[6] Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?

The difference I think between owning a real animal and a fake animal is when you own a real animal, because real animals were hard to find, owning one, showed that you were basically someone who was wealthy, or very high in society. Unlike a fake electric animal, which were cheap. It is because of Rick having a electric sheep, prior to a real sheep, that the neighbors of Rick would look down at him, because of the fact that it shows Rick is not as wealthy as he looks. It’s like in today’s society how people look down at the homeless, and bums on the streets. What this has to do with Mercerism I think is that the fact, that in this society, its either all experience joy, or all experience suffering. This leads to the empathy box, which they use to practice mercerism. The reason I believe they do this is because since not everyone is a real human, they aren’t able to feel empathy towards one another. The difference between a mechanical breakdown, and an animal dying, is that when a animal has a breakdown, it can be fixed, and restored. An animal dying however, it cannot be fixed once its dead. It was a crime not to own an animal, because if you didn’t own an animal, you were looked at as being a poor person. This story seems to be a lot about how people present themselves to others.