Chicken Little

Cory Doctorow wrote Chicken Little for a tribute anthology to Frederik Pohl, since it was inspired by The Space Merchants – a science fiction novel which Frederik Pohl co-wrote with Cyril M. Kornbluth in 1952. In his short story, Cory Doctorow explores the idea that happiness, perceived happiness and predicted happiness can be completely dis-joined. For Cory, this observation raises an interesting and important question about our contemporary era, where often governments tend to see their role as a manager rather than a representative of the people. The main question here is: If you can make people happier by changing the way they feel about their circumstances, isn’t that easier than changing the circumstances themselves?