Kipple

March 1, 2008

Well, this is really more of a follow-up to the Blade Runner post. It’s not a secret that we listen to books on tape (or more accurately, books on ipod through audible.com) and have for several years, but we usually got modern books, not the classics. So, we got “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” just for comparison to the movie. Just finished it. Very interesting. Explores much more of the human psyche than the book.

Unexpectedly, though, there is a thread in the book about waste…about entropy. It’s actually, well, profound.

There’s the First Law of Kipple… ‘Kipple drives out nonkipple.’

“…Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday’s homeopape. When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you to go bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up there is twice as much of it. It always gets more and more. No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot.”
– Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick, 1968

Lately, I think I’ve been experiencing a form of mental kipple.