The "self-assured smart-asses" are often those loudly proclaiming their authenticity. That doesn't make it so, but it can blur the lines.

Then again what IS "authenticity"? It depends on your values. It really teeters on the fact that we all deep down share some common goal. Extend all human life? Increase all human happiness? Or maybe just increase my groups happiness? Or just increase my own? "Authenticity" is a buzzword that is more akin to "consistency". You don't flip flop between various values. But then there's the meta-flip flopping of values. Is your MAIN value the ability to BE flexible? That's you're main value and in pursuit of that, you flip flop between many different values as time goes on. To most, you'd appear as in-authentic. To yourself, you'd appear like you're following the same straight and narrow path you always have because you're considering the higher level value you're pursuing.

I'd say that authenticity is actually independent of values (maybe you're saying that too).

A problem is that one could be an authentic mass murderer.

Bare authenticity alone is insufficient for moral good.

Indeed it may not even be necessary by some moral theories.

But, in saying I value authenticity, I am not claiming to be moral or right.

I could very well be horribly wrong in everything I think about technology - a monstrous throwback holding humanity from blessed Utopia. Time will tell. Meanwhile "authenticity" remains a value I aspire to.

This is a good point, attaching a moral valence to being 'authentic' simply doesn't make much sense.

There probably are cases where becoming more 'authentic' is worse and should be discouraged by all means.

> Inertia would instead just go with the flow of power

No, inertia is specifically the characteristic of matter to continue in its current state, not the characteristic of not pushing back against another force.

If a stationary object is suddenly pushed by a force, inertia is the property that resists moving.

>No, inertia is specifically the characteristic of matter to continue in its current state, not the characteristic of not pushing back against another force.

In any case, we're not going for physics here, but for parable. After all inertia is not Dick's word for this, it's the [thread's] parent's.

Dick's point is: ordinary people are often the real heroes, not asking to the recognition as heroes nor through doing conventional heroic acts, but through resisting doing a bad thing they're asked to do, when it would be easier to just comply and follow the flow (where the flow is the society/order/army/historical flow towards some bad path).