<The world truly has truly gone nuts:>
That reminded me of this story by Heinlein. Haven't read it in decades, thanks.
en.wikipedia.org
"In his spare time, he studies cycles. Human behavior seems to run in cycles, with prices, wages, hemlines, fashions, and entire economies crashing and rising again for no reason, except that each was following the ups and downs of a cycle. Three big cycles bottomed out in 1929, causing the Crash of 1929. It is now 1952, and every cycle he tracks will either trough or crest simultaneously in about six months. Breen explains to Meade Barstow, the young lady, that "This year, the human race is letting down its hair, flipping its lip with a finger, and saying 'Wubba, wubba, wubba.'". Meade's striptease, along with the commonplace public transvestism, the new churches with their ceremonial nudity and all the other pieces of minor insanity are simply symptoms of the inexorable trends. As Breen puts it, while any one person may seem to be rational, in the bulk people behave statistically, whether they like it or not. "Meade," he says, "I think we're lemmings."" |
