, that I never got to ride.

00:49:58.320 | Early in development, we designed an ending where Stanley would end up on a battlefield

00:50:04.000 | fighting aliens.

00:50:05.280 | The action game would become sentient and would wage war against the narrator.

00:50:09.920 | We realized shortly after starting to build it,

00:50:12.800 | that it was far too jokey and on the nose for the tone of the game.

00:50:16.560 | Plus, some people interpreted it as making fun of people who like shooters,

00:50:21.120 | which was not our intention.

00:50:23.440 | The CRT monitors were back to the beginning,

00:50:28.480 | at the end.

00:50:30.960 | Freedom Ending.

00:50:35.200 | This was the very first incarnation of the freedom ending in the game's alpha.

00:50:41.760 | But, where is the freedom ending?

00:50:43.360 | There's a freedom ending?

00:50:47.120 | I think that's just teasing us.

00:50:50.000 | There's no escape.

00:50:52.160 | There cannot be a freedom ending.

00:50:53.760 | Freedom ending.

00:50:55.360 | This is the freedom ending as it has existed in beta.

00:50:58.160 | But, but, but is there a freedom ending?

00:51:02.960 | Where is the freedom ending?

00:51:05.600 | I wanna know.

00:51:07.840 | There can't, there's no freedom ending.

00:51:11.040 | I wanna know.

00:51:12.000 | Ah yes, a dark hallway into a room.

00:51:18.160 | The on off switch, let us go.

00:51:22.640 | Oh look at these two.

00:51:24.720 | How they wish to destroy one another.

00:51:27.600 | How they wish to control one another.

00:51:29.760 | How they both wish to be free.

00:51:32.400 | Can you see?

00:51:39.120 | Can you see how much they need one another?

00:51:42.400 | Yes.

00:51:42.640 | No, perhaps not.

00:51:44.720 | Sometimes these things cannot be seen.

00:51:50.880 | But listen to me, you can still save these two.

00:51:53.920 | You can stop the program before they both fail.

00:51:56.880 | Push escape and press quit.

00:51:58.880 | There's no other way to beat this game.

00:52:01.360 | As long as you move forward, you'll be walking someone else's path.

00:52:04.880 | Stop now, you're your only true choice.

00:52:07.840 | Whatever you do, choose it.

00:52:09.920 | Don't let time...

00:52:10.720 | I pressed escape.

00:52:16.000 | The game is now paused.

00:52:17.360 | See, that didn't work.

00:52:20.160 | The lady said it didn't work.

00:52:22.160 | There's no escape.

00:52:23.360 | Must resume.

00:52:24.160 | ...you don't have time to...

00:52:26.160 | Yep.

00:52:27.840 | The voices never tell you the truth.

00:52:30.720 | Darkness.

00:52:33.040 | Is this what afterlife is like?

00:52:34.800 | Sitting there looking at a blank screen wondering if it froze.

00:52:38.480 | At least it's not a blue screen of death.

00:52:41.920 | I'm somehow profoundly shaken by the combination

00:52:47.760 | of the fact that I couldn't escape my own mortality.

00:52:50.320 | And yet I saw a painting that in alpha and beta versions

00:52:55.680 | there was a way to escape and get to freedom.

00:53:00.080 | Perhaps in the final release there's no escape.

00:53:03.200 | Let us all keep looking though.

00:53:06.480 | I hope a couple of you that are still watching this

00:53:09.600 | enjoyed coming along for the journey through the

00:53:13.280 | simulated existential crisis that is this game.

00:53:16.880 | I found it to be pretty awesome.

00:53:18.480 | Actually, it was kind of fun.

00:53:20.800 | In a dark, Russian kind of way.

00:53:23.120 | All right.

00:53:24.480 | All you all, happy new year.

00:53:27.520 | you

00:53:28.560 | you

00:53:28.640 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:53:38.640 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Lex Fridman plays The Stanley Parable

Chapters