Does Anybody Read Anymore?
The host likes to read historical novels and espionage thrillers because he knows the authors carefully research their subject. Thus while reading something that is entertaining one can learn. Most of us think of science fiction as space opera – grand tales told in space. But great science fiction teaches in much the same manner as the historical novel or the espionage thriller. Few have been better at this craft than Michael Chrichton. His works all follows a pattern. He carefully researches the cutting edge of some science effort, then writes a cautionary tale about what could go wrong. His research is impeccable and his story-telling superb, as evidenced by how much of his work has been retooled for the big screen. None of his novels turned movies have been more successful than “Jurassic Park.”
But somewhere among the now five movies that novel has given birth to, I think the original idea behind the book has been lost. Oh, it’s there on the screen, but one has to look beyond the cool CGI dinosaurs, the rapid pace and the over-the-top action to get there and most people do not bother. The idea at the root of the book is that life cannot be contained. No matter how hard the scientists and technologists that ginned up the dinosaurs tried to control them, they would not be controlled. In the original they only “made” dinosaurs of one sex. Thus they thought reproduction would not occur and the population could therefore be controlled. But guess what? The dinos found a way to reproduce anyway, and an action thriller was born.
I cannot help but think about this as California locks down – AGAIN! There are really two levels to consider. One, the virus is going to find a way. It is not going away. No virus ever has. All we have ever accomplished with a virus is to limit its expansion until such time as we developed a vaccine which renders it harmless to humans or it mutated into harmlessness. But they all are still out there; we cannot control them; we cannot destroy them. Consider polio.
The second level is the one where the problems really arise, trying to control the virus by controlling people is, as I intimated yesterday, insane. People, particularly American people, will not be controlled that tightly. Like the dinosaurs of the novel and first film, they will find a way. The so-called “surge” is extraordinary evidence of that fact. California has been more tightly controlled, and carefully released, than virtually anywhere else in the nation and yet we surge.
People are social animals. They are going to mix and mingle – especially when they have to make a living. There have been reports of threats from officialdom of “full shutdown” whatever that means. What would that accomplish? Well, a robust and far less controlled black market economy is the first thing that comes to my mind. People won’t be controlled in this fashion. We are at the end of a significant heat wave here in SoCal – temps in the 100’s. Lots of people in these parts do not have air conditioning because we are normally temperate. Lock people into their homes in those temps and the heat related illness and death is liable to exceed covid. Thus people will not stay in their homes – they just won’t.
The more you try and control people this tightly, the more they will simply resent it, and thus the more likely it will be that they will defy you. Most of the people I know that simply refuse to wear a mask have no illness based argument – it is all about, “They can’t tell me what to do.” To try and control people this tightly is to deny them their humanity. This is a corollary of “life will find a way.” From the viewpoint of many these restrictions amount to a form of slavery – little different than what everybody has been declaring is so evil in recent weeks. There’s an irony for you.
Seriously California, there has got to be a better way.
https://www.hughhewitt.com/does-anybody-read-anymore/
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