[Chancellor Palpatine]

Something about "The Matrix" I never quite understood - why couldn't it just make everybody really happy, all the time? By all appearances, Neo's life in the matrix sucked.

[pupdog]

Something about "The Matrix" I never quite understood - why couldn't it just make everybody really happy, all the time? By all appearances, Neo's life in the matrix sucked.

They actually explained this. The first design of the Matrix did this, and "entire crops were lost." People simply couldn't accept it. What they redesigned it to, people could. It seemed more real. But even then, what wakes people up out of it is that sense that something is still wrong.