I am a big fan of visionary English science fiction writer John Wyndham. I here present a rough plotline of every single one of his novels.
Oh no! Aliens / sea creatures / plants / fungi are invading the Earth!
Humans are too stupid to resist them, because we will not embrace nuclear disarmament, Fabian socialism, and free love.
Society has collapsed, let’s go looting! Looting is fun, and it’s OK when middle class people do it.
Ugh… got sick from eating looted baked beans… maybe living off looted food was a bad idea…
I know, let’s establish a utopian farming community. We can fight off the aliens / sea creatures whatever, ban nuclear weapons and have free love!
Some people don’t seem so keen on the whole free love thing. Why not? I think it is a great idea, and so does my girlfriend… darling?
Oh no! The utopian farming community turned out to be a distopian farming community and they are oppressing and killing everyone who wants to practice free love.
Let’s fight back! Oh, and I just discovered I am telepathic. What, you too? Awesome!
Now we’re oppressing and killing everyone who isn’t telepathic. But it is OK because we are middle class.
We all get killed / we kill all the non-telepaths, and live in a utopian community on the other side of the world / the English channel.
It turns out that the aliens were really sea creatures / the sea creatures were really aliens / the plants were really fungi / all of them were a metaphor for corrupt human nature.
The end.
Until September 2016 I am a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College and an Associate Professor in the Oxford Philosophy Faculty. From then on, I'll be a Senior Adviser at the New Zealand Ministry of Transport.
My intellectual interests are mainly in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and ethics, and of course transport policy.
