101–110 of 204 posts
On one side, Chaves, Evo Morales and Lula assembled fantastic propaganda machines in order to ensure their respective parties continue in power. They claim that those countries are at war against the "imperialists".
On the other, they provide plenty of "soma" in the form of popular sport and music events and public subsidies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is wrong. In the book Soma is described to have roughly the positive effects of alcohol, without the negative consequences.
Soma's definitely not like alcohol, or pot for that matter. Soma is described as being able to take a few grams and experience an eternity of time within a few hours. It sounds more like an intense psychedelic.
The term you are looking for is trance. Think of those manic church sessions, where people feel all so connected to god and go stark raving mad. Psychedelic trance can be achieved playing music or through meditation, as well.
BNW is a deeper book than 1984 because with BNW the first task is to say why that world is even bad to begin with. BNW represents the logical conclusion of a philosophy in which happiness is the top priority. In my opinion it shows that happiness can not be the top priority of life, contrary to the propaganda of marketers and psychologists over the past century. Life is not inherently happy and the attempt to make it…
I agree that there has been a sickening amount of "feel-good" propaganda in the relatively recent past, in no small part thanks to the movie industry, but please note that this "feel-good" tendency and the true pursuit of happiness are two completely different things.
I'm under the impression, possibly wrongly, that a lot of people confuse instant gratification with happiness. Confusing the two is seeing the forest for the trees, like assuming sex is the same as love. Real happiness is deep-rooted, it isn't swayed easily, nor is it a direct consequence of transient events.
No real advocate of the pursuit of happiness has ever believed that life was inherently happy, however most think that life provides the conditions and the tools to make it happen. The subject has evidently been discussed ad nauseam, but I think Buddhism[1] covers the basics really well.
> One of the many paradoxes is that if you accept unhappiness and just get on with the job, greater happiness can follow.
Subsequently (and hopefully not being too pedantic) I don't think there is any paradox here, simply a misunderstanding on your part. I honestly don't think "unhappiness" should even be a word, there is "sadness", but even that is not a direct antonym of "happiness". In your sentence, replacing "unhappiness" with "trouble" (or "problems") shows that there is no paradox, simply a difference in scope(s) of understanding.
I'm not even sure any of this makes sense to anybody, it took a very long time for it to even make sense to myself.
[1] I'm not Buddhist, I just appreciate the teachings, like I do other beliefs.
At the time of this letter, Aldous Huxley was very into 'Animal Magnetism' and Hypnotism (read his novel 'Island' to see his utopian vision for such things). He seems to somewhat overrate their potence. 65 years later Animal Magnetism is long forgotten and hypnotism is slightly helpful for giving up smoking or being a bit less angry. I feel sorry for past thinkers who could only stumble upon ideas from books and dige…
Yes, what a horrid fate to have the weeks and months needed to think ideas through. How horrible to go to a library to find what you need. The sheer inhumanity of going 20 minutes without compulsively checking a glowing screen because you feel restless.
These are two giants in science fiction, in political philosophy and in pop culture. I'm a big fan of both. Great to read a discussion between them. First, there's the artistic stele of the books. 1984 has got this graphic novel, Noir feel to it, like Walking Dead or Sin City. Brave New World has this brightly colored surreal feel to it. It's hard to compare books that are different in this way. Overall, Orwell's wor…
See, I'm just the opposite. With as hedonistic as human nature seems to be, it makes perfect sense that the pursuit of happiness leads to nothing but; in other words, A Brave New World. 1984 felt just too dystopian. It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into. A Brave New World? That's simply distraction taken to the nth degree. Perfectly…
If these two developments are allowed to continue, 1984 doesn't sound unlikely at all to me. There just needs to be one point in history where somebody grabs the power, and then it will be impossible to take that power away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll assume you don't know any adults who smoke. I know a number of startup founders who do (myself not included) and work their asses off. They are not being passive.
If you do know people who smoke it goes both ways. There's a lot of people that marijuana really does just kill their desire to do anything productive (though I can say the same thing about videogames or a number of other things). On the other hand, I don't know too many people where pot has had the reverse effect, and increased their drive. It does seem to have a numbing effect, broadly speaking. Not saying I comple…
Loosing desire is just a way to cope, switching one activity for the other, as both can't be combined. I am convinced the addictive effect, the positive connotation people allude to it are largely placebo.
These are two giants in science fiction, in political philosophy and in pop culture. I'm a big fan of both. Great to read a discussion between them. First, there's the artistic stele of the books. 1984 has got this graphic novel, Noir feel to it, like Walking Dead or Sin City. Brave New World has this brightly colored surreal feel to it. It's hard to compare books that are different in this way. Overall, Orwell's wor…
See, I'm just the opposite. With as hedonistic as human nature seems to be, it makes perfect sense that the pursuit of happiness leads to nothing but; in other words, A Brave New World. 1984 felt just too dystopian. It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into. A Brave New World? That's simply distraction taken to the nth degree. Perfectly…
The current state of North Korea indicates that this statement is wrong. When the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked against you, its hard to start a rebellion.
Granted, things weren't looking very good for the U.S. when the revolutionary war began, but we had astronomically good odds when compared to the average North Korean.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even then, you're aware of the contacts or the implant, unless you're living in the Matrix and were genetically engineered with a AV jack in your spinal column.
Their overall point stands, though. If people can get this addicted and consumed to World of Warcraft or Facebook games, imagine what will happen when that's literally at eye-level.
I actually agree with some of the other commenters in this thread: Huxley's dystopia is, well, far less dystopian than Orwell's. Or, in a more nuanced look, Huxley's book suffers an unfortunate dichotomy: the things that are bad are not realistic and the things that are realistic are not bad. The legitimately dystopian part of Brave New World are often technical in nature—effectively mind control through drugs and a…
And that's why Brave New World is far more frightening: an educated, intelligent person looks at it now and thinks, 'that's not so bad!'