Parallel Lives

Pros and Cons puts a spin on the idea of parallel universes, and it's actually helpful, though I think most people prefer to think of utopian alternatives.

I think the first time I encountered this concept -- and I'm not calling it a "theory" because I don't want to confuse fantasy with science -- was either a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits story about astronauts who returned from their flight and found small things in their personal lives had changed.

At first they chalked it up to some mental aberration caused by the flight, but eventually they figured out that they'd cracked their way into a parallel Earth upon re-entry. It was one of those sci-fi pieces where the concept was more interesting than the execution, and I don't remember much except the idea.

Not to be confused with "Flatland," which is about other dimensions.

I don't remember how old I was when I stumbled over that story, but it totally freaked me out, as opposed to the idea of parallel universes, which was more intriguing than disturbing.

"Other Worlds" being a third concept, since they aren't parallel or, at least, aren't supposed to be. Tom the Dancing Bug celebrates one of the best known, turning it, for satiric purposes, from another world into a parallel universe.

But then John Deering comes along to deny both the Other World and the Parallel Universe approaches.

The ending of Planet of the Apes has been used several times recently to make the point that it isn't some other dystopia, but I particularly like this one, and I like it even more in partnership rather than in juxtaposition with Tom the Dancing Bug.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a humbug, and whatever fantasy and magic existed in Oz, he was not part of it. He was simply a conman who had stumbled into the kingdom and usurped power.

L. Frank Baum's Oz is not a dream as it's portrayed in the movie. It's a real place where unreal things happen.

I can relate to that.

(Company Man)

(Bill Day)

Dorothy's wizard was benevolent, and even tried to help her. The rest of us are not so fortunate, and TTDB's view is more realistic, as are the depictions in Company Man and in Bill Day's cartoon.

This combination is particularly good, because Company Man's scornful corrections meld nicely with Day's forked tongue to ask the question, "Why would you lie about something so easily refuted?"

Perhaps Trump didn't think Time Magazine would respond to his falsehood, or, at least, so quickly.

It's also possible, I suppose, that a fellow who never seems to sleep dreamt the exchange in a nocturnal semi-nap and didn't realize it hadn't actually happened.

The latter suggesting that we could restore order to the nation with a CPAP machine, though I don't think it's that easy. And, besides, if he is actually delusional, we might want to let it flow unimpeded until it triggers the 25th Amendment.

Simply being a deliberate liar would not. We'd have to get him to lie under oath, and then bring him before an unsympathetic Congress.

And let's be fair: There is such a thing as being too persnickety about the facts.

I had a friend who applied for a job in Japan and stated that he had graduated from college in June, when, in fact, the ceremony was in early June but, according to his transcript, the degree had actually been conferred in late May.

The prospective employer's response to this was that "a man who would lie about something so inconsequential would lie about anything."

That seems a bit of a fine line.

By contrast, when you tweet something like this, you ought not to simultaneously be bragging about how well the economy is doing, or at least you should know in your own mind which thing you say is the truth and which is the lie.

Though I'd be curious to know how you expect to be able to say both without someone catching on, particularly when the one news outlet you depend on for Truth is reporting that financial institutions have never been stronger.

But, of course, it's not about telling the truth.

It's about knowing your audience.

I watched "Merchants of Doubt" this weekend, a documentary about how phony experts are recruited to create alternative views on topics that, viewed through the lens of actual science, are clear.

The movie is scary and depressing as hell, but what stuck with me was a framing technique that uses a magician to explain things.

He notes that, while a particularly astonishing card trick seems inexplicable, if you slow down the video, you'll be able to see how he does it, and then, once you know the trick, you'd never be able to un-see it, you'd always know what you were looking at.

Later on, moreover, he points out that nobody ever wins at three-card monte except for the shills, and that the reason suckers always lose is that they think the dealer is moving the cards around with extraordinary skill when, in fact, he's simply cheating them.

The trick to running a con is to play upon hope and greed, not by setting up improbable odds, though state lotteries are based on this technique, which stays just a hair on the legal side of the fraud line.

Rather, the real profits come when you make the mark think there is a technique at work when there is no technique and it is simply a con.

For instance, you play upon his naive assumption that there once was a Wonderful America, a parallel universe or perhaps another world, in which everyone had plenty and everything was swell.