Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

lithub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 187 posts

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#31

Post by nostrademons »

claudeganon wrote: post #24
nostrademons wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Huxley was writing almost a century after the Opium Wars, which managed to reduce the greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts within a few decades. Laudanum (10% tincture of opium) was extremely common within the late 19th and early 20th century Anglo-American world. The reason soma continues to resonate in literature is because it reflects fundamental truths of how the world works. Huxley did…

>the Opium Wars which managed to reduce the greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts within a few decades. This too sounds familiar... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-22/deadly-ch...

Yup. There's a certain irony how, a century and a half after Britain and the U.S. managed to reduce the greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts and trigger a civil war and the fall of the empire, the rump state of that civilization is now reducing the new greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts, triggering the fall of its empire and a potential civil war.

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#32

Post by decebalus1 »

I will probably go against the grain here but my inner tinfoil hat is telling me that the recent marijuana legalization is actually secretly run by the military industrial complex in order to silence dissent. Kind of the 'lithium in the water supply' thing.

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#33

Post by rtpg »

shams93 wrote: post #20
drongoking wrote: post #9

I hate to be That Guy Who Argues With Everything, but I will. I'm a big fan of Huxley and Brave New World, but he wasn't particularly visionary with Soma. Drug use goes back as far as humankind does because people have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people. If you're looking for a drug that helps with the anxieties of everyday life, alcohol would have my vote. It's been used for tho…

What is interesting is that the same family owned company that created oxycontin also created valium originally. Amazing to think of how much damage one family owned business has done (Purdue Pharma) to an entire nation.

As someone who has had to deal with restrictions on other drugs I need to function, I’m always a bit reticent to go full in on “this drug is evil” narratives.

Is Oxycotin particularly addictive in itself in ways it could otherwise not be? Or is this about general painkiller addiction plus the pharmaceutical company taking advantage of this to push it out too much?

In other words, is there a way to tackle this problem that doesn’t cut access for people who actually need this stuff?

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#34

Post by heavyset_go »

Thorentis wrote: post #26

More importantly, he predicted the rise of The Pill (birth control) very eerily too. And the long term effect that it will have on civilization is undeniable. Whatever your stance on the pill, I think it is naive to think that it will not have a lasting and deep impact on western civilization (and as it spreads globally, to all of human civilization). Never before has sex been able to be had without consequence. Or t…

> Sure, the world has a lot of people. But a civilization that by default, does not want to produce children? (As Huxley envisioned, and as I think will be the case in the coming decades) is headed for sure collapse.

Contraception and abortifacients have existed for millennia.

People in the developed world are choosing not have children because of costs. Having children in the developing world is an investment that is paid back in the form of free labor, dowries and someone to care for you when you're elderly.

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#35

Post by [deleted] »

drongoking wrote: post #9

I hate to be That Guy Who Argues With Everything, but I will. I'm a big fan of Huxley and Brave New World, but he wasn't particularly visionary with Soma. Drug use goes back as far as humankind does because people have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people. If you're looking for a drug that helps with the anxieties of everyday life, alcohol would have my vote. It's been used for tho…

[deleted]

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#36

Post by jerf »

heavyset_go wrote: post #34
Thorentis wrote: post #26

More importantly, he predicted the rise of The Pill (birth control) very eerily too. And the long term effect that it will have on civilization is undeniable. Whatever your stance on the pill, I think it is naive to think that it will not have a lasting and deep impact on western civilization (and as it spreads globally, to all of human civilization). Never before has sex been able to be had without consequence. Or t…

> Sure, the world has a lot of people. But a civilization that by default, does not want to produce children? (As Huxley envisioned, and as I think will be the case in the coming decades) is headed for sure collapse. Contraception and abortifacients have existed for millennia. People in the developed world are choosing not have children because of costs. Having children in the developing world is an investment that i…

"Contraception and abortifacients have existed for millennia."

Yes, but not reliably (for contraception) or safely (for abortifacients), and by their nature, 80% reliable contraception is of dubious utility.

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#37

Post by rtpg »

Thorentis wrote: post #26

More importantly, he predicted the rise of The Pill (birth control) very eerily too. And the long term effect that it will have on civilization is undeniable. Whatever your stance on the pill, I think it is naive to think that it will not have a lasting and deep impact on western civilization (and as it spreads globally, to all of human civilization). Never before has sex been able to be had without consequence. Or t…

Sorry but this is not a narrative rooted in reality.

People don’t not want kids. Lots of people want kids at the right time. Others want it but find they would be unable to provide for their children due to a generation and a half of wage stagnation, along with women not wanting to have to change their profession to “full time childcare”.

Giving people access to childcare is documented to work. There isn’t some magic cultural collapse. It’s just capitalism squeezing everything out of people, and people worn out from it.

https://www.dw.com/en/are-family-policy-reforms-to-thank-for...

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#38

Post by drongoking »

Alex3917 wrote: post #12
drongoking wrote: post #9

I hate to be That Guy Who Argues With Everything, but I will. I'm a big fan of Huxley and Brave New World, but he wasn't particularly visionary with Soma. Drug use goes back as far as humankind does because people have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people. If you're looking for a drug that helps with the anxieties of everyday life, alcohol would have my vote. It's been used for tho…

> Valium (and benzodiazepines in general) aren't prescribed as much these days because of their addictive potential. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/25/6882878... What were the prescription rates in the 60s?

I'm genuinely surprised. Maybe it's just for psych ailments (e.g. anxiety) that use has declined.

> the biggest rise in prescriptions during this time period was for back pain and other types of chronic pain.

Now I'm doubly surprised. Some benzos have muscle relaxant properties but I've never heard of them prescribed for pain.

(I've never experienced benzo withdrawal but I've heard it claimed to be as bad as opiate withdrawal.)

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#39

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

drongoking wrote: post #9

I hate to be That Guy Who Argues With Everything, but I will. I'm a big fan of Huxley and Brave New World, but he wasn't particularly visionary with Soma. Drug use goes back as far as humankind does because people have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people. If you're looking for a drug that helps with the anxieties of everyday life, alcohol would have my vote. It's been used for tho…

Valium isn't prescribed as much because it's off patent and the drug reps don't ply doctors to make sales for the competition.

Re: Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

#40

Post by roenxi »

nostrademons wrote: post #31
claudeganon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the Opium Wars which managed to reduce the greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts within a few decades. This too sounds familiar... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-22/deadly-ch...

Yup. There's a certain irony how, a century and a half after Britain and the U.S. managed to reduce the greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts and trigger a civil war and the fall of the empire, the rump state of that civilization is now reducing the new greatest civilization on earth to a bunch of drug addicts, triggering the fall of its empire and a potential civil war.

There is a really interesting tension in the world of propaganda - I see it in the modern Hong Kong situation. The better job the propagandists do of minimising Tienanmen for example the more likely China is to get Tienanmen-like protests again.

From that perspective, Western democracies have really struggled to assimilate their long history of toppling other nations and benefiting from their resources into the cultural framework. That probably leaves a vulnerability to being toppled in the same way.

Post reply on HN