Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[Anonymous No.13501806]

I liked it but I'm curious what /lit/ thinks. It didn't really answer the question the title proposed.

[Anonymous No.13502434]

Guess I’ll never know

[Anonymous No.13502449]

They don't. Androids where just emotionless dolls.

[Anonymous No.13502455]

>>13502449
I was just joshing about that, I just wanted to have a thread about a book I just read.

[Anonymous No.13502458]

It was ok

[Anonymous No.13502460]

>>13502455
Better than the movie or not what do you think?
I found it better but I only found out it was blade runner at the end of the book when they told me. It's not that simmilar.

[Anonymous No.13502461]

I read it last year but honestly I don't think I "got" it. I really liked it and several things affected me strongly, but I didn't quite know how to place everything.

Especially the replicants being so inhuman. I think my brain was preprogrammed to want to empathize with them and I spent most of the book wondering whether I hated them or not, or whether I can empathize with them and think they deserve humane treatment while also hating them for being so ugly, and wishing they had never been created.

[Anonymous No.13502467]

>>13502460
I haven’t actually seen the blade runner movies but I had always wanted to. I’ll probably watch it tomorrow and see how it compares to the inspiration material.

[Anonymous No.13502468]

>>13502467
Radically different, don't go in expecting it to be based on the book or anything. Just treat it like a standalone thing.

[Anonymous No.13502471]

>>13502461
Yeah them mutilating the spider really reminded you that they are uncaring and inhumane entitles not deserving of empathy. I’ll crush a spider a flush it down the toilet without an ounce of remorse simply because a spider in territory is displeasing, but cutting off it’s legs is just disturbing and unnecessary.

[Anonymous No.13502475]

>>13502471
Jesus Christ, I made a lot of typos.

[Anonymous No.13502619]

No, they dream of biological sheep, just like the humans do.

[Anonymous No.13502652]

>>13501806
honestly, I thought it was one of the worst books I've read in the past few years

[Anonymous No.13503121]

>>13501806
The title was originally going to be "Do Android's Dream?" or "The Electric Sheep" until his editior just combined them.

[Anonymous No.13503209]

>>13501806
Very good. I also liked the inhumanness of the androids. Someone recently pointed out that the only difference between the replicants and humans is that the humans were exposed to the empathy boxes and the replicants weren't which it implies that the empathy of humans was nurtured and that deep down we are all replicants.

[Anonymous No.13503727]

>>13503209
Damn, that makes sense

[Anonymous No.13503732]

>>13501806
Is there purple blade runner man with waifu?

[Anonymous No.13503923]

>>13503727
When I first read it my thought was that the replicants are a kind of new human that is leaner and meaner than the originals. They were required to continue the economic expansion of Earth which needed a thinner margin of labor to support the standards of living enjoyed by humanity. This was analogous to the growing class of shark capitalists and is epitomized by the Reaganesque Buster Friendly.

[Anonymous No.13503955]

Read A Scanner Darkly next

[Anonymous No.13503974]

Read Ubik

[Anonymous No.13504007]

>>13502461
>>13502471
The movie pre conditioned me to empathize with them too, and book Roy left me disappointed.
Phil Resch left a strong impression. I was 100% convinced he was an android, the way he murdered her was just so cruel. Just as brutally inhuman as the spider mutilation

[Anonymous No.13504039]

>>13502652
Why’s that?

[Anonymous No.13504052]

>>13504007
>book Roy left me disappointed.
Rutger Hauer was incredible in the movie but it's such a different film than the book

[Anonymous No.13504080]

>>13503974
>This
I was very impressed by Ubik. It is great thought-provoking sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.13504099]

>>13503974
>>13504080
Ubik fucking rules. The part where he climbs the stairs is so fucking painful.

[Anonymous No.13504100]

>>13504039
none of the characters outside deckard seemed all that interesting to me. the subplot of the phony police station didn't make much sense to me logically, which normally I don't care about, but it was at a level that kind of broke immersion for me. if the whole point was to create a replicant safety net, why do you need to hire human blade runners? the mercer stuff didn't really catch with me either. I mean, there was obviously some sort of meaning to the story, but I couldn't find it, and I don't really care to try again. there were a few other things but I can't remember them right now. maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe it's cause I don't usually read sci-fi, I don't know

[Anonymous No.13504243]

>>13501806
Androids only simulate thought but they don't have emotions. It can only do what it's programmed to do

[Anonymous No.13505133]

>>13504100
I agree with the station subplot, while it happened it was cool and provided a nice bit of suspense but i don't get how they never heard of each other, maybe it was Garland preventing communication. I think Phil really was an Android and that the scale Deckard used was flawed.

[Anonymous No.13505417]

>>13501806
well what a coincidence I just finished reading it. I love the title and the book just about exceeded my expectations, certainly has a few issues as anons are pointing out but it has a powerful message even if you don't look too deeply (although you're rewarded for doing so). an essential read as it's message becomes all the more relevant to today's society.

[Anonymous No.13505456]

By the end of the book, the question is no longer "do androids dream of electric sheep?", it's rather "if an android dreams, does it matter what of?" If it was meaningful for Deckard to find the toad in the desert, does it matter if it's real or not? If Isadore has a real religious experience of Mercer, does it matter that Mercer isn't real?

[Anonymous No.13505464]

>>13501806
The real Blade Runner was really good but I Robot was trash. The real Ghost in the Shell was a fun take on it too.

[Anonymous No.13505470]

>>13502467
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BLADE RUNNER?

[Anonymous No.13505473]

>>13502467
DO NOT WATCH THE DIRECTORS CUT. EDITORS CUT IS MUCH BETTER.

[Anonymous No.13505476]

>>13504100
If the replicant's can break their programing and go rogue, why would you put them in a position of power? Keeping them off-world is safest.

[Anonymous No.13505521]

>>13505473
the final cut? it is nearly the same

[Anonymous No.13505562]

>>13505473
>EDITORS CUT IS MUCH BETTER.
so theatrical?

[Anonymous No.13505577]

>>13505473
I don't know about this, the voice-over didn't age all the well

[Anonymous No.13505590]

>>13505521
The pacing is fucked in directors cut. Friendly reminder that good editors save movies from directors.

[Anonymous No.13505610]

>>13505590
there are two theatrical versions, a "directors cut", which Scott disowned, and a "final cut" which was the actual director cut from Scott

[Anonymous No.13505636]

Marathoned the first four chapters this week. Really enjoying it so far, although I've seen the movies too.

[Anonymous No.13506187]

>>13505636
>mfw i read the whole book in a day

[Anonymous No.13506232]

>>13502471
The mutilation of the spider is a parallel to the way Resch kills the android woman. There is no real difference between the androids. Not even empathy. The tests are asking the androids to empathise with humans but not with other androids which is what should really be expected. Humans have subjugated them and hunt them like animals (I mean not real animals because those were extremely precious to humans due to their near complete extinction). There is no reason for androids to empathise with humans or their pets. Humans themselves do not empathise with the androids.

[Anonymous No.13506247]

i like the bits when you start to question deckard's status as human and authentic, and the end when all binaries are deconstructed, the value of human existence is equal to android's, the real becomes unreal and the only centre there is is in deckard himself.

[Anonymous No.13506274]

>>13502471
there are plenty of humans who will torture an insect

[Anonymous No.13506302]

>>13506274
There's a cool passage in Tribe about exactly this.

[Anonymous No.13506358]

>>13505470
BASED

[Anonymous No.13506457]

So to digress to the movies for a moment, I've seen BR 3 times and I have not seen a shred of evidence for the "Deckard is a replicant" theory, even though I rewatched 2049 today and (Wallace?) makes a cheeky ambiguous reference to it. Can someone walk me through it?

[Anonymous No.13506485]

>>13506457
>in Ridley Scott's 1992 Director's Cut of the film, the filmmaker added in the famous “unicorn scene” dream sequence that appeared to confirm the Deckard-as-replicant speculation. Early in the film, Deckard dreams of a unicorn during a drunken reverie. Later, one of Deckard's fellow blade runners, a wigged-out dandy named Gaff (Edward James Olmos), leaves an origami unicorn for Deckard to find. This suggests that Gaff knows Deckard's memories, which means they're implanted, which means he's a 'bot.

>Director Ridley Scott later confirmed that was his intent with the unicorn business, telling Wired that revealing Deckard's replicant status is "the whole point of Gaff." Scott continues:

>"[Gaff] doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, 'I've read your file, mate.' ... and therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head."

[Anonymous No.13506487]

>>13506457
he dreams of horses or whatever and receives an origami horse from his asian coworker, perhaps as a hint that he knows about his false, implanted memories. or uh, something along those lines.

[Anonymous No.13506516]

>>13506485
>>13506487
Fucking hell I've never seen this unicorn sequence I guess I've just watched the wrong version all these years. And I could've sworn last time I went out of my way to get the Directors Cut.

[Anonymous No.13506527]

>>13506516
it's actually pretty stupid to force the theory on the directors cut, and therefore means nothing to me. 2049 is cannon before the directors cut of Blade Runner is

[Anonymous No.13506665]

>>13506232
I believe Resch truly was an android, which is why he could kill Luba so easily, androids have no empathy even for each other. Deckard either got a wrong reading or choose not to tell Deckard. It's the only logical reason why Phil was employed by Garland and that both Luba and Garland stated that he was an android.

[Anonymous No.13507425]

>>13506274
Those are mainly compaosed of children. Adults who would must be emotionally impaired

[Anonymous No.13507506]

>>13507425
even then, we don't condemn children for it because we know they aren't as developed as adults, and with adults who do, notice how we class them differently rather than condemn mankind on their example. A terrorist revolutionary tortures a bug, and it's used as proof that all the androids are "emotionally impaired".

[Anonymous No.13507530]

The theme of the book seems to be the opposite of the movie- not that androids are "more human than human", but rather, how easily human beings are fooled into believing that something is "real" simply because it is enmeshed cleverly in surface reality.

[Anonymous No.13507548]

>>13505473
DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS SCHIZO RETARD

[Anonymous No.13508332]

>>13507506
Well in the book all creatures are seen as exceedingly rare and sacred, and because of mercerism crime is quite low because people are more empathetic. Even a child wouldn't torture a spider in the world of the book. Of course we'd class them differently, a child is not remotely as mentally, intellectually or emotionally developed as an adult, androids are. Unlike children they can comprehend what they are doing fully but are apathetic to the consequences for others. Another thing is that humans are individuals where androids are models; shown by how the all act similarly to Deckard and how Deckard met to Rachel Rosen models who acted very similarly. A human cannot represent mankind, and android can represent most all others of its model.

[Anonymous No.13508348]

>>13503209
Post modern bullshit take, nurture over nature is downright retarded, makes 0 sense. If nurture matters more how come most animals aren’t able to be domesticated?

[Anonymous No.13508370]

>>13508348
In about 10 generations you can get most animals to start having domestic traits.
Russians did it with foxes who behave like cute pet dogs now.

[Anonymous No.13508371]

>>13508348
Because of their socio-economic background. No, but i agree, I'm very nature over nurture.

[Anonymous No.13508401]

>>13508370
That's not nurture, you're literally changing their nature through eugenics

[Anonymous No.13508405]

>>13505456
>If Isadore has a real religious experience of Mercer, does it matter that Mercer isn't real?
It matters that Mercerism is a scam and that the religious experience that it attempts to instill is a trap.

[Anonymous No.13508420]

I kinda wish "Chickenhead" caught on as an insult. I'm definitely going to use it here on /lit/ as a substitute for retard or brainlet.

[Anonymous No.13508427]

>>13508371
Everyone who thinks nurture over nature is true should be forced to own a pit bull and a smaller dog. It’s unfortunate to have to waste all those small dog lives but someone needs to teach them reality somehow.

[Anonymous No.13508429]

>>13508427
>implying people who own pitbulls can learn

[Anonymous No.13508430]

>>13508405
spoiler
Jesus wasn't resurrected, Mohammed never talked to an angel, Moses never existed, neither did Arjuna, or Buddha. All religion is at the same time a social construction (trap) and a transcendent mystical experience. The Mercer box blurred the lines, but the transcendent remains even after the box is debunked

[Anonymous No.13508441]

>>13508430
>the transcendent remains even after the box is debunked
I am not disputing this. In fact, one could consider this the bait that leads one into the trap.

[Anonymous No.13508448]

>>13508420
I use it on PKD threads.

[Anonymous No.13508465]

>>13508448
Philip K Dick threads or Polycystic kidney disease threads?

[Anonymous No.13508725]

>>13508427
Any book recommendations on that topic? Nurture vs nature

[Anonymous No.13508794]

>>13505521
Final Cut has improved visuals which actually enhance the movie. Compare the Tears in Rain scene from Final Cut and then any other version. You'll see

[Anonymous No.13509765]

Bumping for Resch

[Anonymous No.13509822]

>>13507530

Not bad

>>13508420

t. Anthead

>>13508430

Reported for ath*ism

>>13509765

Resch fucked the androids before he killed them. Really alpha.

//

Were there any animals still alive? Even the owl and the good frog were fake. And was Mars really a hellscape or were the androids just whining.

[Anonymous No.13509880]

PKD is just such a chore to get through. The book touches on a lot of interesting philosophical and futurist points, but the movie has such a more interesting and exciting texture. I can't stand how all PKD's character are the exact same and follow the same exact nihilist moral code.

[Anonymous No.13509893]

>>13509822
There were real animals, though only in captivity and serving as status symbols, empathy for animals was also pretty forced and almost only surface level. In the end Deckard and his wife showed more humanity by having empathy for a clearly false animal than everyone who had animals like the people buying expensive cars today.

It also mirrors Deckard having empathy for androids unlike the psychopath Resch.

[Anonymous No.13510045]

>>13509880
>no more nagging wife

[Anonymous No.13510094]

Resch is missing from the movies, but he is an integral part of the book. His character is pretty damn cool.

[Anonymous No.13510847]

>>13506485

There are also many pieces of evidence beyond the unicorn. The sex scene between him and Rachel has so much awkwardness and enjambment it should be clear he's not a regular man, at the very least. There's also a scene where he's looking off the balcony and his eyes randomly glow red for a second. That could perhaps be a reflection of something, but it seems way too apparent to be the case.

[Anonymous No.13510887]

>>13506527
>it's actually pretty stupid to force the theory on the directors cut
it's just what was already in the movie before the studio cut it to pieces. the editor of the movie confirms in the making of doc that the unicorn, glowy eyes etc were in the movie before the studio people cut them because they didn't understand what they were for.

also, worrying about "canonicity" is for retards.

[Anonymous No.13510950]

>>13505473
>>13505590
>DO NOT WATCH THE DIRECTORS CUT. EDITORS CUT IS MUCH BETTER.
>good editors save movies from directors

what the fuck are you even talking about? the editor of the movie did not have control over the theatrical cut and he hated it. the director's/final cut is the proper version of the movie according to both the editor and the director.

>>13505610
the director's cut was not actually disowned, scott just thought it wasn't quite right because he was too busy with other commitments to oversee it personally, which is why he redid it as the final cut. what scott disowned is was the theatrical release of the unfinished workprint.

[Anonymous No.13511154]

>>13501806
I liked it a lot. Especially the part they didn't even bother remotely adapting into the movie, where Deckard flies out into the wasteland and starts walking up the hill but can't get to the top, then considers killing himself in his car but stops when he calls bryants assistant, and he finds the toad in the dirt

[Anonymous No.13511942]

>>13511154
Androids is the best movie that will never be.

[Anonymous No.13511972]

>>13509822
actually it's an explicitly anti-atheist statement, as it discredits every atheist who has ever argued that X isn't real therefore Y religion is false. even if you prove tomorrow Jesus never existed, it would do nothing to validity of the Christian faith

[Anonymous No.13512581]

>>13510094
Yeah it was super tense when he was contemplating whether he was a android while Deckard was still cuffed to him.

[Anonymous No.13512665]

>>13502460
I think slightly better than the movie at exploring the 'Is this real or not? Does it even matter if you can't tell the difference?'
I wish the movie delved a little more into the synthetic emotion stuff. I can't remember what it's called in the book but the thing where you tune into a station to change your emotion. Cool reflection of the human/android theme in real vs synthetic emotions

[Anonymous No.13512989]

>>13512665
>Does it even matter if you can't tell the difference?
Your ignorance does not invalidate tribalism.
>I wish the movie delved a little more into the synthetic emotion stuff
Yes, and Mercerism et al. The book was full of little thumbnails of ideas that were waiting to be explored. I would have appreciated a derivative work that explored these ideas well.

[Anonymous No.13513402]

>>13509822
I'm sure Mars had its problems but of course Aniggers would have a much worse perception given their servitude.

[Anonymous No.13513420]

>>13508371
humans are superior to most animals. for them, it’s both nurture and nature as opposed to just nature for dogs. retard

[Anonymous No.13513435]

>>13513420
What an incoherent sentence. Run that past me again but don't write it like a ESL retard.

[Anonymous No.13513649]

>>13502619
I don't think they dream. I mean why would they?

[Anonymous No.13513674]

>>13503121
That honesty was a stroke of genius. It might be one of the best or at least my favorite title for a book.

[Anonymous No.13513693]

>>13501806
Does the Chinese room actually understand Chinese?

[Anonymous No.13513718]

>>13502460
The movie dealt with metaphysics better than the book. Mercerism was inadequate compared to Roy's journey of acquiring a soul and proving the thesis that he was more human than human (transcendent).
At least 2049 was more honest with the narrative and actively showed K's metaphysical journey rather than pretend it was a story about Deckard.

[Anonymous No.13513723]

>>13502460
The movie dealt with metaphysics better than the book. Mercerism was inadequate compared to Roy's journey of acquiring a soul and proving the thesis that he was more human than human (transcendent).
At least 2049 was more honest with the narrative and actively showed K's metaphysical journey rather than pretend it was a story about Deckard.

[Anonymous No.13513728]

>>13513693
Yas

[Anonymous No.13513782]

>>13511972
"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."

[Anonymous No.13514235]

>>13505470
Based AMposter