Just had a revelation
I’m reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and in it there’s this thing called the empathy box. People use the empathy box to experience the spiritual journey of Wilbur Mercer and are empathically fused with everyone else using the empathy box at the same time. They share their joy and their pain… here’s a quote
“It would be immoral not to fuse with Mercer in gratitude,” Iran said. “I had a hold of the handles of the box today and it overcame my depression a little - just a little, not like this. But anyhow I got hit by a rock here.” She held up her wrist; on it he made out a small dark bruise. “And I remember thinking how much better we are, how much better off, when we’re with Mercer. Despite the pain. Physical pain but spiritually together; I felt everyone else, all over the world, all who had fused at the same time.”
[…]
In their living room, at the empathy box, Iran swiftly snapped the switch, her face animated with growing gladness; it lit her up like a rising new crescent of moon. “I want everyone to know,” she told him. “Once that happened to me; I fused and picked up someone who had just acquired an animal. And then one day-” Her features momentarily darkened; the pleasure fled. “One day I found myself receiving from someone whose animal had died. But others of us shared our different joys with them - I didn’t have any, as you might know - and that cheered the person up. We might even reach a potential suicide; what we have, what we’re feeling, might-“
It strikes me that the internet is a little like the empathy box. I can’t count the number of times people online, who’ve never met me, who don’t know my name, have cared for me so much and have tried so hard to help me.
We share our joy, we share our pain, and I think we’re the better for it.
OH MY GOD LOOK WHAT I FOUND.
IT’S DANGERFIELD, EEE ♥
AND WHAT IS PROBABLY BONNY AND EDIE AND BONNY’S HUSBAND WHOSE NAME I REALLY DON’T REMEMBER
AND IT’S AWESOME
AND EVERYTHING IS GOOD
AND NOTHING HURTS
also oh god that’s Hoppy inside the house and Bruno/Jack with the mutant dog and Bruno’s sheeps and i have so many feelings about this book and those characters, so many feelings
For the records, you can click through and be magically be taken to the source of the image which holds other pictures in this same beautiful children’s book style illustrations.
Do you ever read a book and wonder what the freakin frak everyone else is getting high on? That was “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” for me.
This is supposed to be one of those sci-fi novels that will, if not change at least rock your world. It’s on every damn list of must-reads for the genre. Which makes this so much more awkward, cause…well it kinda sucked. No, that’s not entirely true. It didn’t suck, but it held a lot of elements of suckage.
What I did like was the brief exploration of this future world. And especially the very human study in empathy which was really interesting when it was explored through the relationships between human beings, animals and animate objects (robots). That part was interesting and thought worthy.
Then there was that other part which consisted of disjointed and weak characterisations, and the writer’s own subtle yet irritating misogyny. As an end result this book whose main theme seems to be empathy and compassion failed to make me feel even the slightest sliver of either emotion towards protagonists or the author.
Still I would actually recommend it. The empathy themes are interesting enough for you to handle the disjointed storytelling and the old school conservatism in regards to gender.
