That's an interesting insight, thank you. Are there any good articles about his deliberately comic / ironic approach, or his approach in general? His reliance on cliche story building troupes (like private detectives) can be off-putting at times, would love to understand better what was behind his choices.
A good starting point is Stanislaw Lem, “Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans.” [1] For more recent analysis, read Jonathan Lethem: “My initial responsiveness to Dick’s work was to delight in his mordant surrealist onslaught against the drab prison of consensual reality… It took me a while to grasp how Dick’s novels, those of the early sixties especially, function as a superb lens for critiquing the collective psychological binds of the postwar embrace of consumer capitalism.” [2] You can also read PKD himself; he gave a few lectures that give some insight into his thinking and intentional process. [3]
I’d also suggest that when talking about PKD, it’s especially important to distinguish between “cliché” and “trope,” since these two concepts are often improperly equated in popular TV-Trope-ified discourse. A cliché, e.g. “True love conquers all,” tends to lull the reader; it terminates further thought. But a trope is merely a familiar anchor point, an allusion to a literary tradition, and (potentially) an invitation to a dialogue between the current text and some previous work. (“The hero prepares by putting on his armor,” for example, is a trope that dates back to the Iliad.)
Dick often begins with a character or situation anchored in a familiar setting (possibly for more mercenary than aesthetic reasons—he was after all scraping together a living in the context of pulp paperback novels) but step by step strips away the anchors, leaving the reader untethered to settled meaning or “consensual reality.” The undercover narcotics cop turns out to be a schismatic, unaware that he’s surveilling himself. The noir-like investigator gets arrested by another investigator who seems to be his double, pulled into another precinct identical to his own… etc.
If the lack-of-respectability of his materials bothers you (as it seemed to bother Gopnik), it may be helpful to see PKD in the tradition of Kafka, and as a precursor to the post-modernists like Robert Coover, who gleefully and intentionally play games within familiar texts to comic and profound effect. But PKD really isn’t so far away from the most interesting of his much-maligned SF pulp colleagues. See A.E. van Vogt’s “The Weapon Shops of Isher,” where the author plays games with doubles, shifting narrators, and familiar pulp characters to intentionally strange and dislocating effect—although in his case, the kitsch never quite makes the transmuting leap into art.
Ubik was intentionally hilarious, with the never-fully-explained-but-there-you-go eye-eater, and the briefcase psychiatrist intended to drive you insane! (Or maybe that was from 3 Stigmata?)
Mark Weiser told me that Ubik was the inspiration of the term he coined, "Ubiquitous Computing"!
Sure—in order of mention, that would be “A Scanner Darkly” and “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
The slyly comic tone of the latter may surprise those who’ve only seen its rather dour film adaptation (“Blade Runner”), which the original novel resembles only slightly.
Ah okay, thank you. I feel a bit lame as they are pretty recognizable titles. I never got into the blade runner movies outside of cultural knowledge of the plot and know nothing of "A Scanner Darkly". Going to add them to my reading list so thank you.
Not sure about the critical consensus, but VALIS is by far my favorite Dick's book. I read almost all of his works and love very many short stories and novels, however VALIS is in a class of its own in science fiction IMO.
The title is also brilliant: mysterious and vague until you learn what is stands for. What's not to like?
Just out of interest: do you notice any difference at all between different brands of coffee? I am with on the idea that coffee tastes awful, but despite that I still prefer certain brands that taste subjectively better.
There are thousands of ways to enjoy coffee. I’m not a coffee nerd at all, but getting a whole bean that you like from a reputable (local if possible) roaster and grinding it yourself is pretty easy and you get coffee that’s considerably better than grocery store ground coffee. You have to try several different beans and brands to get an idea for what’s available, buy 8-10 ounce packs at a time then when you find one you like buy in bulk. Also, anything in pods is absolute garbage, so don’t even consider it.
Everyone's phones already collect and sell this information. If it's useful, and the citizens vote for it, why shouldn't cities collect this data? It already happens on toll roads
Different from the government (in theory). In the US in particular, any data that is generated from a tax-dollar-paid system is by default public information that can be requested either by FOIA or a state-equivalent law. I think that is a qualitative difference that makes this genuinely worth considering. Imagine if Google et. al. were legally required to make their location data publicly available. I mean, assume that were the case from the inception of the idea to gather that data because that's how it is with governments in the US.
(Granted, there are further considerations around the potential for abuse, especially when considering victims of domestic violence/abuse. But the idea is far more palatable than what we currently have with large corporations.)
> than what we currently have with large corporations
Let’s be clear: the current situation is that every trip I take is privately accessible information that is sold for pennies but otherwise difficult to access; critically, there is no obligation for the information to be shared. Yes, this is a far less palatable situation than if such data is simply and plainly public: the gatherers, in this case governments, would have an obligation to share it with the subjects of the data.
I’d personally prefer no data collection, but that’s just where my vote goes. Unfortunately, in this hypothetical my vote was the less popular one:
> If it's useful, and the citizens vote for it, why shouldn't cities collect this data?
This is a minor detail but reducing or removing alcohol all together (my company) from social events for inclusion reasons is excluding people who like consuming alcohol at social events. We somehow pivoted to embracing restrictions in order to accommodate small groups of people, instead of offering alternatives (e.g. vegan options). This will always irritate other groups of people and is not a sustainable way to improve inclusion.
> reducing or removing alcohol all together (my company) from social events for inclusion reasons is excluding people who like consuming alcohol at social events
Reducing or removing alcohol at social events is not done for "inclusion reasons" but for straightforward legal liability reasons: a drunk employee often has poor impulse control and may do or say shitty things that they wouldn't if they were sober, and with some probability this results in lawsuits against the company. No drunk people at social events -> fewer lawsuits.
Sure and one answer to that was simply to ensure soft beverage availability in addition to alcohol. Which was an initiative borne from a DEI program. We’re debating specifics of DEI-relevant initiatives. What I’m saying is these discussions only happen when there is space for DEI consideration
I am not nitpicking and in general am in support of offering more diverse options. However, in my experience I can't remember a single event where soft drinks where not offered in additional to alcohol: pre DEI or during the DEI era.
As a vegetarian, I really struggled finding good non-meat options though.
This is a fantastical speculation based on no evidence other than political bias. We do have evidence, though, that candidates had to go through performative hiring practices to prove that they support "diversity".
At Google? Where’s the evidence? Most DEI efforts come down to making sure you give a diverse candidate pool a chance to prove themselves instead of just hiring buddies that look and think and act exactly the same. That’s hardly “performative”.
A friend once said to me "that road doesnt need a speed limit anymore. It hasnt had a fatal accident for many years. And cars are safer now. Dont burden people with stupid restrictions." Evil is patient.
It's more the administration is attacking journalism than the other way around.
For example, the FCC regularly receives complaints against pretty much every broadcaster that they are biased and the FCC regularly dismisses those because broadcasters are supposed to be allowed to take positions that politicians may disagree with.
Until now. The new FCC chairman reinstated complaints against all the major network stations that were alleged to have a liberal bias and is now subpoenaing them, and did not reinstate any complaints against major network stations (e.g., FOX) that allege conservative bias.
One of the policies is that if you are at all a journalist you are an enemy of the state.
During his rallies he'd literally have the entire crowd riled up against the very concept of journalists, because they might not suck up to him every single second of every single day.
Seriously, where do comments like this keep coming from?
Maybe it's better to say the current administration is battling journalism, in a one-sided way. There's a real difference, but it looks too much like splitting hairs.
I know this is a joke, but iirc there used to be certain procedures that would surgically implant something physically harmful into an addicts arm to scare them into soberness. Like a capsule maybe?.. Can't remember the details. And if the person were to start drinking alcohol again, the capsule would break down and release a chemical into their bloodstream.
Even following the charitable interpretation, grouping a dozen of cultures with very different educational and economic opportunities into a single "asian" designation is a bizarre practice.
