Re-Reading Hardwired

I’m quoting here from an email I sent to highly intelligent reader Jason Thomas, about re-reading my own book for the first time in twenty-odd years, this when I had to correct the Night Shade edition.

It occurred to me that the things the reader was supposed to find shocking, back when I wrote the book in 1983/84, are now so commonplace as to be part of the background hum. Unending multiplatform assaults encouraging people to heedless consumerism? Check. Drugs widely advertised, including TV? Check. Governments in thrall to multinational corporations? Check. Balkanization of the former Soviet bloc? Check. Worldwide climate change? Check. Rising ocean levels? Check. Widening gap between rich and poor? Check. Entire populations slavishly devoted to celebrity and fashion? Check. Vast unregulated manipulation of securities market by unscrupulous insiders? Check. State-controlled military being replaced by mercenary forces? Check. Pharmaceutical companies making vast fortunes off human misery? Check.

I’m sure folks here will note others.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a good prophet.