Philip K. Dicks Electric Dreams
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These hoods give its wearers the power of privacy and anonymity.
Same goes for those who want to use it for their own design.
The reflexivity of good and bad goes in every direction, but never with speechified platitudes.
It simply emanates from characters and what they all want.
But heres the thing:She feels it, too.
Shes not just telepathic but empathic, and is also affected by her invasion.
Of course, theres no crime being committed here because theres no actual touching.
Its all horrifyingly legal, even as the man subjects her to his deeply abusive rape fantasy.
She feels every bit of what his mind describes, crying as she experiences his malicious thoughts.
The world around us continues to look at this kind of abuse as not being real.
Malicious trolls can abuse and exert power to their hearts content.
But the internet remains only a pretend place where nothing is real, so the abuse is legal.
Never mind the effects on people subjected to the whims of those who hurt them to feel powerful.
Online abuse is abuse, through and through.
Thats exactly why people do it to feel real and powerful.
The gross patron even exclaims as much: Heres the best bit, they cant fake it!
This very idea of power and potential victimization hangs over Honor and Rosss relationship.
In a world full of pretenders, shes attracted to this inherent honesty in him.
Honor clearly sees the same qualities in Ross himself.
Part of his personality, but a front like any other.
And so, with the enemies closing in, he tells Honor that he loves her.
He asks her to read him in truth and forgive him for what hes done.
Honor reels from learning that the first person shes ever trusted has deceived her.
But its more than that.
Maybe theyre all the same.
Again, she recoils.
He persists: We have to trust each other, or what hope is there?
We can go far away … With that, she looks out at a world on fire.
