We are in a Brave New World dystopia, and it's very hard to fight.

[sir pball]

To quote Neil Postman:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another—slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

Barron Trump is about to be elevated to an exec at TikTok, and my experience with twenty-somethings is that they pay a lot more attention to TikTok than any other media outlet. And TikTok is the ultimate centrifugal bumblepuppy.

[dweller]

1. - cough -

more Videodrome

😐



✌🏻

[Intractable]

2. Worth mentioning is that it was a "Brave New World" of drug addicts.

Those in the lower castes (betas through epsilons) were given the Soma drug to pacify them, thus preserving the hegemony on which the alphas sit. They waited in lines for their Soma.

If this Trumped up facist government of ours were smart, they wouldn't just legalize pot, they'd give it out for free!

[TommyT139]

3. They give internet content away for "free."

And remember, if it seems free, it's because you -- and your data -- are the real product.

[Morbius]

4. What we're living through isn't Orwell, and it isn't Huxley.

It's both. We're being fed a stream of misinformation and being told who to hate (Orwell) while we are being distracted with our cellphones and social media (Huxley). I wish I had an answer. I don't.