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Some--that is, Patrick Nielsen Hayden--postulate that since September 10, 2001 we have all been living in a Ken MacLeod or Charlie Stross novel. Now David Brin postulates that George W. Bush is Mary Sue.
It fits frighteningly well.
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» George Bush's Holodeck Program from Blog, Jvstin Style
Brad De Long links us to a couple of things, including a David Brin post which jokingly suggests that the real explanation for the world as it is is a holodeck program for George W. Bush. If that's true, though, is the Libby case a glitch, or one of th... [Read More]
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"I now know it is a rising, not a setting, sun" --Benjamin Franklin, 1787
J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics at U.C Berkeley, a Research Associate of the NBER, a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Chair of Berkeley's Political Economy major.
Among his best works are: "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?" "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare," "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution," "Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?" "Keynesianism, Pennsylvania-Avenue Style," "America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s," "American Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of the Great Depression," "Review of Robert Skidelsky (2000), John Maynard Keynes, volume 3, Fighting for Britain," "Between Meltdown and Moral Hazard: Clinton Administration International Monetary and Financial Policy," "Productivity Growth in the 2000s," "Asset Returns and Economic Growth."
The Eighteen-Year-Old is going to college next year, which means that I need to think about making more money. (The idea that one might write checks to rather than receive checks from universities is now strange to me.) So I have signed up with the Leigh Speakers' Bureau which also handles, among many others: Chris Anderson; Suzanne Berger; Michael Boskin; Kenneth Courtis; Clive Crook; Bill Emmott; Robert H. Frank; William Goetzmann; Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin; Paul Krugman; Bill McKibben; Paul Romer; Jeffrey Sachs; Robert Shiller;James Surowiecki; Martin Wolf; Adrian Wooldridge.
Does that make GW God?
And it makes sense of the Rapture.
Posted by: hrned | November 02, 2005 at 09:52 PM
"Up there--. God? In a dirty bathrobe?"
Posted by: Randolph Fritz | November 02, 2005 at 11:59 PM
Contrary Brin, now that was an interesting thing to be lead onto. SF, maybe I'll try one of the books but usually I lose interest after a few pages.
For an alternative reality I'm waiting for Arnold to go back to acting in Phillip K Dick screen play movies rather than his latest role as governator of California.
I thought GW was basing his leadership on two books. The Grinch who Stole Christmas but on the fateful day his leadership gland grew three sizes rather than his heart. And Carlos Castenada's A Separate Reality for obvious reasons.
Posted by: christo | November 03, 2005 at 01:52 AM
It could be worse - we could be living in a Lewis Libby novel:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051107ta_talk_collins
Posted by: Charles Kinbote | November 03, 2005 at 03:45 AM
Hmm. Robin Hanson (http://www.transhumanist.com/volume7/simulation.html) actually gave a bit of thought to 'how to live in a simulation'.
"Consider, for example, a computer simulation of a party at the turn of the millennium created to allow a particular future guest to participate. This simulation might be planned to last only one night, and at the start be limited to the people in the party building, and perhaps a few people visible from that building. If the future guest decided to leave the party and wander the city, the simulated people at the party might be erased, to be replaced by simulated people that populate the street where the partygoer walks.
If you knew that you were a simulated person in this party simulation, and you wanted to live as long as possible, you might want to discourage anyone from leaving the party. If the simulation might end early were the future guest to become bored, you might also want to make sure everyone had a good time. And your motivation to save for retirement, or to help the poor in Ethiopia, might be muted by realizing that in your simulation, you will never retire and there is no Ethiopia."
So, assuming that we are simulations, we should be acting to make ourselves useful bits of the scenario. Which, Brin suggests, would mean making ourselves aggressive, intelligent, argumentative opponents of The Player (er, whoever that may be) in order to increase the challenge he feels when opposing us.
In other words, we should all be Paul Krugman, and thus live forever.
There's also the possibility that this is not a simulation, but that various people in power think it is - which would explain a lot.
Posted by: ajay | November 03, 2005 at 04:26 AM
Actually, I fear we find ourselves living in a Richard Condon novel--_Emperor of America_ being particularly apt.
Somehow I keep thinking...
On his death in 1996, Condon finds himself greeted at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter who immediately welcomes him and takes him to see God.
"Good to see you!" says God. "You know, it's been a long few eons, and I really need a vacation. Do you think you could write the script for humanity over the next several years?"
George W. Bush is a character straight out of a Condon novel.
Dave
Posted by: Dave | November 03, 2005 at 11:07 AM