We can remember it for you wholesale
by Philip K. Dick · first published 1991
34% recommend66% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A short story about a man who wants implanted memories of a trip he cannot afford, probing how reliable our memories are. It is a fun, thought-provoking read and a good starting point for Dick's short fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…Quixote. Borges. Dashiell Hammet. William Burroughs. Bukowski. Faulkner. Jim Thompson. Stewart O'Nan. Nabakov. Philip K Dick's more schizophrenic works ( Scanner Darkly, Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale ). Henry Miller. Gogol. Mary Karr's The Liars' Club. Flannery O'Connor. Denis Johnson. Hunter S. Thompson. Italo Calvino. T Coraghessan Boyle. I reread Finnegans Wake and Don Quixote every couple years.…
on “Do Hackers read *other* books?” ↗"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", by Philip K. Dick. https://bookshop.org/books/we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholes...
on “Plasma reactors could create oxygen on Mars” ↗I was half expecting memory implants and a reference to Philip K. Dick and 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale' short story (basis for 'Total Recall' movie, story is good and differs from the movie). That said, I don't regret a single over the budget experience I've had.
on “Does money buy happiness? Yes, if it's used to buy memories” ↗…threatening our friend Colby" Beckett, Samuel - "That Time" Bisson, Terry - They're Made Out of Meat Boyle, T. C. - The Hit Man Carver, Raymond - Little Things Chekhov, Anton - "The Bet" Dick, Philip K - "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" Gibson, William - Dogfight ("...he had nobody to tell it to. Nobody at all.") Hemingway, Ernest - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Hemingway, Ernest - Hills Like White Elephants Makkai,…
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗Quite a lot of Philip K Dick's stories mess with your sense of what's real, quite intentionally. The short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", on which Total Recall is based, is a fun read - it's not quite the same as the movie. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_W...
on “Second Variety, by Philip K. Dick (1953)” ↗…"A Little Something for Us Tempunauts", "Second Variety", "Explorers We" and "Colony", to name a few — are end on a dark, often depressing note. Of the few classics that aren't, such as "Paycheck" and "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", would probably not lend themselves to Black Mirror-style stories, although I'd love to see faithful adaptations of these. (By the way, if you don't find these stories great or original, I don't know…
on “Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans” ↗Ok for where to start gently on PKD, try his short stories collections ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collected_Stories_of_Philip... ). Some have been influential, eg. "Second Variety" and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".
on “Philip K. Dick on Blade Runner” ↗Required reading "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by P.K. Dick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Whol...).
on “Net-Worth Obsession” ↗…https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God https://urbigenous.net/library/nine_billion_names_of_god.htm... Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Who... google the title and find a PDF on https://philosophy.as.uky.edu And I'd better stop before I remember another.
on “Ask HN: What's a favorite short story of yours?” ↗…and least interesting 1950s pulp-era stories, rather than the later, more mature. Autofac is the only classic that stands out, and the adaptation is both atrocious and unfaithful to the story. Why not "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts", "Second Variety", "Impostor", "Faith of Our Fathers", "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon", "Colony" or "Foster, You're Dead"? I wonder if it's because someone owns the…
on “The $55M saga of the Netflix series nobody will never see” ↗PK Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" is a great thought experiment into the validity of our memories. I can highly recommend a read.
on “First law protecting consumers' brainwaves signed by Colorado governor” ↗…viable future technology. On a superficial level one can take the ending (which does provide closure) at face value, but it was intended to make one think. It's based on a Philip K Dick short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", and it shows. It's a grandiose story, but only on the surface and only due to the fact it's set in the future. The plot is something that will affect everybody at some point. If you haven't seen it…
on “Hollywood doesn’t make movies like ‘The Fugitive’ anymore (2018)” ↗"We can remember it for you wholesale" is the original short story, I think. Philip K. Dick's works taken as a whole, are mind-boggling. At some point, I want to work through Ubik. Stanislaw Lem, the great Polish sci-fi author of works like…
on “The growing science of memory manipulation” ↗Nope, Total Recall was based on "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." I wonder what story you are thinking of? Edit: yes, apparently: "In 1966, the late Philip K. Dick published the novelette "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." A movie based on the story will be…
on “Google to France: We Won't Forget It for You Wholesale” ↗Philip K. Dick "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale?" Next step will be to implant memories to go along with the pics ...
on ““Lifefaker.com makes faking perfection easy”” ↗