How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978) | Hacker News Reader

How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978)

downlode.org

36 pointsdaveloyall12 comments

"I watch the children watching TV and at first I am afraid of what they are being taught, and then I realise, They can’t be corrupted or destroyed. They watch, they listen, they understand, and, then, where and when it is necessary, they reject. There is something enormously powerful in a child’s ability to withstand the fraudulent. A child has the clearest eye, the steadiest hand. The hucksters, the promoters, are appealing for the allegiance of these small people in vain. True, the cereal companies may be able to market huge quantities of junk breakfasts; the hamburger and hot dog chains may sell endless numbers of unreal fast-food items to the children, but the deep heart beats firmly, unreached and unreasoned with. A child of today can detect a lie quicker than the wisest adult of two decades ago. When I want to know what is true, I ask my children. They do not ask me; I turn to them."

They detect the first lie, yes, but what about the second lie?

There's an excellent point being made – if you try to engineer a world by insulating children from the harsh realities of it, you'll make the next generation extremely vulnerable to the simplest exploitation or difficulty.

I really want to see that Paris TV interview with him and Norman Spinrad that he talks about. I checked youtube, nothing. After some googling I found this page[1] which notes that, "apparently a tape of this is available for viewing at the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, in Paris".

So I searched the ina.fr site, but apparently they haven't digitized it. This is a long shot, but does anybody who speaks French want to ask them? Their contact info lists 'assistance@ina.fr'. It just sounds way too surreal and odd to be hidden away forever.

[1]: http://2010philipkdickfans.philipkdickfans.com/frank/problem...

Here p.ex. http://www.dickien.fr/dossiers/eantabi/Elizabeth-Antebi.html

Wow, replete with Pink Floyd soundtrack!

> It reminds me of a headline that appeared in a California newspaper just before I flew here. SCIENTISTS SAY THAT MICE CANNOT BE MADE TO LOOK LIKE HUMAN BEINGS. It was a federally funded research program, I suppose.

I really want to know what that was about.

Thanks for this.

It was particularly interesting to me how PKD's themes of simulacra, Disneyland, and Watergate closely matched those of Jean Baudrillard who wrote[1], somewhat more pessimistically but very much in the same vein as PKD, in 1981:

  ... Watergate. You remember this. Nixon. Wiretaps in the
  plants. Deepthroat. All that jazz. Watergate was the exact
  same fucking thing as Disneyland—an imaginary thing whose
  only purpose is to distract us from the fact that every
  last thing is now imaginary. But where Disneyland is a
  fictional magic land, Watergate is instead a “scandal.”
  The real scandal beneath the surface is that there is no 
  difference between facts and bullshit. Both the CIA and
  the journalists from the Washington Post who broke the
  story use the same tactics. What Watergate did was create
  a fiction moral compass of sorts. All politics are
  permanently buttfucked, but if we occasionally point
  fingers at some buttfucker who is doing some serious
  buttfucking, it creates this sense that there are less
  serious degrees of buttfucking and even possibly regular,
  wholesome vagfucking. ...

[1] Kind of wrote - excerpted from a translation into modern vernacular of The Precession of Simulacra at http://www.continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article...

TIL that Philip K. Dick had a touch of the Apophenia.

A highly related introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness. http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html

This is the first thing I've ever read that makes a kinda sorta coherent argument for Christianity. It's like the New Testament meets the Matrix.

I love PKD's work, but every time I hear him talk, I become convinced he is totally insane.

A bit unpleasant to say that about someone we know had enduring mental health problems - hallucinations and delusions, and some drug-related stuff too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com