[kastagg]

This piece shows little awareness of Philip K. Dick's work or the circumstances of his life. PKD wasn't on the typical agenda of a sci-fi author, so it won't really work to analyze his work that way. PKD's fiction doesn't have any clear goal of futurology, deeply analyzing technology (like, say, Arthur C. Clarke) or presenting dystopias (like, say, George Orwell). A Scanner Darkly was written at a tough time in his life and was autobiographical in some fragmentary way. Tessa Dick made a sci-fi novel out of it, but the veneer over 1960s California is paper-thin.

It would be more adequate to say that PKD focused on spiritual and religious subjects, particularly the nature of reality and how the "little creatures" suffer and struggle to survive. This isn't a mode of futurology. PKD struggled with the symptoms of diagnosed schizophrenia and his work powerfully reflects that personal struggle. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is about a spiritual dystopia that doesn't center the replicants at all - that theme of "our idea of the human" comes rather from Ridley Scott.

Then comes the political pivot near the end of this blog post. PKD didn't predict COVID-19 or even try. It's spectacularly unclear that he was trying to warn us about the "danger" of qualified scientists telling us that it would be helpful to get vaccinated and wear masks to reduce the death and disability caused by a lethal pandemic. COVID-19 has killed over a million people in the US alone - hundreds of 9/11s worth. This isn't a conspiracy to control you with technology. To quote a certain wise wizard, "I am not trying to rob you. I'm trying to help you."

[stevenwoo]

It's weird how they focused on A Scanner Darkly, I thought Ubik was more prescient in the small part of the plot that corporations run the world and advertising for them is ubiquitous.

[rwmj]

One of them is a movie and the other one isn't (although searching IMDB tells me that an Ubik movie is in development - yay!). You can't expert journalists to read books now can you?

[stevenwoo]

Going off the main topic, I was reading one of PKD's short stories, Second Variety, and I thought I knew how it was going to end because it was made into a movie I had seen, and it did turn out as expected but the movie that was made from this short story (I have watched it as well) was not the first one that came to mind.

[NoraCodes]

Once certainly can't expect Unherd writers to read books, no.

[solomonb]

I agree 100%. I'm pretty surprised at the complete lack of discussion of the Exegesis.