“Of course it is impossible. The conscious mind functions during the period of captivity, but upon withdrawal of the Passenger nearly every recollection goes too. There is only a slight residue, a gritty film of faint and ghostly memories. The mount is never precisely the same person afterwards; though he cannot recall the details of his experience, he is subtly changed by it.“
Passengers is a classic 1960s scifi short story by Robert Silverberg. The plot basically is that in the near future these aliens (or are they….) are on Earth but we don’t see them, they just take over people’s minds and make us do things.
It is just a short and weird ‘day in the life’ kind of story, really clever. There is no existential threat to humanity, just everyone has to walk around knowing that something might take over your body and use it for whatever. Great story link below
The story is set in 1970, and the most obvious metaphor is drugs or addiction, I mean there is more to it, but that’s how it is described, victims are conscious of what they are doing but can’t control it.
Why I sprung into my mind just now though, it’s really like what is happening to us with whatever version of the internet we are on. I catch myself doing it all of the time, now I have more free time than most people (no kids or anything) but I see everyone doing it, like it’s kind of a metaphor for addiction, but you can also see manipulation.
I do it as well, but it’s so weird when you are talking to someone and they just tell you something that you also read on one of those apps as if they came up with it and believe it. I know none of this is exactly original thoughts, just a thing I thought
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