memes

Idk I don't mind that the very poor that don't have phones still have an option to make phone calls. I know a lot of victims of abuse use them as a way to make phone calls that aren't monitored by their abusive partner. The homeless can use them, or maybe your phone died. I don't recall seeing ads on them but I'm not exactly looking out for payphones.

Plus I'd hardly can a phone call "ageing technology". I mean yes it's an old technology, but still very relevant especially for those that don't have other means of contact

I think they are still around because the government told them they can't remove them. They are considered a public resource. Remember, Telstra used to be a government entity before it was privatised.

If they offer wifi I’m guessing the phones are VOIP?

The Telstra pay phone boxes near me now all have massive ridiculously bright screens displaying advertisements. For sure that is their primary purpose now.

Telephone booths were still pretty common until the early 90's

As in, frame perfect execution of some kind of set of inputs, like a speed runner would have to pull off?

No, not in the Matrix canon I can recall off the top of my head.

They're more focused on an... unwavering belief, or faith, in something.

Not any kind of technical, machine-like ability to execute a complex task, with high precision.

The point is being incredibly human in a way that is not machine-like, that's the way(s) out, not in trying to out machine a machine.

EDIT:

As the Architect says to Neo in Matrix 2:

Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

They cannot fully account for, figure out a way to fully contain what you might call the human spirit, or irrational faith of some kind.

Neo's particular variant of this kind of irrational drive... is his love of Trinity.

... its rather sappy, actually, lol.

4 more or less inverts this, it is Trinity's love of Neo that ultimately saves/reawakens him.

I can’t believe there was never a scandal about the short that suggests you can leave “The Matrix” by jumping to your death.

Right. I have this conspiracy theory that the media and the government encourage UFO conspiracy theories so they can make them look nuts and crazy, so they are easily dismissed by the mainstream population. Same with the JFK assassination and a bunch of other stuff.

I think the word for this is co-opt.

You don't 'debunk' it.

You put your people either in control of, or position them as massively influential figures within it, or coax such people over to your flavor of that kind of messaging.