But What If We’re Wrong - Chuck Klosterman

What a wild book! The subtitle is “Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past”. Klosterman has really matured as a writer. His first book, “Fargo Rock City” is about metal music and growing up in a small town in North Dakota. This one is a pretty deep dive into a lot of unanswerable questions, some of which are truly disconcerting. Some are interestingly trivial.

In one essay, Klosterman questions who far future generations will associate with “rock and roll”, like we almost exclusively associate march music with John Phillip Sousa. Dylan? Elvis? Chuck Berry? It’s an interesting topic, covered possibly exhaustively.

One of the disconcerting ones is his consideration of the “simulation hypothesis”, which suggests we are only self-aware computer simulations in a program developed by a far future computer programmer. The arguments put forth by the main supporter of this thesis, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, are surprisingly, and discomfitingly, compelling. For the record, I believe I am real, but reading this section made me a little queasy.

Regardless, the depth of thought Klosterman has given to this wide range of topics is truly impressive. And yet, he retains the humor and occasional pop culture references (a lot of which reference the music of the 80’s and 90’s, since he was a music writer) of his other work. Fun read.

Oh, and the upside down title is not a mistake.