Philip K. Dick - New Wave's Depressed Uncle - Extra Sci Fi
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
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Philip K. Dick is well known in the sci fi genre for his work "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the story that inspired Bladerunner. He struggled often from mental illness and depression and had a uniquely weird childhood experience that led him to question the very fabric of his reality. A common theme of Philip K. Dick's work is the presence of doppelgangers or copies who can't tell who the original is. And this unraveling of reality or treatment of reality as fluid is a huge influence on the New Wave.
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The question is, which sci fi writer is more goth? Mary Shelly (learned to write by tracing letters off of gravestones) or Philip K. Dick (literally had a tombstone since he was born)
Mary, she kept her husband's heart which had turned to stone, wrapped in his poems
I think I’d give the nod the PKD. That’s pretty messed up for a little boy...
To be fair, Philip K Dick could be Cybergoth and Mary Shelly more or a classic goth? They both were heavily influential in establishing those genres.
@@jaybee9269 mary also lost her virginity on her mother's grave
Could you do an episode on Stanisław Lem? He is also a Sci-Fi giant that outgrows the scope of Genre. Sorry for double comment.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe."
I don't believe you.
I’ve seen terrible things in my life
Some of which actually happened
"What do you mean, _"you people"_ !?"
This was ad-libbed and not written by PKD
@@sudevsen True...but perfectly done!
This is great, but it's way too brief a glance at PKD. Give him his own series!
5:55
_"“Tell me one last thing,”_ said Harry. _“Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”_
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
_“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”_
I always wondered why in most of his books there is a dark-haired woman that seems to exist semi-outside of reality. Do you think it might be a representation of his sister?
Who is it in 3 stigmata of palmer eldritch?
@@virusdumb I don't know, I haven't read that one. I've not read all of them and I'm not saying its universal
The strongest element of his writing is his incredible ability to generate empathy. It’s the fuel of all his best novels, and at its most effective in Do Androids Dream. I have never been as invested in a fictional animal as in the toad Deckard finds near the end of the book, and more devastated by this toad turning out to be artificial than beloved fictional animals dying.
I humbly request / enthusiastically demand that "Extra Krudits" be placed upon a shirt so that I may wear it.
dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a damned good video played .
your channel never disappoints, thank you for all of your hard work.
The depression goo monsters are weirdly cute
They remind me of the Rebellion Fire Monsters from the Catherine the Great series
"We're owl exterminators"
(0:00) That part always creeps me out. Just re-read this story and many of his other collected stories recently, actually. What a great author. :)
Another of my favorite authors!
2:06 Futurama reference? :D
We're oowwwll exterminators
I have felt that you could have spent more time on this author because there is much to explore. This was painfully brief
I do hope you guys will return to PKD somewhere down the road. Like many are saying this was far too short.
Eagerly awaiting the new Extra Krudits series.
Fun fact: both Blade Runner and Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep were the main inspirations of Ghost in the Shell
It, like Masamune Shirow's 'Appleseed' before it, is also majorly inspired by 'CI5: The Professionals', a British spy / cop TV show of the 1980s.
He saw it on Japanese TV when he was a teen, and mentions it in many of his text interviews, published in the English adaptations of the manga.
Can you guys someday do an extra history series on The life of German WW2 pilot Franz Stigler?
My favorite door code...
Wow good video! Glad i came up with it... it maybe even has some real authors in it! i would never know i guess... but now i really need to remeber my pre-simulation life and a stop-code, or i'll be stuck thinking i am watching youtube in 21 century forever! Or maybe you will be stuck thinking that you are reading this comment? i forgot...
can you please make a video on napoleon
What the actual fuck, his parents took him to visit his open grave frequently?
That's Poe level dark shit, right there.
wish this had been a little more in depth
Would you do an episode on ender’s game
blade runner :)
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
J
Zoey, hopefully you treat your pet humans well.
Isreal is a country in the Middle East duh
That second blank tombstone would be seriously f*cked up. Especially to some poor little kid.
Ikr, his parents were total Dicks
Childhood trauma is a very common source for depression and anxiety, especially if it's emotional abuse.
No wonder he became depressed later in life if that's a thing that happened in his childhood. Poor kid.
Well clearly it knocked a couple o' dicks screws loose
Agreed, however child death was much more prevalent during that time.
@@ОлегКозлов-ю9т Well played haha
Hah, I'm a depressed uncle. Maybe I should progress a sub genre.
I.....am still waiting on the spider part to end
I read the book and that scene is shockingly unpleasant and removed all the sympathy you may have had for the replicants, showing how their lack of empathy makes them dangerous.
@@Rocketboy1313 ah
@@Rocketboy1313 Pretty much, yeah. The scene where the protagonist tests and is tested by the other cop is chilling too.
For me that was probably the best part of the book. For all of the horror we feel for spiders, that scene was lovely to show our empathy for ALL living beings
Wow, learning that about Dick's life really does contextualize all his work.
I have read "Do Androids Dream", "Ubik", and "In a Scanner Darkly" and that information changes all of them.
I guess this is an instance where "death of the author" is less possible because Dick's world view permeates so much of his material.
Read about PK Dick's struggle with drug addition in the early 70's and how much A Scanner Darkly is based around things he experienced.
I think we get really caught up on the idea of "death of the author" as being the "best" way to view media, and a lot of people seem to forget that it's just one tool in the analysis toolbox.
But a lot of times the author's background and intentions are highly relevant to interpreting what they wrote, and to discard them means missing out on a lot.
Death of the Author is good for understanding works of fiction as they are, and especially in a historical context, because there will inevitably come a day when all authors will become like Homer, and utterly unknown beyond the work they wrote. Understanding how those future people might read a work is important because it tells us something about ourselves too. But until that time, it's also good to interpret stories from the author's perspective as well.
When I worked at a video store, I borrowed "scanner darkly" so often, and to this day I still can't tell you anything about it.
You said it. I've read D.A.D.o.E.S. (what an acronym!) and Ubik and learning about his life informs so many of the plots and metaphors so completely :D
Want to know something that freaks me out? Philip was born on the same day that I was born (not the year) and died on the same year that I was born in. On top of that, I recently found out he made a book called "Valis" something I've had in my username for the last 20+ years.
Very PKD. If he was alive today he would definitely think you were a reincarnation or part of the vast active living intelligence system that saved his son
I also know the who game series that your name is based on. I played a few of them back in the day. Good times.
What's really sad is that the Benzadrine inhalers he used contributed to his early death (but also to his creativity)-John in Texas
@@TheGearhead222 well that really had nothing to do with what we were talking about lol.
You should read valis then it’s all about coincidences and fate
how to Mess with your child.
Step one: show them their grave
Pretty standard Catholic parenting.
Philip. K. Dick also made Man in the high castle, very interesting book and Series :3
He also wrote Oh To Be A Blobble
@@weldonwin Blobel, but yes.
If I were Philip, my catch phrase would be: Thanks mom and dad for make me doubt of my existance.
Better to doubt your existance than your existence.
"I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own"
The thing I liked most about "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is how the questions were designed such that, as a rule, a typical modern human would be labeled an android due to "lack of empathy."
Could you do an episode on Stanisław Lem? He is also a Sci-Fi giant that outgrows the scope of Genre.
As far as i know he was the best known/most published non-english sci fi writer
And certainly created some interesting works, very varied and creative but unfortunately not all were translated
I've read a bunch of Lem's work and it's very hit and miss. But the ones that hit, hit hard.
Have you read Cordwainer Smith? Short stories, but incredible. I recommend Mark Elf and Scanners Live in Vain as great introductions into his work.
I started my bachelor's thesis on the unreliability of introspection with the 'What does a scanner see?' monologue from A Scanner Darkly. My kind of science fiction.
I hope this show will discuss later scifi, especially things like The Expanse.
I didn't get Valis, one of Dick's split-timeline stories, but I'll always remember the part where the main character is rambling to the doctors in the insane asylum, shocking them all into silence when he regains enough sanity to talk about how he misses his son and hopes his wife is treating him well.
Those little moments are what keep me reading Dick's books.
The strongest element of his writing is his incredible ability to generate empathy. It’s the fuel of all his best novels, and at its most effective in Do Androids Dream. I have never been as invested in a fictional animal as in the toad Deckard finds near the end of the book, and more devastated by this toad turning out to be artificial than beloved fictional animals dying.
And that actually happened irl, with PKD
What I got from P.K. Dick books I read wasn't the question "what is real?" but "What is human?" or "what is life?"
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the androids are getting closer and closer to humans not only in how they behave but in how they are constructed. Of course the end of the process will be when androids are human but the question is how close to human does the android need to be to get human rights?
1:17 The Rossen Corrporation. I wonder is that a nod to Rossem's Universal Robots ?
Even though I don't speak Czech, here's a fun fact Razum in Russian means Mind/Intellect.
@@zvimur In Serbian and Croatian it means Reason as in rational.
- and the copy of 'Do Androids... ' I have says Rosen. Eldon Rosen, Rachel Rosen, Priscilla Rosen.
This seems way too lite a take on PKD. He was so prolific... and then there's the Exegesis of PKD as well.
I am just an Ursula boi who is waiting for an Ursula episode. Just kidding great series. Thanks to you I started reading sci-fi again.
Geez! And I thought Salvador Dali being named after his own dead brother was messed up.
What a coincident, I've already asked for a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for Christmas.
Um,Man in the high castle
Also implied that it's not real and characters live in some sort of nightmare.
Poor spider Q.Q
Yeah, in the book, the Androids are incapable of empathy, which is what makes them so dangerous, because they are in effect, super strong, hyper intelligent sociopaths
No, this is not real, it is a dream, not mine but my telepathic sister’s, who is right now dying from drug overdose. But thank you for asking.
How a f-ed up childhood led to creative genius.
Thank god, because there was like a 1-in-3 chance this would turn him into a serial killer.
Where have these been? By far my favorite series on this channel.
Finally, I've waited years for this author. Kinda sad it is so brief
Only one episode? The man had his own cult!
Make a video of E.E "Doc" Smith the man invented the Space Opera with his Skylark of Space and Lensmen series's
I never knew about this imagine if they added more into the film.
The book had a whole new religion, Mercerism. How humans and replicants perceive this religion is one of the critical parts of the story and it dosen't even exist in the movie
The book is jam packed with ideas, it would have made the film too long and slowed it down.
I think its best to just think of the two as completely different properties.
Please do an Ursula k. LeGuin video!!!!!
You ought to have mentioned "The Eyes Have It", very short, weird, and brilliant.
You finally get to PKD and you barely scratch the surface. Come on! You can do better that that!
Yeah, this was a weak episode. But diving deep into Dick requires touching on very horrible and sensible subjects, so I think they went light for a reason.
So, you're telling me that Phillip K. Dick was the original writer of nisemonogatari?
i love this channel, i found it when trying to faind out more about the 100 years war an i was not ready for the amount of amazing content that was hidden from me for years!
Blade runner movie was a mess.
Important plot points and world building was thrown to the window.
It’s gonna sound cliche but the book was excellent.
Also, Philip K. Died before he could saw the movie adaptation of his book (blade runner)
@@gurentgc3546 Like, just before it was finished iirc.
Biouke correct
The same author who made "Man in the High Castle"
Ubik?
To anybody who feels uncomfortable by the question "Am I real?":
"I think, therefore I am."
- René Descartes
That is a huge lie.
“Esse est percipi” To be is to be perceived. This is the truth.
If nothing is real, then everything is true
(Vaporwave intensifies)
Nothing is true; everything is permitted
PKD's parents get a 10/10 for theatricality.
Oh God, imagine seeing your grave as a child.
Phew. Poor fellow.
So blade runner is post apocalyptic? I would have never caught onto that
Well I dunno if Blade Runner is. Like they said, its very loosely based on Electric Sheep. Its hard to say what world building they carried over (other than the obvious). If you get the chance to listen or read DADOES, definitely do it. I thought it was far superior to the Blade Runner movies.
Bladerunner 2049 points to it in several of their scenes if you haven't watched it. The opening, finding Harrison, and the tech graveyard.
The book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, goes into the nuclear fallout and the emotional bond between humans and animals. Though it seemed to me in the book that animal ownership was only a status symbol. People want a pet because it confers status, so much so that the faux animal market (electric sheep) has a secondary market for fake animal repair. With that element missing, a lot of Blade Runner makes less sense and enters more into a fever dream.
I've known for many years that I'm not real. I just can't convince the police and judges.
welcome back Extra Scifi! I'm so happy to have you back! I knew about the book and the movie but had no idea about this man and it was a trip to find out about him it really puts all his work in a new and more interesting light
I'm glad you finally covered PKD, he's one of my favorites.
Wow, Blade Runner 2049 drew more inspiration from him then I figured. That's awesome
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE SECOND TOMBSTONE?!!
If his parents expected both to die, they might have wanted to bury them side-by-side, which might have required them to buy the plots at the same time.
2 for 1 offer from the mason?
Ooomg I luuuuuv this part in BR
I want to know thing i don know eye in the sky or a scanner darkly
Calling PKD the "anxious uncle" of sci-fi, rather than the Kafka of sci-fi, is par for the course for this channel.
Twins born prematurely, sister dies about the time she should have been born, worried and poor parents bought a single stone for both kids, took him with them when laying flowers on the grave.
The stone has dates on it: 1928-1928 for his sister, and 1928-1982 for Phil.
There's more. Many if not most of Dick's stories have a female presence, small, dark-haired, usually divisive and cranky, usually pathologically unable to allow normal interactions with her.
Most clearly, the 'twins with different lives' Pris Rosen and Rachel Rosen from 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
Great episode... But feel it was a bit short for such an influential author.
My favorite show, extra krudets
"Lets pull the spiders Legs"
Me: What NOE, im afraid of spiders but... NOEEEHHEHEH
Really good episode.... however....
We need more Philip K Dick.
MOAR!!!
The passage that you read at the beginning describes the Android's amorality from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. JR, the human who has befriended the renegade droids, looks on in horror as they slowly remove the spider's legs.
"New Wave" you mean PUNK! Or, actually Post Punk... I mean to refer to "Sister" by Sonic Youth. It was an album I tried to like, but was not able to. Sad. (esp.: after listening to that dirge.). IMHO
Will you guys be covering Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation? Not that it's Sci-Fi itself so much as that it inspired the Wachowski's in the making of the Matrix. The "what is reality?" and "are we just in a simulation?" questions that are popular in Sci-Fi.
Sounds like he had a serious case of Depersonalization Disorder -- which makes perfect sense, he was basically living with the dual trauma of losing a sibling, and the foreknowledge of his own death (which when we study people who are living with terminal illnesses, is a trauma. Death anxiety for those who aren't terminally ill is also a very real and serious thing)
Aggravated by his parents.
6 videos on Frankenstein but barely 6 minutes on PKD… disgraceful.
Bradbury, sure. Dick, absolutely. But there's no new wave without Alfred Bester. Where's Alfie?
Re-subscribed. But no more 'gamers are being FORCED to be naazees' in a game about FREAKING NAZEEZ! Deal?
This is giving PKD a bit of a short shrift with a single 7-minute episode. His life was much weirder than even what was stated here, and he had a lot of influence on a lot of people who tried to make movies based on his works, that were often financially successful but totally different from what he tried to expressed due to executive meddling.
Don't get me wrong, Blade Runner was a work of art (let's not go down that rabbit hole of director's/extended/etc. versions), and the beautifully animated A Scanner Darkly may be the only true film adaptation, but his books (and bizarre real-life) would become an enormous inspiration for both mainstream and fringe writers of the era, and others to come after.
You know ... "Do androids dream of mechanical sheeps" is much better title than "blade runner"
Off topic: That thumbnail looks like a woman has strapped a Green Company GPU over her eyes.
Man, I didn’t know Dick had a backstory quite like this. I’m still digging the return of extra sci-fi! Jesus Christ be with you friends! Merry Christmas!😊
The book is worth reading. Doesn't matter if you've watched Blade Runner. My favourite part is where androids debunk the human's new religion but the humans don't care because it's a crutch needed for the spiritual crisis caused by World War Terminal.
Today is March 2, 2022. Philip K. Dick died today 40 years ago on March 2, 1982
Philip K. Dick is the BEST of ALL Sci-Fi writers, IMHO-John in Texas
Identity is such a huge part of the PKD catalog. Even cultural identity in The Man in the High Castle plays a huge role in the character's worldview. Some of his stories do get a little hard to follow though, as two realities blend on top of each other, like Flow My Tears.
Really hoping you'll get around to Frederick Pohl, and especially his Gateway.
The reality we perceive is there, but the mind of a person can make things have meaning or feel meaningless. Science , hopes and dreams can make all make sense, but depression, hatred, drugs and corruption can transform reality feel horrible. The Persona games are right that reality affects our minds, and our minds can affect reality. Propaganda can make millions of people believe lies, or make you question what is real and what isn't. When facing a cruel "reality" imposed by others, the solution is to follow the ideals that you believe are right, but adapt your ideals with a bit of pragmatism because ideals need work and dedication.
I wish mercenism was in the movie.