FACT v. FICTION
Sunday Jan. 13, 2019
Sinister spy novel villains conspire for world domination and/or mass destruction.
What should we be afraid of and who is behind it?
And, if their sinister motives are hacked by sinister miscreants, is there any way of stopping them?
Guys like Putin, KGB trained to be sinister, world domination wishes woven into his country and government fabric – so we see him that way. To similar degrees, leaders of China, North Korea, latest iterations of Al Qaida, Taliban and ISIS conjure similar fears as did fictional evildoers from Spectre, KAOS and THRUSH but we always had MI-6, CIA, Maxwell Smart, Interpol and others to tickle our psyche as Ian Fleming-type novelists had in mind. Governments and James Bond protector types fended off threats, defeating scoundrels before the final credits rolled.
But it isn’t just entertainment or news du-jour we need to fear. There are other sinister villains on the horizon – they didn’t start out that way, they simply had a great idea and the world beat a path to their door to buy their latest better mousetrap. Names like Gates, Jobs, Zukerberg and Bezos to name a few are indeed pursuing world domination, but because it is with technology and things we see largely as ‘good’ we don’t fear them. Should we fear big data? Should we fear Google? Should people have feared Hitler, Mussilini, Ho Chi Minh and Mao?
In real life we also have sinister villains. Some we know, some we guess at and others we are completely oblivious to; so my final question this: is Trump really an orange hurricane of villainy, or does he just play one on TV?
Reader feedback:
ALL IN MY HEAD
I’m not entirely certain its all in your head Mark. My observations would be that you are a busy fellow, very much aware of the milieu in which you operate, and active in it as well. There is no doubt a great deal going on in that mind of yours and some of it does end up disseminated to the rest of us in your writings. I don’t think you could possibly share with us everything that is going through your mind. You don’t have that much time and we your readership would have difficulty keeping up. What does get reflected back to the ‘real’ world is good enough to provide stimulation and the occasional epiphany moment, and I do thank you for that. Cheers! DM, Ladysmith, BC
