] Like the babbling psychics who predict future crimes in ] Minority Report, Dick was a precog. Lurking within his ] amphetamine-fueled fictions are truths that have only to ] be found and decoded. In a 1978 essay he wrote: "We live ] in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured ] by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by ] religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, ] What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with ] pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people ] using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not ] distrust their motives. I distrust their power. It is an ] astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, ] universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same ] thing." An interesting article about the proliferation of Dickian tales in modern society. I'm amazed at how he was so right (mood organ anyone?) and other sci-fi greats such as Clark and Bradbury were so wrong (ahem... 2010...). Proof positive that you can see the future. Which makes me feel much better in some ways and much worse in others. The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick |