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Aldous Huxley Foresaw America’s Pill-Popping Addiction

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

#141

Post by buboard »

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…

> have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people

Did they? Alcohol was associated with feasts - not particularly stressful situations. Alcoholism , OTOH has a ~50% genetic contribution.

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

#142

Post by badpun »

stormbrew wrote: post #71
Thorentis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don’t not want kids. I'm not sure which Gen Z's you've spoken to recently, but the next generations certainly want kids much less than previous generations. And this trend will only continue. We have seen family sizes continually drop, until now the average is about 2. That will soon drop below 1 where most people do not have children. Give it 30-40 years max.

If it continues at the current rate by 2060 people will all want to murder 1 person! By 2100 every person will massacre an entire small village! People have been predicting the imminent demise of civilization from lowering birth rates for an awful long time.

When did such prediction start to become popular?

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

#143

Post by tapland »

buboard wrote: post #141
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…

> have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people Did they? Alcohol was associated with feasts - not particularly stressful situations. Alcoholism , OTOH has a ~50% genetic contribution.

> Alcohol was associated with feasts

Was it now? Alcoholic beverages were seen as a nutritious (!!!) staple food from it's discovery until recently. It was also the only thing to drink in areas that lacked clean water (and one cared about avoiding it).

And yes, people have been trying to deal with people since there were people. And people have always been stressful.

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

#144

Post by mozey »

elil17 wrote: post #93
newnewpdro wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine, not alcohol, is by far the most socially acceptable drug of choice. Alcohol's definitely #2 though.

While caffeine is technically a drug, it's just very different than alcohol and other drugs. People can go to work, spend time with family, and even make important life decisions without caffeine getting in the way. The same is not true for alcohol, cocaine, meth, etc. (Nicotine is similar, I imagine, though I've never actually used it)

> People can go to work, spend time with family, and even make important life decisions without caffeine getting in the way

Caffeine is my drug of choice for working, but I've found it sometimes affects me badly. As a rule, I only drink coffee in the morning, and try to avoid it in the afternoon.

I know of better substances for spending time with family and making important life decisions.

Saying alcohol, cocaine, meth, etc is not fair. It seems common for people to lump all "drugs" into the same category, even though they have vastly different effects.

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

#145

Post by mywittyname »

tapland wrote: post #143
buboard wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have been trying to cope with the stress of life since there have been people Did they? Alcohol was associated with feasts - not particularly stressful situations. Alcoholism , OTOH has a ~50% genetic contribution.

> Alcohol was associated with feasts Was it now? Alcoholic beverages were seen as a nutritious (!!!) staple food from it's discovery until recently. It was also the only thing to drink in areas that lacked clean water (and one cared about avoiding it). And yes, people have been trying to deal with people since there were people. And people have always been stressful.

Alcohol has a ton of calories, it's cheap & easy to make, and keeps really well. The fact that it takes the edge off is just a bonus. Even without the effects of alcohol, beer is the perfect food for feeding slaves and soldiers.

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

#146

Post by Nasrudith »

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...

While Opium did cause major problems China was already on their way out due to their own stupidity - as is a reoccurinf "tradition". China had previously cut the navy massively and even turned away from a profitable sea trade over internal squabbling. It lead to being forced to pay ransom to and pardon pirates prior to this and then refused the easiest way to get a prebuilt experinced navy - hire the pirates as the new navy.

While the deeds were reprehensible China already had the taste for Opium. The British were specifically seeking a non-silver renewable trade good to avoid deflationary issues in precious metal standard days and guess what they actually had demand for? Opium. They were imperialist assholes but they never were the original sin - that is letting their targets off far too easily.

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

#147

Post by Broken_Hippo »

mFixman wrote: post #129
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks blame the drug company, but honestly there are a variety of factors at play here. Some folks genuinely need the pain relief. My mother gets migraines (or a variant). They last literally weeks and months. Sometimes these drugs work. Other migraine drugs have similar issues (addiction and tolerance), but this is villified. The doctors simply talk to her about these things. But just as importantly, folks aren't re…

Purdue pharma knew that their drug was more addictive that what was reported by the FDA, and chose to keep distributing it and pushing doctors to recommend it to people who didn't need it instead of re-doing the evaluation.

I did mention that they were not upfront about the risks. This is definitely not OK, but it is still only one of the factors.

Now, as far as pushing it to doctors: That's not an issue that is unique to this drug or this drug company. It is generally more referred to as an off-label use, which has its good and bad uses. And with things like pain medicines, it gets complicated because there are so many compounding factors. (Yes, they are prescribed too much, but we need more than tight controls on one drug class).

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

elil17 wrote: post #93
newnewpdro wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine, not alcohol, is by far the most socially acceptable drug of choice. Alcohol's definitely #2 though.

While caffeine is technically a drug, it's just very different than alcohol and other drugs. People can go to work, spend time with family, and even make important life decisions without caffeine getting in the way. The same is not true for alcohol, cocaine, meth, etc. (Nicotine is similar, I imagine, though I've never actually used it)

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by QuanticSausage »

Mijka wrote: post #122
narag wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there's a very important difference: Soma is described as non-addictive, no hangover. It's a way to control society but keeping it productive at the same time. Any drug that causes "epidemics" that result in death or defeating from work would be useless. You can argue that it's enough that most people keep working though, even if a fraction gets trashed. Edit: if anything, social media or other addictive distrac…

Just to build up on previous comment and yours, "social media or addictive distractions" is also a thing known for a long time. "Panem et circenses" is a known latin expression about providing to the masses the 2 biggest basics (food and entertainement) to appease it, sometimes used to show a decline.

It seems to me that the direct translation is "bread and circus".

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

#150

Post by Nasrudith »

afarrell wrote: post #80
nostrademons wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weird thing, if you study history and step outside the culture you were raised in, is to realize that Huxley and Orwell were both describing the world they were writing in , not some hypothetical future. 1984 is based on Orwell's experiences writing propaganda for the BBC during WW2; 19 84 was intentionally chosen by switching the last two digits of the year it was written, 19 48 . Brave New World is a Depression…

> Tolkien's Lord of the Rings...literary reactions to that time period It was also a response to WWI. Tolkein's childhood friends were killed and shattered by that war...and why? Because in 1831, Britain agreed to be a guarantor of Belgian neutrality. So when Gondor calls for aid... when Isildur calls the Men of the White Mountains to war... when Minas Tirith is besieged... what ought elves and men do but honour thei…

Tolkein apparently furiously denied allegory - although there are preexisting tropes that predate even his influence (decline of the mythic past Götterdämmerungn Atlantis) is hard to not see. Which I suppose probably owes itself both to decline of youthful myths like "parents and ancestors as infalliable" and the distant mutated memories of the Bronze Age collapse where the greatest empires indeed did fall from lofty heights and take millenia to be reached again.
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