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Speaker 5: A live man like this man letting butterfly, flatning wing,

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big down in force.

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Speaker 1: Man, it gonna cause a tree fall, letting five thousand

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miles away.

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Speaker 5: Man, nobody see.

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Speaker 6: Nobody else.

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Speaker 4: You know, need no man you don't like, you call.

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Speaker 5: And you get back. That's the point. Got black a

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dag on the pan right now.

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Speaker 6: You don't?

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Speaker 7: All right, Thomas, welcome back to the jay Burd and

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show how you doing that?

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Speaker 5: Very well? Thanks for hosting me.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, so this is I don't want to say unplanned,

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but we move things around a little bit. We were

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initially going to talk about the West Memphis three resume

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our series on occultism, but obviously we've done now two

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in a row on the Blade Runner franchise. And for Christmas,

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you very kindly sent me a copy of Philip K.

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Dix Do Android's Dream of Electric Cheap, obviously the source

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material for those films, and I burned through it really quickly.

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I enjoyed the book a lot, and I figured, you

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know what, let's continue our series, get it all done

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at once, and discuss the book. It's a pretty easy read.

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It's maybe two hundred pages. It's something you can get

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through quickly. It is very different than the films. There's

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a lot of crossover, and if you've seen the films,

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there were things you will understand about the book. The

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main characters are largely the same, but it is a

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compliment piece. It is different enough to be well worth reading.

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And yeah, I haven't read a lot of Dick stuff,

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but it's obviously a master of the genre. So I'm curious, Thomas.

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I'll let you introduce this. When did you first read

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it and what sort of grabbed you about it?

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Speaker 5: I first read it well, because I think I mentioned

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I got turned onto the film Blade Runner early on

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because very early cable I'm talking even before cable as

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we know it existed, the Chicago market was served by

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what was called on TV. It was quite literally just

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one channel. Then they'd played blocks of music videos sometimes

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other times they'd play cooking shows or phishing shows. Then

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at night they'd play movies, and Blade Runner was one

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of the consistent films on offer, and my mom was

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a huge fan of it, so I was always into

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it as an ip and then when I got into

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science fiction, as an adolescent, you know, twelve thirteen, fourteen

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years old, I was reading a bunch of Harlan Ellison

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and I got the paperback compilation Dark Visions, and in

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the back there was an advertisement for other paperbacks including

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do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep, which was then being

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the paper bank was being sold as a Blade Runner.

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So I'm like, go, wow, the source material. So I

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went out and I found it, I think a Crown Books,

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and it made a big impact on me. And like

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I said, I'm not Philip K. Dick's unusual because he's

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he's hard to categorize. I mean, obviously he's he was

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a science fiction author, but not in the sense that

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Arthur C. Clark was. I invoked Clerk because Clark was

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more into metaphysics and theological postulates in questions. But at

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the same time, he very much had heart sci fi aspects,

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you know to his writing. And you know, Philip K. Dick,

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he wasn't like Frank Herbert. He wasn't dealing with paradomatic

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systems as his subject matter. You know, socio political phenomena

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at scale was absolutely a framing device and essentially his

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world building. But Philip K. Dicks his narratives and his stories,

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it's about they raise existential questions and ontological questions about

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the individual and the individual mind amids disruptive aspects of modernity.

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And that's the strength of stuff like a Scanner Darkly

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and do Android's Dream. That's one of the reasons it's

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relatable because it's describing and depicting phenomena that the reader

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experiences in his own life. Because these things are intrinsic

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to late modernity. When I say late modernity, I'm speaking

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in Hegelian terms, not mercy and ones. This would be clear.

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And future shock is a real thing, and a lot's

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been written of future shock. The phrase was coined quite

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literally by Alvin Toffler. He wrote a book titled Future Shock,

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and there was humanist aspects to his analysis, particularly how

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marriage patterns and child rearing patterns at scale would shake out,

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and you know the implications of the mobility of populations

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and the sort of tensions that would derive. They were

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in as well as economic phenomena and consumption patterns of scale,

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and people like Seawright Mills and Christopher lash dealt with

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that kind of thing too, Because it's intrinsic to sociology,

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but very few people have ever written anything about the

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phenomena of future shock on the discrete individu usual mind,

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particularly situated in what's obviously an American context, you know,

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or if it's been attempted, it takes the form of satire,

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you know, like Kurt Vonnegut type stuff.

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Speaker 7: You know, so.

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Speaker 5: They androids dream of electric sheep. It was a very

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unique book for that reason. I can't remember who wrote

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it on a senior moment, but the book The Star

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is my destination. I'm not a huge fan of that book,

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but it it was hugely influential and impactful. Arguably it's

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subjectively in the same conceptual vein, but it's it's too fantastical,

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you know, do android dream of electric sheep? It's not

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really fantastical at all. In a lot of ways, it

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came true, you know. I mean, that's and there's there's

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subtleties to it as well, you know that I think

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are adjacent that related to the primary topical thrust, but

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that raise interesting questions in their own right, especially the

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you know, how the United States and the Soviet Union

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collaborate on matters relating to replicants, you know, uh, decard

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runs across one of the renegade Nexus six who's posing

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as a KGB officer who's a blade runner, you know,

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because that's liaising with KGB blade runners is not a

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usual for a big city American cop who deals in

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the same grim professional duties. And that kind of interplay

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between integral matters of technology, particularly technology that's purposed for

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warfare and violence at scale, even or perhaps especially at

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times a heightened tension like that, that was a peculiar

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but unsurprising aspect of the Cold War. And that's something

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that's very much related to technology. It's not intrinsic to

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conflict paradigms. You know, it's just one example of what

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I was talking about. But it's also the the ethical aspects,

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the humanist aspects of technological civilization. They're not generally addressed

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in the same capacities that you know, Philip K. Dick

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deals with them, and that's very insightful. You know, the

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the criteria of what constitutes a human being becoming splendidly arbitrary.

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You know, obviously there's a there's a there's all manner

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of there's all manner of counterfactuals that are kind of

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on the nose in driving home some egalitarian message and

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what have you. But the you know, and the way

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they the way they deal with the subjective concepts of

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the in groups and out groups, and how such things

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are determined in political capacities. It sounds to be very

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simple minded, as most moralizing narratives are. But phil Kate

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Dick's not approaching it like that. I mean, obviously there's

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there's a strongly ethical component to the manner in which

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replicants are treated because they are a slave cast, but

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that's not the primary impetus for why they're disqualified as

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human beings. It's because if everybody is human, then nobody

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is really you know, If life forms that can be

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manufactured are as human as ones who are born of

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a woman's womb, that kind of neutralizes all epistemic priors

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about the human condition and what's unique about human beings,

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even if you're not religiously minded, even if you're a secularist,

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And that causes this sort of spiraling nihilism, and it

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also has a tendency to compromise all of their ethical structures.

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So it's essential that this criteria be maintained. It's not

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just some pretext, you know, to to rationalize why these

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life forms are forced to serve on death squads off world,

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or be prostitutes or work in you know, lead lives

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of endless toy and pain. Obviously, it's an aggravating factor

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that diminishes the potentiality of replicans realizing any sort of

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liberation or you know, being afforded full agency as human beings,

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whether it's not the primary titalyst and if there's that

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kind of nihilistic spiral, you know, the center cannot hold.

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Things fall apart quite literally systemically. That's really you know,

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and this is very much on people's minds owing to

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the Cold War as well, because when there's a kind

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of that, there's a kind of dialectical aganism that leads

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to you know, more like profound philosophical activity when there's

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quite literally systems competing for supremacy over this planet and

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over human affairs, and the subject matter was the the

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you know, the dignity of the human being. If you

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accept that, you know, the Cold War primarily was in

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dialectical terms of the confrontation between you know, progressives and

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and left to Galeans who have very different ideas on

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the historical process as well as the human condition. But

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the point being that this constant discussion of how to

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mitigate alienation amiss not just the dehumanization of labor and

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patterns of life that you know surround labor, but also

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the proverbial death of God, which on the twentieth century

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was just taken for granted by intellectuals and playable theorists alike.

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That becomes all the more of a existential moral hazard

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real will charge. And it's not it's not as if

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these things have abated or left us since the the

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you know, the onset of globalism and the defeat of

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the communists. But it's the character of the the dialectical

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process has changed a bit because there's not that agonistic catalyst,

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if that makes any sense. But you know, so it's both.

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It's both the books both a period piece as well

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as you know, as well as a highly conceptual sci

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fi novella that remains relevant in discreet ways, you know.

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I think that's the real strength of it, you know,

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And that's and like before it went live, that the

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big difference is, you know, it deals with religious belief,

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or Aristot's religious belief, like for those who haven't read

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this story. There's this sort of he's both a Messianic figure,

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but he's also kind of like Billy Graham. He's like

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this media personality named Wilbur Mercer. And in the world

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of Blade Runner in the novel, there's this entire mythology

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around him and this whole redemption narrative about, you know,

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the the moral integrity of the human being and human

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agency there in which you know, sets man apart and

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allows for the possibility of salvation. And Deckard develops a

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certain fascination with this belief system as the story goes on,

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and uh, the the critics of Mercer, as well as

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the liberationist minded replicants, claim that Mercer's not even a

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real person. He's either an actor who's playing this character

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with this entirely imaginary biography, or he's some sort of

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projected a I or a hologram or something. And uh,

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you know, it raises the question too, if, uh, if

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Messianism or you know, true theological commitments are even possible

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if things are discussed in these terms, if there's a

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presumption of all human experiences is being potentially simulated, you know,

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psychological experiences, the very very fact of that potentiality, it

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might you know, it self neutralize the potential for authentic

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spiritual life once. In other words, there's a categorical emphasis

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or fixation on authenticity that means that that you know,

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God is already dead, at least in terms of you know,

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precedented religious belief in things. So there's a lot packed

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into that two hundred pages. That's that's the best place

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to start, I'd say, yes.

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Speaker 7: So the opening to this book, we get kind of

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off the bat a number of key differences. So one

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decord is married, uh, one of it is, And we

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see the introduction of two things very quickly. One uh,

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the so called mood organ right, which is a divice

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that allows users to from apparently thousands of combinations finally

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tune their own mood synthetically. So, for instance, you know,

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when this starts off, they're arguing, and part of the

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reason they're arguing is that his wife has sort of

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voluntarily plunged herself into depression. This is something she's been

236
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more and more drawn to, and in the course of

237
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the two arguing, he's constantly telling her, well, why are

238
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you even doing this? This is stupid. Just make yourself

239
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in a good mood. Also, we get introduced to, as

240
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you've said, mercerism. The religious right in Mercerism is the

241
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empathy box, where seemingly all humans across the Solar System,

242
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both on Earth and on you know, the Martian colonies

243
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have this sort of psychic communion where they become part

244
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of sort of the martyrdom of mercer right. It's this

245
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repeated motif of him walking up a hill while being

246
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struck with stones. We learn that this experience is emotionally

247
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intense that old people occasionally die involved in it. But

248
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there are several things there. One, because this is a

249
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world after a nuclear apocalypse, the condition of the Earth

250
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is even worse than the movies. Possibly effectively, anyone who

251
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can get off planet has the world is just bathed

252
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in radioactive ash, and so it is physically difficult to

253
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remain on Earth. DECKERD, for example, where's a lead lined

254
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codpiece so that he can potentially bear children. We also

255
00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:38,039
learn that this level of radiation has produced what they

256
00:23:38,039 --> 00:23:43,119
call specials. There's different varieties ant heads, chicken heads, basically

257
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people who have been mutated. One of our main characters

258
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:51,200
in fact, is mutated. His brain is gone. He was

259
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,799
at one point a talentan mechanic, and now they just

260
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sort of keep him around. But also one of the

261
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interesting things about mercerism is an extremement, sort of an

262
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emotional spiritual level to animals. Many animals have been driven

263
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extinct by this nuclear war, and so everyone has everyone

264
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wants to have one. This is a major status game.

265
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And so after this fight with his wife, he goes

266
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up to the roof to talk with his neighbors. His

267
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neighbor has gotten or has a mayor, which is extraordinarily expensive.

268
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This mayor is genetically notable, and she's you know, she

269
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has a foal, right, which is going to be both

270
00:24:31,319 --> 00:24:35,960
extremely socially and monetarily beneficial to this man. While Deckard

271
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he has, as the title of the book says, an

272
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electric cheap a very convincing but still mechanical replica of

273
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a real animal. We learn that this is sort of shameful.

274
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It's sort of looked down on having an imitation animal

275
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and their pole systems set up so that no one

276
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else knows. For instance, a large part of the plot

277
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:01,799
is driven forward by electric animal repairment, and the whole

278
00:25:01,839 --> 00:25:06,279
thing is set up to look like a veterinary hospital. Obviously,

279
00:25:06,319 --> 00:25:08,359
again you know, in this world where animals are very

280
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:13,440
we're very rare and valuable, they're often stolen or you know,

281
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,200
there's there's a lot of money to be made. Uh.

282
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So we learned a couple of things there. One that

283
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,000
attachment to animals, which is a central driving sort of

284
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thrust into this plot. Uh, just kind of going through.

285
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Speaker 5: The aformative empathy to it as well, Like that's important.

286
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:39,039
That's you know, authentic biology or authentic biology is is

287
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:48,160
uh is fetishized. But having any animal that you know

288
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:52,680
one is attached to and that you care for, that's

289
00:25:54,319 --> 00:25:57,480
part of the fixation of performative empathy, and that's really

290
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what underlies mercerism has practiced.

291
00:26:00,039 --> 00:26:06,640
Speaker 7: Yeah, go ahead, well exactly, and uh we see another

292
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,359
kind of constant referra. I think it's called it's English's

293
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:14,839
Animal Handbook, which is this sort of constantly public published Uh.

294
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:17,599
I guess you could say sort of like market watch

295
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,960
of animals that indicates you know, their prices which are

296
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:25,039
many many times normal person salary, but also right, the

297
00:26:25,039 --> 00:26:28,400
status of if these example, these animal animals excuse me,

298
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:29,680
are extinct or not.

299
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Speaker 5: Uh.

300
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 7: The inciting push to this is very similar to the

301
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,680
film there's a group of Nexus six androids, some of

302
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,319
the most advanced ever developed, that have made their way

303
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:40,799
to Earth.

304
00:26:41,519 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 5: Uh.

305
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 7: There's a discussion with the police chief who's played very

306
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,839
differently in this book than he is in the film.

307
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,119
Or they go through you know, talking about you know,

308
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,640
the void comptest, right, the way that they determine if

309
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:59,359
someone is human or an android. They go to Seattle,

310
00:26:59,759 --> 00:27:04,240
right to the corporation where he meets Rachel, Rachel Rosen,

311
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:08,039
who you may remember from the film. This is slightly different.

312
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,160
It's sort of a similar hook where the Rosen Corporation

313
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:17,440
is obviously they want to stay ahead of the detection

314
00:27:17,559 --> 00:27:21,799
technology for obvious reasons. And we learn a couple of things. One,

315
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:27,880
the Void Comptest doesn't work on human either schizophrenics or psychopaths,

316
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,039
so they begin to inject some doubt, have you ever

317
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:35,319
retired a human? There are humans who are fully biological

318
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:41,039
but lack empathy. Effectively, the Void Comptest is a test

319
00:27:41,079 --> 00:27:45,680
for empathy. And what's interesting is that, very similarly to

320
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,920
the movie, right, there's a moment where he is supporting

321
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,240
he tests Rachel. But what's interesting in this case is

322
00:27:53,319 --> 00:27:57,599
the first time he doesn't catch her. He goes through

323
00:27:58,319 --> 00:28:00,519
and when he gets a reading, they say, oh, we

324
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,759
got you. We've got this on camera. She's just a

325
00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:06,640
schizophrenic or she's a psychopath, I can't remember. They have

326
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,559
some explanation for it, and they're literally leaning on him.

327
00:28:09,559 --> 00:28:11,880
They try to bribe him with an owl, the same

328
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,359
motif you'll note from the film, and then he figures

329
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,880
her out very narrowly. He discovers, oh, wait, you actually

330
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:24,599
are an android. And so the relationship between Decard and

331
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,640
the corporation is different between the films, but also his

332
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,599
relationship to Rachel is very different. Rachel is much as

333
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,920
much less of a sympathetic character in the book instead

334
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,720
of said of the film. So he goes to meet

335
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,839
the first Android, and this android is apparently posing as

336
00:28:47,359 --> 00:28:50,319
a KGB official, right, a blade runner from the Soviet

337
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:54,039
Union here obviously to see one of the first retirements

338
00:28:54,079 --> 00:28:59,359
of Nexas six. This new advanced android, unbeknownst to Deckard

339
00:28:59,359 --> 00:29:03,039
at least any this is the android in disguise. He

340
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,119
tries to kill him. Deckord narrowly, you know, retires him,

341
00:29:07,559 --> 00:29:09,599
and then I believe I can't remember if it's right

342
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,279
before right after Rachel calls him and basically says, you

343
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:14,440
have to bring me on the next one. I want

344
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,880
to be a part of this. I'm going over this

345
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,480
quickly because I want to get to the introduction of

346
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,519
I think perhaps one of the most interesting characters in

347
00:29:26,559 --> 00:29:28,119
the background. At the same time, this is sort of

348
00:29:28,119 --> 00:29:32,039
the b plot. Isidor, who is this you know, formerly

349
00:29:32,079 --> 00:29:35,519
intelligent mechanic who has become special due to radiation exposure,

350
00:29:35,799 --> 00:29:39,039
has met Ritz, one of the escape androids we don't

351
00:29:39,079 --> 00:29:44,160
know yet. Interesting thing about the difference in how androids

352
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:48,400
are portrayed in this is they are much more sinister

353
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,799
in the book than in the film. It is very

354
00:29:51,799 --> 00:29:55,480
clear that these androids do not have empathy. And the

355
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,359
way this has shown with how PRIs is introduced is

356
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,279
that again much like the film, this is depopulated earth,

357
00:30:01,559 --> 00:30:06,039
and so even in the city center, apartments are scarcely full,

358
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,279
and there's these constant references to the fact that the

359
00:30:09,279 --> 00:30:12,960
earth is covered in junk, that there's other people's items,

360
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:17,359
you know, their family photos, their furniture, all decaying around everyone,

361
00:30:17,519 --> 00:30:21,279
and so people live in largely empty apartments. His character Isidor,

362
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:28,319
works at this animal repair facility and he runs into

363
00:30:28,359 --> 00:30:31,759
Priss he's simple minded, he lives by himself, he's very lonely.

364
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:35,440
But when he encounters her, she's naked to the waist

365
00:30:36,079 --> 00:30:39,319
but has no sort of shame or shock about that whatsoever.

366
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,799
Described very alien even in the way that she interacts

367
00:30:42,799 --> 00:30:47,440
with him. She lies to his face constantly, clearly taking

368
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,480
advantage of him without really a second thought. There is

369
00:30:50,559 --> 00:30:53,680
no empathy in the way that she interacts with this

370
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:57,839
simple minded man who clearly is lonely. And that's sort

371
00:30:57,839 --> 00:31:01,240
of the b plot going on in the background. And

372
00:31:01,279 --> 00:31:04,440
I'm skipping over a lot here, not because it's not important,

373
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,240
but just because there's a character that I want to

374
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,799
talk about, because he's, in my mind, perhaps the most

375
00:31:08,799 --> 00:31:13,160
interesting part of this. So Deckard goes on to sort

376
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:17,400
of the next the next bounty he has to collect,

377
00:31:17,839 --> 00:31:21,119
which is this android who is serving as an opera singer.

378
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:24,680
She's described as very talented, sort of hiding in plain sight.

379
00:31:25,319 --> 00:31:29,880
But when he goes into her dressing room a film

380
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,119
or a scene we see sort of echoed in the film,

381
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,599
he's arrested. Doesn't go well. She basically says, hey, this

382
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,599
pervert's in my room, and an officer comes to arrest him.

383
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,559
Now Deckard works with the police. He doesn't know this officer.

384
00:31:44,799 --> 00:31:48,000
They're taking him to a police station he's never heard of,

385
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,200
but he goes along with it, and when he arrives there,

386
00:31:51,279 --> 00:31:54,920
he realizes that this is sort of an alternate police

387
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:59,799
station run by androids. And when he's there he meets

388
00:32:00,079 --> 00:32:04,000
another blade Runner, another bounty hunter who's working for these androids.

389
00:32:04,559 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 6: Uh.

390
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,759
Speaker 7: Do you want to speak about this character, Thomas, because

391
00:32:07,759 --> 00:32:09,200
I think that this character is one of the more

392
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,160
interesting uh in the book.

393
00:32:12,079 --> 00:32:22,559
Speaker 5: But also the faux police station that's the the end

394
00:32:22,599 --> 00:32:28,279
of these sorts of intrigues and intrigues. Like some people

395
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:35,279
view that is a plot device like John McCurry might employ,

396
00:32:37,079 --> 00:32:40,799
just put to like a science fiction setting. That's not

397
00:32:41,559 --> 00:32:47,160
really what h Philip K. Dick is trying to convey,

398
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:56,240
you know. The there's a that that's that's a recurring theme,

399
00:32:56,279 --> 00:32:59,440
not just into Androids dream of Electric Sheep, but in

400
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:09,720
in most of most of his major works. And it's uh,

401
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,960
but that's another but that's key too, because Deckord initially

402
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:20,480
he can't distinguish between not just as you know, fellow

403
00:33:20,559 --> 00:33:24,920
humans and replicants, but these are people who are literally

404
00:33:25,039 --> 00:33:30,480
masquerading as a as police officers, and he still can't

405
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:42,599
distinguished between you identify essential characteristics that supposedly distinguishes them.

406
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:48,359
The replicant that he meets is obviously the model for

407
00:33:48,519 --> 00:33:51,400
Roy Baddy. What's his name in the book? I can't remember.

408
00:33:52,559 --> 00:33:54,599
Speaker 7: Oh shoot, I can't remember. Let me pull up.

409
00:33:56,119 --> 00:33:56,759
Speaker 5: It's been in minutes.

410
00:33:56,759 --> 00:34:00,119
Speaker 7: If they're real Garlands Garland, Yeah.

411
00:34:00,319 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's and uh yeah, it's uh but Garland too.

412
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:13,400
I mean your point, Garland's a lot more of a

413
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,840
sinister character than Roy Batty is. I mean, Betty's also

414
00:34:17,079 --> 00:34:23,360
both tragic and advanced. As he is the baby character

415
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:32,000
in the movie, there's this childlike naivete to him. Garland,

416
00:34:32,119 --> 00:34:44,559
uh is isn't like that at all, and the uh

417
00:34:44,599 --> 00:34:48,199
he embodies more human than human in in a way

418
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,679
that is deliberately ironic, I think.

419
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 7: But so, yeah, when they're at the at this police station, uh,

420
00:34:59,039 --> 00:35:02,159
Decord sort of realized is the game. Yeah, he meets

421
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:06,840
this other human bounty hunter, Phil resh r E s h.

422
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,039
And this is a really fascinating character, as I've said before,

423
00:35:11,119 --> 00:35:15,039
because he is a psychopath. He has no empathy whatsoever.

424
00:35:15,639 --> 00:35:19,199
So the two of them escape together and go back

425
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:24,559
to collect the bounty for this woman, Luba Luft, who

426
00:35:24,679 --> 00:35:28,000
is this opera singer. And throughout this interaction, the two

427
00:35:28,039 --> 00:35:32,559
of them are talking and Resh is genuinely wondering is

428
00:35:32,639 --> 00:35:35,480
he human or not right because again he found out

429
00:35:35,519 --> 00:35:38,440
that he was in the company of these androids, that

430
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,079
the possibility of synthetic memories being injected into his brain

431
00:35:42,159 --> 00:35:45,639
he doesn't know, for example, because he you know, on

432
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,079
first examination, he's like, ohyeah, I've been working there for years,

433
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:50,559
and then he realizes, wait a minute, I can't have

434
00:35:50,639 --> 00:35:52,880
I've only been here for two I have all of

435
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,159
these artificial memories. So the two of them again go

436
00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:01,639
to collect this bounty on they meet her in an

437
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,800
art museum and she sort of realizes that the chick

438
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:08,320
is up, but before she you know, asks like, oh,

439
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,079
can you buy me a copy of this print I'm

440
00:36:11,079 --> 00:36:15,480
looking at. Deckard feels bad. He has empathy for androids.

441
00:36:15,559 --> 00:36:19,119
This it's a major plot point going forward, and Rush

442
00:36:19,199 --> 00:36:20,719
has no time for this. He's like, what are you doing?

443
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:24,639
This doesn't matter. The two of them eliminate her. It's

444
00:36:24,679 --> 00:36:28,800
it's sort of a nasty scene, and afterwards, Decard basically

445
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,639
says like all right, Like I'm going to need to,

446
00:36:31,119 --> 00:36:33,199
you know, run this test on you to determine if

447
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,079
you're human or not. And what's interesting is that Resh

448
00:36:36,199 --> 00:36:40,280
is really not bothered by this at all. For instance,

449
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,000
he says like, well, you know, if I'm an android,

450
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,800
I'll just kill myself. He says, I'll just hold my

451
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:49,280
breath until I die. I can do that. And it's

452
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,079
again interesting because Deckard susses him out. He realizes like, oh,

453
00:36:53,119 --> 00:36:56,719
you know, you're human, You're just a monster. And there

454
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:57,960
is a contrast there too.

455
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 5: Decord's trying to raise the funds that he can buy

456
00:37:02,039 --> 00:37:03,920
like a real animal for his wife. I that's like

457
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:08,239
a key yest point. So he's reluctantly continuing to retire

458
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:09,760
these androids, but I go.

459
00:37:09,679 --> 00:37:12,559
Speaker 7: Ahead, yes, And that's also you know, a major plot

460
00:37:12,599 --> 00:37:16,400
point right that he wants to his wife is despondent, depressed.

461
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,119
And we see other instances throughout the book which I

462
00:37:19,159 --> 00:37:23,119
haven't mentioned, primarily through the eyes of the staff at

463
00:37:23,119 --> 00:37:26,440
this sort of robot hospital where people are you know,

464
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,360
bringing in their animals to be worked on. There are

465
00:37:29,519 --> 00:37:32,079
there's a mistake which is ironic later enough, where a

466
00:37:32,119 --> 00:37:36,079
live animal is brought into this robot hospital and killed

467
00:37:36,559 --> 00:37:42,400
when isidor unbeknowingly basically plugs it into a battery charger

468
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:47,000
and just electrifies this cat, which is obviously a serious situation,

469
00:37:47,119 --> 00:37:51,519
but it's a little funny, yeah. And so they have

470
00:37:51,599 --> 00:37:56,400
this conversation and Resh again is very clear with the record,

471
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:58,920
he thinks he is bad at his job because he says,

472
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:04,119
you have developed empathy for particularly female androids. You have

473
00:38:04,199 --> 00:38:07,079
this sort of attraction to him, and Race basically says like, well,

474
00:38:07,079 --> 00:38:09,800
there's only one way to get this out of your system.

475
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:11,840
You need to sleep with one of these androids and

476
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,039
then kill her. It's the only way you can do it.

477
00:38:15,599 --> 00:38:19,960
And so at this point, right, Deckard has been through

478
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:22,440
you know, the Ringer, He's he's had a number of

479
00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:28,079
kind of violent experiences. So he goes up picks up

480
00:38:28,119 --> 00:38:31,039
the goat on finance, basically saying like, well, I'll pay

481
00:38:31,079 --> 00:38:33,960
it off on this, and goes back to his wife.

482
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,239
His wife is immensely pleased, right, They've got this real animal.

483
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:40,400
She's sort of over the moon, lifted out of her depression.

484
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,639
But as you know, Deckard is sort of going off

485
00:38:43,639 --> 00:38:46,719
to bed. His boss calls him and says like, no,

486
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:51,320
you've got to get the remaining androids tonight. In the

487
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:56,519
intervening time, Baddie his I think they call her his wife.

488
00:38:56,559 --> 00:38:58,480
I can't remember her name in this have met up

489
00:38:58,519 --> 00:39:02,320
with Tris at isidor Is home. They've sort of prepared

490
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,159
the place for a final battle. We're starting to see

491
00:39:05,159 --> 00:39:10,000
more and more this dynamic with UH is them sort

492
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:15,239
of talking down to Isidor. And throughout the whole thing, UH,

493
00:39:15,599 --> 00:39:19,840
there has been this recurring character of Buster Friendly, who's

494
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,800
this sort of like jocular, like comedy host who is

495
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,880
on the radio, you know, twenty three hours a day,

496
00:39:27,039 --> 00:39:31,280
got this revolving cast of characters, you know, perfectly funny,

497
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:34,039
always ready with equip and the whole time he has

498
00:39:34,039 --> 00:39:37,360
been teasing this big reveal. We're gonna let everyone know

499
00:39:37,559 --> 00:39:42,000
this big you know, journalism expose. And so the action

500
00:39:42,159 --> 00:39:45,840
is sort of building to a crescendo. Deckard realizes, all right,

501
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:49,000
I've got to you know, retire these three androids. I'm

502
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,239
already worn down. This white might well be fatal. And

503
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:54,599
at the same time we're building to this crescendo, this

504
00:39:54,639 --> 00:39:57,800
big you know, obviously fight, but also this huge you

505
00:39:57,800 --> 00:39:59,840
know reveal, you know, what is going to be revealed.

506
00:40:01,119 --> 00:40:04,360
So he calls Rachel, and Rachel has said, you know,

507
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,480
I want to be there. I will help you. He's

508
00:40:06,519 --> 00:40:09,800
sort of rebuffed her, and the two meet up at

509
00:40:10,159 --> 00:40:13,599
a hotel room, initially to discuss, you know, the sort

510
00:40:13,639 --> 00:40:16,360
of mission, but the two of them end end up

511
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:19,239
going to bed together. We get a couple of things here.

512
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:21,679
One this is described in sort of very clinical in

513
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:26,559
human terms. She is not human, despite the fact that

514
00:40:26,599 --> 00:40:31,079
obviously they're capable of this act together. So I'm curious, Thomas,

515
00:40:31,119 --> 00:40:33,039
what do you make of that scene, the one between

516
00:40:33,159 --> 00:40:36,079
him and Rachel, because there's there's a lot there the

517
00:40:36,119 --> 00:40:37,840
two of them in talking one to another.

518
00:40:39,039 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, it Philip K. Dick was very the way he

519
00:40:49,039 --> 00:40:53,800
describes sex, not just in du Android's dream, but in

520
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:59,639
other condicts as well. It's it's almost it's like people

521
00:40:59,679 --> 00:41:08,039
call without intimacy, and that's that's key to doing Android's

522
00:41:08,079 --> 00:41:12,519
dream of Electric Sheet because again it's it's it's you know,

523
00:41:12,599 --> 00:41:19,440
the it's another aspect of performative sociality, you know, and

524
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:27,000
there's as if I it reminded me a lot of

525
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,639
Crimes of the Future, which is the Cronenberg movie that

526
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:36,480
I highly recommend where not to digress too much, but

527
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:43,599
the protag and that Nigel Mortenson character the people of

528
00:41:43,679 --> 00:41:49,760
ere outicized extreme body modification to the point of where

529
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,880
performance artists do things like removing their own organs and things.

530
00:41:53,559 --> 00:41:56,559
But uh, there's this one part where like this woman

531
00:41:56,599 --> 00:41:59,119
tries to seduce him and he says, I'm sorry, I'm

532
00:41:59,159 --> 00:42:00,760
not good at the old sex.

533
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:02,039
Speaker 6: You know.

534
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 5: That's very much a nod to Blade Runner, I think,

535
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:15,920
and that's and that's also one of the things that

536
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:20,199
distinguishes it from the film because one of the obviously

537
00:42:20,199 --> 00:42:22,360
one of the aspects of the film is that there's

538
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:31,559
this incredible genuine passion that flourishes between racial and decord.

539
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:37,840
And in the source material, not only is that not president,

540
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:45,679
but it's really the the statement on you know, the

541
00:42:45,679 --> 00:42:53,480
the fact that intimacy is precluded in this future where

542
00:42:53,480 --> 00:43:00,599
there's not real grounding elements to the way humans relate socially,

543
00:43:02,519 --> 00:43:11,159
you know, like a prerequisite, a prerequisite to intimacy is context.

544
00:43:11,559 --> 00:43:15,159
And I think that I think that's the key takeaway,

545
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:19,599
unless I'm like reading too much into things, but that's

546
00:43:20,119 --> 00:43:26,760
a I think I think that's the subtext.

547
00:43:28,519 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 7: Yeah, there's there's several things there, right.

548
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 5: Yeah. Uh.

549
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:39,559
Speaker 7: For instance, Rachel is both physically and you know, emotionally,

550
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,119
very very cold. Like the way that she is described

551
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:48,159
is not trying to you know, be over sensational. Heres

552
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,719
is not exactly She's beautiful but not sensual.

553
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's nothing erotic about.

554
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 7: It, right, It's very androgynous. And you know, this will

555
00:43:58,559 --> 00:44:03,199
this will come back up again later because one of

556
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:04,960
the things that we find out in this novel is

557
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,519
that androids are made by type. You know, they'll have

558
00:44:07,559 --> 00:44:13,000
several different variations, but ultimately there is a type. And

559
00:44:13,079 --> 00:44:16,039
we find out later that Rachel and PRIs are the same.

560
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,119
They look the same, and this is one of the

561
00:44:19,119 --> 00:44:22,559
things that Rachel sort of has this crisis about that,

562
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:25,639
you know, she is simply one of many that come

563
00:44:25,679 --> 00:44:28,039
off of an assembly line. She says that she's like

564
00:44:28,079 --> 00:44:34,079
a bottle cap right, pressed out identically. So when Deckard

565
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:38,039
It goes to confront piece androids, she's with him in

566
00:44:38,079 --> 00:44:41,199
the car. They have sort of an argument of falling out.

567
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,119
He threatens to kill her and she says, well, you know,

568
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:46,400
I know you can never do it. I've done this

569
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:49,239
with nine different bounty hunters before, and This sort of

570
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,199
sends Deckard into a rage, but he realizes he can't

571
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,639
do it. He is too empathetic for her even in

572
00:44:56,679 --> 00:45:00,000
this situation, so he basically tells her, He's like, all right, fine, whatever,

573
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,079
I'm retiring after this job. I can't do this anymore.

574
00:45:03,679 --> 00:45:06,679
Get out now, go back, go back to Seattle and

575
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,119
run like you you'll be able to be free for

576
00:45:09,199 --> 00:45:11,960
the remaining in her case, two years of her life.

577
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,519
At the same time, we're seeing this the culmination of

578
00:45:15,519 --> 00:45:19,320
this big reveal from Buster Friendly, which is we learned

579
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:24,800
several things, which is one, he is an android. He's synthetic,

580
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,199
so are all the guests on his show. One of

581
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,519
the interesting things that Isidor comes up with, and it's

582
00:45:30,519 --> 00:45:33,960
funny because you can clearly tell he is an intelligent

583
00:45:34,039 --> 00:45:36,480
man who has been made stupid.

584
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 5: Right.

585
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,199
Speaker 7: His memory isn't very good, he described as very foggy.

586
00:45:40,599 --> 00:45:43,079
But from his thoughts we get a certain kind of

587
00:45:43,159 --> 00:45:47,239
interesting insights. And one of them because he hears and

588
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,760
I believe it's Isidor. I don't think it's Deckerdough. I

589
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:52,519
might be wrong on that is picking up on the

590
00:45:52,519 --> 00:45:56,760
fact that Buster Friendly is constantly denigrating mercerism, despite the

591
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,280
fact that mercerism is officially recognized by the US by

592
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,360
both the Soviets and the Americans as pro social right

593
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:08,519
after you know, war, exactly, it's necessary to have some

594
00:46:08,559 --> 00:46:12,000
sort of pro social force. This has created among humans

595
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:17,440
a sort of synthetic ersatz empathy. Right, killing is extremely, uh,

596
00:46:17,639 --> 00:46:22,039
you know, extremely stigmatized. Obviously, in the example of animals,

597
00:46:22,119 --> 00:46:26,239
one of the tests on the uh well, actually several

598
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:28,119
of the tests on the void comp or questions on

599
00:46:28,159 --> 00:46:31,679
the voice voint comp test, are about exactly that an

600
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,559
idea of eating a dog or a leather couch or

601
00:46:34,599 --> 00:46:35,679
something like that is.

602
00:46:35,639 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 5: To not helping the tortoise yet.

603
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,760
Speaker 7: Exactly is emotionally shocking. You know, this is something that

604
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:42,920
is simply not done.

605
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:44,159
Speaker 5: Uh.

606
00:46:44,199 --> 00:46:47,280
Speaker 7: And he has this great line where he basically says,

607
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:52,000
I realized that you know, both Mercer and you know,

608
00:46:52,079 --> 00:46:54,360
Mercer and the CV host are fighting for control of

609
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:58,039
my brain. That these are two kind of totalizing systems,

610
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:00,639
one versus the other. Which is interesting both when we

611
00:47:00,679 --> 00:47:04,320
look back to uh, you know, your comments about the

612
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:06,960
Cold War, right, the idea of these two totalizing systems,

613
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:11,599
but also you know, there really is no there really

614
00:47:11,639 --> 00:47:14,559
is no freedom. You know, something will occupy your mind.

615
00:47:15,199 --> 00:47:18,280
And so you know, as we've said before, when you know,

616
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,519
right before this kind of you know, pinnacle of the action,

617
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,559
we see this big expose. The androids in isidor kind

618
00:47:25,559 --> 00:47:29,199
of you know, huddled around a television and it's revealed

619
00:47:29,199 --> 00:47:33,079
according to you know, to buddy here that Mercer is

620
00:47:33,079 --> 00:47:37,679
a lie. They've found allegedly the actor who played that role,

621
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:40,000
who was captured, and you know these films which are

622
00:47:40,199 --> 00:47:43,559
you know, pushed out on the empathy organ. They say

623
00:47:43,599 --> 00:47:46,519
that the stones which were thrown at him were or styrofoam,

624
00:47:46,559 --> 00:47:49,360
they couldn't have possibly hurt him, that this was all

625
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,480
made on a sound stage. The moon in this is painted,

626
00:47:53,159 --> 00:47:55,239
and so one we see that, you know, that idea

627
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,000
that the androids are denying this form even of Ersat's

628
00:47:58,039 --> 00:48:01,199
religion or Ersat's empathy, and also that that sort of

629
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:03,760
war for the soul. I think that the symbolism is

630
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,800
interesting because in this synthetic memory, when you go through it,

631
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,119
you feel sort of the pain in his side, right

632
00:48:10,199 --> 00:48:12,079
obviously a you know, sort of an echo of the

633
00:48:12,119 --> 00:48:14,199
Crucifixion when he is struck in his side. So he's

634
00:48:14,199 --> 00:48:17,519
depicted with you know, blood gushing out of his side, right.

635
00:48:17,639 --> 00:48:18,039
Speaker 6: Uh.

636
00:48:18,079 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 7: And so I think that's a fascinating scene. Do you

637
00:48:21,119 --> 00:48:22,800
do you want to speak about that sort of expos

638
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:23,800
a Thomas.

639
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's yeah. Well that's also why too, if you

640
00:48:29,519 --> 00:48:34,599
want to the danum Wa where as it were, where

641
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:39,239
uh Decker goes. Uh, he goes to the Pacific Northwest,

642
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:50,280
presumably to meditate on these revelations literally, and you know,

643
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:55,400
it's it's he's a I think it's it's it's a

644
00:48:55,440 --> 00:49:01,440
metaphor for Alijah, the prophet who you know, who went

645
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:08,760
into the wilderness, does Elijah? Right, Yeah, it's uh. And

646
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:13,800
then when he discovers the when he discovers the frog,

647
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,360
which he's convinced that first, I mean, he's it's it

648
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,320
strikes him because it's so rare to see even little

649
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:26,119
animals that you know, in the wild anymore. And he

650
00:49:26,199 --> 00:49:29,519
takes the frog home to his wife and then they

651
00:49:29,559 --> 00:49:34,320
just they eventually discovered that the frog is synthetic, but

652
00:49:35,599 --> 00:49:38,599
Decker's apparently made peace with that.

653
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 6: It.

654
00:49:41,119 --> 00:49:47,519
Speaker 5: Uh. I mean, any Phil k Dick's books never resolve

655
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:55,760
in a tight little package conceptually, but I don't think

656
00:49:55,760 --> 00:50:02,840
I will have bass you know that whole people have

657
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:12,119
already lost their ability to function within the historical environment

658
00:50:12,119 --> 00:50:18,480
they're situated in. If they've got to constantly that things

659
00:50:18,559 --> 00:50:23,320
that in there that populate their environment for authenticity, or

660
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:32,199
if they constantly got to try and identify what concepts

661
00:50:32,639 --> 00:50:39,159
or what criteria render something conceptually authentic or real, that

662
00:50:39,159 --> 00:50:43,920
that that makes empathy, that those conditions preclude empathy and

663
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:52,840
intimacy and all of these other essentially human things. And

664
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,880
the only way out of that nihilistic spiral.

665
00:50:58,480 --> 00:50:58,800
Speaker 6: Is the.

666
00:51:01,519 --> 00:51:14,639
Speaker 5: Sort of fully embrace that reality, whereby these interstates can flourish. Again.

667
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:18,159
This is the way I read it, because that's the

668
00:51:18,199 --> 00:51:25,760
whole The key aspect of the existential price of the

669
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:30,239
individual in both the movies and in the book is

670
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:35,719
that without these reference points to live historically, people without

671
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:41,239
a past can't orient themselves as any not just you know,

672
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:46,440
as a discrete individual distinct from other people, and you know,

673
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:50,480
a human being with agency. But it becomes impossible to

674
00:51:52,760 --> 00:52:02,840
value things in any deeply committed way, because all emotional

675
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:09,159
responses are merely cultivated around symbolic psychological items that are

676
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:15,880
supposedly universal to human beings and are only aesthetically coded

677
00:52:17,519 --> 00:52:26,639
to appeal to whatever individual there tailored do fascinate, you know,

678
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:39,840
and in acknowledging the irredeemability of the world as it

679
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:53,239
is in Blade Runner, you know, one can access those

680
00:52:57,199 --> 00:53:05,199
spiritual you know, characteristics to the human being. Again, that's

681
00:53:05,199 --> 00:53:08,960
why I think it's profound. I mean, basically, he realizes

682
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:12,880
his wife likes the frog anyway, if I'm remembering right,

683
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:15,559
And that's kind of when he makes peace with things,

684
00:53:16,119 --> 00:53:25,079
you know. You know, he's no longer he's no longer

685
00:53:25,079 --> 00:53:34,800
disturbed by the it's inauthenticity, you know. And but that's

686
00:53:38,679 --> 00:53:45,159
when arbitrary criteria are assigned to qualify or just qualify

687
00:53:45,679 --> 00:53:51,320
human beings from from their essential humanity, you know, which

688
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:56,280
again is an essential aspect of the social order. It's

689
00:53:56,280 --> 00:54:01,599
the only thing that's keeping things from falling apart. That

690
00:54:02,079 --> 00:54:10,440
bleeds into all other essentially human activities, you know, emotional, cognitive,

691
00:54:10,519 --> 00:54:22,320
and physical as well, and there becomes this confused and

692
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:32,719
desperate effort to identify what is authentic within one's own

693
00:54:33,639 --> 00:54:43,760
emotional life. And that's why the characters who are truly sociopathic,

694
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:49,639
they're the ones who are splendidly adapted to that environment.

695
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:52,960
And I mean that's a commentary to or meditation rather

696
00:54:54,000 --> 00:55:04,920
on how corrupt thing it is to uh try and

697
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:11,280
curate ethics according to some ideological paradigm, even if it's

698
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:17,000
necessary to sustain systemic features of you know, of the

699
00:55:17,079 --> 00:55:20,599
of the political order anything else. I mean, even if

700
00:55:20,599 --> 00:55:25,599
the intentions behind such things are good, you you're doing

701
00:55:25,679 --> 00:55:32,880
violence to people's ability to curate within themselves a genuine

702
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:37,800
moral intelligence. I mean I and I mean that that's

703
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:42,760
that's obviously a huge, uh, a hugely relevant thing to

704
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:47,159
the I mean, it's relevant anyway, but it's particularly Cold

705
00:55:47,199 --> 00:55:52,920
War coded and temporal terms, because that's exactly what their

706
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,679
respective regimes, albeit the Second World and have much more

707
00:55:58,679 --> 00:56:07,159
brutal and ham fisted way, but that's what both regimes

708
00:56:07,199 --> 00:56:10,840
were very much attempting to do. You know, I'm gonna

709
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,960
make the mistake there was an effort to create a

710
00:56:14,039 --> 00:56:16,559
new American man and woman as much as there was

711
00:56:16,599 --> 00:56:18,880
to create a new Soviet man. It just wasn't it

712
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:25,400
wasn't characterized that way, and it was more nuanced, and

713
00:56:25,559 --> 00:56:29,639
there wasn't There wasn't an American version of the Great

714
00:56:29,679 --> 00:56:35,760
Purge or the Art to Death camps or annihilation therapy.

715
00:56:36,519 --> 00:56:44,000
So there were still deeply organic and historical tendencies in

716
00:56:45,559 --> 00:56:51,679
American life that were competing dialectically for dominance over the

717
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:58,119
official ideology. But I think you know what I mean,

718
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:01,760
forgive me if that was a bit too No, not

719
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:02,119
at all.

720
00:57:02,559 --> 00:57:09,920
Speaker 7: So obviously Deckard goes to retire these androids, and throughout

721
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:11,440
the kind of last third of the book we haven't

722
00:57:11,480 --> 00:57:14,880
mentioned it, but deckerd is starting to have mystical experiences.

723
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:18,920
He is seeing Mercer before him, and in fact Mercer

724
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:23,199
warns him like oup, they're behind you, and he, seemingly

725
00:57:23,239 --> 00:57:27,239
without remorse, kills PRIs the woman who is or the

726
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,639
android rather, who is physically identical to Rachel. They look

727
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:36,320
exactly the same. He has this interesting interaction with Isidor

728
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:38,360
you know where. He tells him, you know, I'm here.

729
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:41,960
Isidor remarks, sort of internally, of course, that Decker doesn't

730
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:44,559
look anything like he thought. He's just kind of this small,

731
00:57:44,599 --> 00:57:48,719
schlubby guy who's doing this you dirty job, seemingly very

732
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:52,920
beaten down. And again, part of the reason that Isidor

733
00:57:53,199 --> 00:57:56,320
has run out is that in this apartment, while he's

734
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,199
looking for supplies, he discovers a spider right, a genuine

735
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:05,360
biological spider right, and the Androids have no empathy for this.

736
00:58:05,719 --> 00:58:08,960
But Chris pulls its legs off, literally because she says,

737
00:58:09,079 --> 00:58:10,760
you know, it can walk just as well on four

738
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:14,000
as it does on eight. It'll probably die anyway. And

739
00:58:14,039 --> 00:58:17,320
of course his Stor is horrified by this. And we

740
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:19,960
see again that lack of empathy when Deckard goes to

741
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:24,199
the door and he not even particularly convincingly pretends to

742
00:58:24,199 --> 00:58:27,280
be Isidor. But they can't tell the difference, right then,

743
00:58:28,519 --> 00:58:31,880
what is there between them? He busts down the door

744
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:36,760
and kills them. Batty is much less a character in

745
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,760
the novel than he is in the movie. He's I

746
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:41,800
think in the book he's a field hand, you know,

747
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:45,000
He's not even necessarily you know, this this great leader,

748
00:58:45,079 --> 00:58:47,360
although we hear a little bit that he was experimenting

749
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:52,840
with psychedelics and with religion to try and create empathy

750
00:58:53,239 --> 00:58:57,480
within his in his followers. What's particularly interesting is that

751
00:58:57,519 --> 00:58:59,920
there's a discussion I believe, just before this, at the

752
00:59:00,159 --> 00:59:01,800
kind of right before the climax of the book, where

753
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:04,400
they talk about empathy, you know, and and when it

754
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,599
is revealed at least allegedly that the mercer is a fake.

755
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,800
They say, oh, we're you always hold this over us.

756
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:12,840
You say that empathy is what makes you human, who

757
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:15,320
make it better? But apparently that's all fake. Apparently that

758
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:19,760
is simply synthetic. Which again, you know, looking to the

759
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:24,800
fact that you know, uh friendly is a is an android,

760
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:28,519
there's sort of an open question there. But afterwards, right,

761
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:33,719
and this is shortly before his trip to the Pacific Northwest,

762
00:59:33,760 --> 00:59:36,159
we learn a couple of things, which is one h

763
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:39,559
deckerd is almost completely broken, you know. He he is

764
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:43,360
having a hard time relaying this mystical experience he has

765
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:45,800
with Mercer. He claims to be Mercer.

766
00:59:46,239 --> 00:59:49,159
Speaker 5: Yeah, he starts believing he may very well be uh

767
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:52,280
may be well, but he himself is a wilibor mercer.

768
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:56,159
Speaker 7: Yes, and his his fears kind of you know, shrug

769
00:59:56,199 --> 00:59:59,599
it off. But after he finds this toad, he has

770
00:59:59,639 --> 01:00:02,079
this ex hearing someuth in the wilderness, he learns that

771
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:05,920
this goat, this extremely expensive thing he has purchased, has

772
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,920
been killed, has it gotten sick where he could use

773
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:11,840
the warranty to exchange it for another one. But Rachel,

774
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:16,000
before she fled town, came to his house and killed

775
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:21,719
his goat right, there's an element of jealousy, perhaps because

776
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:24,159
in their interactions she talks about the difference between what

777
01:00:24,239 --> 01:00:27,079
they are doing, and then his relationship to his wife,

778
01:00:27,119 --> 01:00:29,920
where is a possibility of you know, giving birth and

779
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:32,199
producing children. We also see a little bit of the

780
01:00:32,559 --> 01:00:35,239
fact that these and rowds basically our psychopaths, you know,

781
01:00:35,239 --> 01:00:38,639
they have no regard for anyone else and says you've said,

782
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:41,000
you know that the action closes with Deckard sort of

783
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:44,239
sleep on the couch after you know, Iran, his wife

784
01:00:44,239 --> 01:00:47,280
has discovered that this tote is synthetic, and there is

785
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:51,480
that sort of you know, making peace with synthetic life.

786
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:54,800
And I think that that's a very interesting point because

787
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:58,079
you know, on one hand, we have seen Deckard you know,

788
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:01,599
sort of shed his empathy, right, he was able to

789
01:01:01,719 --> 01:01:05,960
kill PRIs with you know, without a second thought really

790
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:09,159
at least initially, that didn't bother him. And again we

791
01:01:09,199 --> 01:01:11,480
see him sort of adapting to this new world as

792
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:14,599
you've said that psychopathy and Deckard I don't think becomes

793
01:01:14,599 --> 01:01:16,840
a full you know, psychopath like the other Blade Runner,

794
01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:19,639
but it is this sort of interesting you know, making

795
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:24,400
peace with the world you find yourself in it to

796
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:26,079
kind of close my remarks on it. This book is

797
01:01:26,199 --> 01:01:28,960
very very good. There's a lot that we weren't able

798
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:31,000
to get into because even though it's a short novel,

799
01:01:31,039 --> 01:01:34,159
it's very philosophically dense, and there's only so much you

800
01:01:34,159 --> 01:01:37,119
can say in an hour. I don't want to say

801
01:01:37,119 --> 01:01:40,639
we've spoiled it, because look, it's the movies. It's the

802
01:01:40,639 --> 01:01:43,400
movies spoil a book. I don't spoilers don't even matter

803
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:46,320
to a novel that's good enough, which this is. But

804
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:48,960
there's a lot in there, boast about the kind of,

805
01:01:49,199 --> 01:01:52,199
as you've said, the creation of new men during the

806
01:01:52,199 --> 01:01:56,000
Cold War, and also the same kind of ruminations on

807
01:01:56,239 --> 01:01:59,079
you know, empathy, what it is to be human. I

808
01:01:59,159 --> 01:02:02,400
will say, for my money, this is not to say

809
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,280
that the book is bad. Body means I think that

810
01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:09,519
the the movies are more interesting than the book. There

811
01:02:09,519 --> 01:02:13,519
it's sort of a tighter, more refined vision. It's personal preference.

812
01:02:13,639 --> 01:02:17,199
Still well worth your time, particularly if you're interested in, uh,

813
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:19,599
you know, science fiction. But those are sort of my

814
01:02:20,239 --> 01:02:23,199
very broad thoughts on it. And it's a very neat

815
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:26,639
compliment piece to the other two films. And you know,

816
01:02:26,679 --> 01:02:29,559
Taken is a sort of a loose trilogy. Between the

817
01:02:29,599 --> 01:02:32,119
three of them, there's a lot to gather from, you know,

818
01:02:32,159 --> 01:02:33,599
this novel as well as the two films.

819
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:37,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree very much, And yeah, I think the

820
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:41,920
films are superior, but it's it's essential reading, I think

821
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:45,239
if you're a fan of the of the film or

822
01:02:45,239 --> 01:02:49,320
they're the ip generally, and Philip Kate Dick's a difficult author, right.

823
01:02:49,320 --> 01:02:53,079
I realize he's got a very dedicated fandom and I

824
01:02:53,599 --> 01:02:58,559
think he was definitely a serious individual, but his his

825
01:02:58,639 --> 01:03:01,960
stuff is a is not for everybody, and it can

826
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:03,559
be difficult.

827
01:03:04,119 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 7: Yeah. My my brother in law is a big fan

828
01:03:06,039 --> 01:03:09,719
of his uh and he's been he read recently and

829
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,159
was a very big fan of the Three Stigmata of

830
01:03:13,519 --> 01:03:18,559
Palmer Eldritch. Yeah, okay, from his review, sounds very good.

831
01:03:18,559 --> 01:03:20,440
So who knows, I may I may drag you back

832
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,480
after we've we've knocked out a few more of these

833
01:03:22,599 --> 01:03:26,599
uh these occultas of episodes to talk about sides fiction again.

834
01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:29,599
So as far as links, obviously you guys know where

835
01:03:29,599 --> 01:03:33,280
to find Thomas. I'll have his website, his UH sub stack,

836
01:03:33,639 --> 01:03:35,159
as well as a few other things down in the

837
01:03:35,159 --> 01:03:38,800
description where you can find him. I'm I think, like

838
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:43,039
many people, Thomas getting very excited, uh for your long form.

839
01:03:43,559 --> 01:03:46,280
I think that you know, I'm I don't want speak

840
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:48,079
out a term, but I maybe getting a you know,

841
01:03:48,119 --> 01:03:51,239
an early draft which I'm excited to go over. Obviously,

842
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:52,960
you know there's a there's a lot in that and I,

843
01:03:53,199 --> 01:03:56,639
whenever it comes out, will be pointing people in that direction.

844
01:03:57,320 --> 01:04:00,719
As far as my stuff, Jay Burtons Show, apple Spot, YouTube,

845
01:04:00,760 --> 01:04:03,639
anywhere you want to listen to podcasts. If you want

846
01:04:03,639 --> 01:04:05,679
to support me and this is what I do, you

847
01:04:05,719 --> 01:04:08,079
can throw me a few bucks a month on Patreon,

848
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:12,199
Substack or gum road. Get the episodes early in ad free.

849
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:15,039
I know the ads are irritating, but look I got

850
01:04:15,039 --> 01:04:17,400
to pay my mortgage somehow, and that way you can

851
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:20,239
get the content a little bit earlier without those irritating ads.

852
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:23,679
And the value proposition's pretty decent. It's like twenty two

853
01:04:23,639 --> 01:04:27,199
to twenty three cents an episode less if you want

854
01:04:27,199 --> 01:04:30,360
to view it as hours of content. So you're welcome,

855
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:33,239
and yeah, guys, in all seriousness, I do appreciate you

856
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:36,519
supporting me. Also, check out our sponsor, Axios Remote Fitness Coaching.

857
01:04:37,599 --> 01:04:40,679
I use their workouts three four days a week. As

858
01:04:40,679 --> 01:04:43,360
far as things I recommend, this is something that I use.

859
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:46,239
It's part of my daily life. And JD's a very

860
01:04:46,480 --> 01:04:49,440
very talented guy, good at what he does. Again, Thomas Man,

861
01:04:49,440 --> 01:04:50,719
thank you so much. This was a great time.

862
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:52,000
Speaker 5: Thank you my friend.

863
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:55,519
Speaker 7: Everyone home, keep your head up. I can't last forever.

864
01:04:55,679 --> 01:04:56,079
Good night.

865
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:23,159
Speaker 6: What what what? What's what? But that's Gary, Gary,