Philip K Dickheads

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For all the Dickheads out there.

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Even by science fiction standards it’s uncanny how Dick depicted future worlds that seem to be coming to pass. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964) predicted the effects of global warming and the escape into immersive role-playing games. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) — filmed in 1982 as Blade Runner — foresaw mass animal extinctions and the difficulty in distinguishing between humans and artificial intelligence. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) is set in an America where democracy has been replaced by a racist police state.

But my favourite was Ubik (1969), which might be considered quintessential Dick in its evocation of the sort of red-pill realities and rug-pulling narratives now so beloved of conspiracy theorists and twist-laden Hollywood thrillers. While the space travel and colonised moon pay lip service to hard-science SF, the novel is set in an all-too-recognisable oligarchy ruled by mega-corporations. The capitalism here is so late-stage that a front door can demand “five cents, please” before it will permit a flat-dweller to leave his own apartment (or “conapt”). Sentient coffee pots, showers and fridges all require payment by coin before they agree to function. (A development that Dick didn’t foresee, it seems, is cash being replaced by credit cards.)

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/pkd
 
 

Hey, Dickheads (why, @ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝, why? )!

Didja hear that there's a TV series based on PKD's The Man In The High Castle?

Yeah, yeah, small joke. I know it's existed, over and done with. What I'd like to know from all 111 of you is whadja think? Did you like it, loathe it, meh'd it?

I followed it up into the 2nd season, I believe, or up into the introduction of Burn Gorman's character and then I was out. AFAIC, I allowed it a lot of leeway but it couldn't sustain the interest.

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/pkd
 
 

From the creator of the documentary:

In 2007 I produced this documentary about the mystical experiences of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick.

Philip K. Dick is considered by many to be one the world’s greatest science fiction writers ever; as a sufferer from mental illness himself he had the ability to turn his hallucinations about the universe into an extraordinary writing career.

During his lifetime, Dick produced an astonishing amount of prize winning novels and short stories, which were translated into more than 25 languages. Three of his literary works were transformed into blockbuster movies: Blade Runner, Minority Report and Total Recall.

Several years before his death, Philip started having mystical experiences that affected his everyday life. As a result, he started to wonder if what he had imagined for his stories was real and if life was just an illusion or the creation of each person’s subjectivity.

This in-depth program explores Philip K. Dick`s world, a universe full of mysteries and intrigues.

IMDb

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/pkd
 
 
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For my money, the worst thing about Blade Runner is how it created a franchise based on its own adaptation. The net negative outcome is we're now categorically unlikely to ever see a cinematic portrayal of Rachael Rosen throwing a goat off a roof.

The best stuff in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is not in Blade Runner. The animal worship is tricky. It's a source of dark humor that takes time to blend in with the rest of the world; while it lampoons the insanity of industrialized passions, it runs the risk of making the world goofy, and thus also the characters. I understand why Scott and company evaded it. It's the chess that I love and miss.

There are multiple scenes in which opposing characters attempt to outmaneuver each other so subtly that the reader isn't immediately aware it's happening. The experience I loved so much was going back to reread the last few pages armed with the knowledge that these characters are actively trying to kill each other without letting on. I can't think of anything else that gives me those particular tingles, and it's a shame that the theme was unintentionally scraped out of the visual media franchise. I would love to see a different take on the source, but I also love the secret knowledge of this ultimate game of cat and mouse. Regardless, Electric Sheep remains an excellent example of a book with so much going on that thirty million dollars couldn't capture it all.

On a barely related note, I'd love to see a feature film adaptation of Eye in the Sky.

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/pkd
 
 

A documentary which goes on an imaginative tour from the Colorado grave where Dick is buried to the suburbs of California where he lived and worked. Talks to his ex-wives, friends and biographers.

Arena episode, BBC (1994)

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In 2005, David Hanson left Philip K. Dick’s head on a plane. Hanson, a roboticist, was en route to Google to present his team’s project— a painstakingly crafted android replication of the author, who died in 1982—when he changed planes and left behind a duffel bag. The robot’s head surfaced at a couple of airports around the American West before disappearing in Washington state, never to be found again.

...

The bot looked remarkably like Dick and even wore some of his clothes, donated by his children. More importantly, it spoke not just like Dick, but as Dick, or at least it was meant to: The android’s creators loaded his prodigious body of work in the software, plus reams of interviews with the real writer. If a person posed the robot a question that the real Dick had been asked—and if it had been recorded—the machine would respond just as the writer did, in Dick’s own voice. Only if Dick had never answered a particular question would the software attempt to construct a response using a system called latent semantic analysis. The robot also had some preprogrammed responses to frequently asked questions.

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