Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Too Much

Speculative fiction has a long history of taking the issues of the day and reframing them in a new context with the hope that people will look at them in a new way. Our "unprecedented" times are bringing all sorts of old ways and old thinking back to the forefront. On Tuesdays, I present "what if?" questions. Previously, the intent was as an idea generator. It still is. But now, I ask that you really think about all the repercussions that these ideas will have. If only these were just thought exercises. 

What if all of this *gestures wildly* is just a distraction?

12 comments:

  1. That would be frighting. If "all this" isn't real, then what is must be pretty dire. Of course, there are distractions going on, while plots and schemes are worked in the background. That's why we need whistleblowers! And protections for them.

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    1. If it's a distraction, does that mean it isn't real? That's something I hadn't considered...

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  2. I remember the Wizard of Oz and the catchphrase "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" The waving is to distract us from the man behind the curtain, and we all know who he is.

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    1. Alana, you’re scaring me … first the Rod Serling stuff, and now this …

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    2. It's too bad too many people aren't paying attention to the man behind the curtain.

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  3. A distraction to draw your thoughts from whatever it was that was taking place. People have been doing things like that all through time so I figure its a common thing.

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  4. It's terrifying to think of what would be so big and terrible that all of this is just a distraction.

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    1. The thing is, the thing they want to distract us from is probably very mundane. There's a story about why all the alien stuff about Area 51 came out when it did. (Spoiler alert: to distract from the lawsuit over the cancer cluster.)

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  5. I might want the distraction considering why it is being done. It makes me think of the Matrix. Ok, I'm hooked up and living this life, enjoying food etc... rather than being in something that is mainly Grey and ugly eating gruel.

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    1. If the distraction is good, sure. Definitely. Sometimes the fiction is better than reality.

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  6. I rather like the distraction of "all this", especially the kittens in my bathroom. Of course they are a lovely distraction from the fact we live on a teensy spinning orb atop a few inches of fertile earth in which we produce our food. A distraction against faint realities like at anytime a broken piece of space rock could smash into this space rock we call home, although the odds, in these vast universes make danger from that relatively small. Kittens are great distractions against the knowledge we're so teensy in time and space, insignificant. You wouldn't know that from our haughty chest pounding and screams that "we're so special" as a species. Distractions are nice. I like them.

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I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.