Post: #1

The following comic grabbed my attention this morning when I stumbled upon it, and I was wondering which of the two you believe most resembles our current existence, if either. Or possibly both, although it would seem that one must be more relevant than the other. Perhaps it varies depending where you reside on the globe? I last read 1984 over a year ago when the NSA leaks were in the news. It has been a few years since I have read Brave New World, I'll need to fix that.

Post: #2

both of them were right, we are living right now in a world that resembles more and more primarily as "1984",
and secondarily as "Brave New World"

Post: #3

(03-28-2015 08:33 AM)magicone Wrote:  both of them were right, we are living right now in a world that resembles more and more primarily as "1984",
and secondarily as "Brave New World"

Ten years ago I would have agreed with you but I think varies from person to person. My life curently resembles Brave New World primarily.

Post: #4

(03-28-2015 08:59 AM)IvanDrago Wrote:  

(03-28-2015 08:33 AM)magicone Wrote:  both of them were right, we are living right now in a world that resembles more and more primarily as "1984",
and secondarily as "Brave New World"

Ten years ago I would have agreed with you but I think varies from person to person. My life curently resembles Brave New World primarily.

And yet someone unknown to you can invade your life and ruin it. Through direct violence or the state.

Post: #5

Brave New World involved the government creating distinct classes of people through applying alcohol to human embryos to ensure they would grow up as "betas" or "gammas".

In our world, that just happens on its own.

Post: #6

Brave New World. Mostly because people don't give a shit about secrets being kept from them or what the government is up to as long as they have their Netflix, instagram, and other bullshit to keep them occupied. There is so much stupid content to keep people distracted that as long as the sheep have their soma, those in power can get away with whatever they want.

Post: #7

We are in between - if you read 1984 the book you will find many truths embedded in it.

Who are we fighting Al Queada or are we fighting along Al Quaeda now?

What makes both books so eerie is that they were both written a 70-80 years ago and both authors came from well-connected highly powerful elite families - not money elite, but scientific and political elite. George Orwell was in training to be one of the candidates for prime minister and Huxley was the brother of Julian Huxley who was the first president of UNESCO. Both sat on long-term planning meetings of the real movers and shakers of our world.

1984 predictions coming true:

+ Citizen Spies, Thoughtcrime and Disappearing People (has been happening for a long time)
+ Ministry of Truth, Thought Police, and Educational Indoctrination by the State (more people started to realize that in current academia)
+ Rewritten History and Total Media Control (they rewrite history non-stop - now usually early on, media companies are owned by big corporations and licenses are given only by government)
+ The People (Proles) are the Enemy - Keep them Unconscious (toxic food, constant entertainment, constant mindless work despite being able to switch to a 25/hr week for decades now [also a control tool - time restriction], toxic alcohol, now weed, meth & other drugs for the underclass, also all dissenting information is made fun of or called chauvinist or conspiracy theory)
+ Even “Loners” are Dangerous - “Ownlife” Will not be Tolerated (group-think and the myth of the dangerous loner guy)
+ True Science, False Choice and Unseen Controllers ("Science says that all people will believe anything that starts with science says despite being able to massively influence and omit scientific results")
+ Perpetual War/ Separated from unity by constant war (Eternal War on Terror, Black against White on media, Muslims against Christians, Richer against Poorer)
+ Big Brother is Watching You (NSA)
+ 2+2=5 (it's rape when they tell you it is rape, it's a worthwhile cause for war when they tell you it is (Iraq WMD, Russia/Ukraine etc.))

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-25...14-america




Brave New World predictions:

+ geneticly engineered babies almost here (animals already being produced that way)
+ artificial uterus almost here (again animals already being born that way)
+ early sexual education to prevent adult bonding (sex-ed for 6 year olds - ever expanding - porn to be shown to 6 year old in discussion, constant early sexualization of children, generation porn - most will be unable to bond - millenials are nothing to those which come right now)
+ destruction of the family (divorce law, feminism, promiscuity, living in single units, hostile family law, CPS tyranny)
+ Soma - drugs and indoctrination to placate the empty life (from early on Ritalin, toxic foods (which can work like drugs), toxic alcohol, weed (potentially legal everywhere - also weed now is anything but natural - ask some people who smoked it in the 1960s), entertainment media and porn as other tools of Soma-mindcontrol)


The only thing that will finish this off is clones and artificially created humans. Then Brave New World can come in fast.

Post: #8

I think in the west it's both simultaneously. I noticed the part in the cartoons where they talk about controlling by inflicting pain vs. inflicting pleasure. Alcohol is an example where they do both at the same time. The cathedral is clearly promoting a culture of drunken debauchery. Girls should be free to get blind drunk with no risks. Girls should wait for marriage and avoid serious relationships for 15 years after puberty, but should party and date bad boys and have fun until then. But at the same time, they have the DUI Industrial Complex geared up to extract maximum money and pain from drinkers, and they have neo-temperance movement types redefining four drinks in one drinking episode as a "binge".

Everyone is a criminal, by design.

Post: #9

An either-or comparison between the two.

They are both masterpieces and are both very indicative of what we face as a society.

Orwell and Huxley are timeless pre-eminent thinkers. Many posters have little regard for fiction (vs nonfiction), but that's because most fiction is crap. Fiction written by such geniuses as Orwell and Huxley has a way of speaking to us in dangerous ideas that nonfiction cannot.

My favorite orwell quote (from Animal Farm): "All of us are equal, but some of us are more equal than others." (very true).

My favorite Huxley quote: “It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.”

Post: #10

(03-28-2015 01:56 PM)monster Wrote:  My favorite Huxley quote: “It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.”

Erich Fromm had some good writings about this.

He uses the term "private property" as an example. According to him, the concept of private property, looked at through the context of human history, is the exception rather than the rule. This Western notion of "What is mine is mine" is a fairly recent concept, and yet is something that is deeply ingrained in us.

The word private comes from the Latin word "privare", which translates to, "To deprive, take, or rob". Crazy huh? You could roughly translate "private property" to mean "ownership over that which deprives others".

The flaw (or virtue, depending on your values) of capitalism is that there is this notion; "I am free and bound by no restrictions to take as much as I possibly can or want for myself, and so long as I do not break any laws doing so."

If you wanted to establish a moral code or philosophy which is guaranteed to destroy any sense of community among humans, that's pretty much it.

And when you bring up community, people start talking about Communism, which we're trained to believe is the devil.

Well here's an interesting take on "community"; the word comes from the Latin "communitas".

Communitas is defined as: "the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persons who experience liminality as a group."

I had never heard of "liminality", so I looked that up:

From Wikipedia:

Quote:In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold"[1]) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold"[citation needed] between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.

The concept of liminality was first developed in the early 20th century by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep and later taken up by Victor Turner.[2] More recently, usage of the term has broadened to describe political and cultural change as well as rituals.[3] During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt.[4] The dissolution of order during liminality creates a fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established.[5] The term has also passed into popular usage, where it is applied much more broadly, undermining its significance to some extent.[6]

This trips me out. I know exactly what that feeling is. It's what I felt during an Indian sweat lodge. I think it's pretty incredible that someone coined a term for that feeling of community developed during a ritual.

This is entirely different than I think what most people conceptualize as "community". When I think of that type of community, I think of, "You watch my back, I watch yours." But that still reinforces a notion of alienation.

You could use a hazing ritual at a frat house as a perfect example; this is the crucial importance of rituals in the first place. It seems like a much more effective means of establishing true community than the simple "You watch my back, I watch yours" principle. Experiencing a ritual with other humans is a much more bonding act, and is a practice as old as civilization itself, that we have largely lost in modern times.

Post: #11

I always thought prozac was basically Soma. Although caffeine and sugar could be as well. Haven't we discussed this before as well?

Post: #12

Does that guy flexing in the mirror have a tub of Carb powder? A brave new world indeed.

Post: #13

1984 really hit the perpetual war as an enginge of the economy thing on the head.

The thing is they imagined truckloads of enemy combatants being rolled through public streets.

Our model of black sites is much less unsightly.

Post: #14

(03-28-2015 10:53 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  We are in between - if you read 1984 the book you will find many truths embedded in it.

You are absolutely right in that we live with aspects of both.

I read these books in public high school, which I hope is still required.

We are a few steps away from the thought police already. Perpetual War is with us (and Eisenhower saw this coming, too, in 1950).

Instagram, facebook, all the crap are essentially irrelevant distractions. Overuse of ritalin, SSRI's are essentially Soma.

I would say the appearance of society (at least in the West) is more akin to that of Brave New World, however under the surface, we are living increasingly in Oceania, 1984, if you look hard enough.

Post: #15

It is a bit of both but this is why I think we are mostly in a Brave New World situation:

Quote:Leave Facebook if you don't want to be spied on, warns EU

The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts if they want to keep information private from US security services, finding that current Safe Harbour legislation does not protect citizen’s data.

The comments were made by EC attorney Bernhard Schima in a case brought by privacy campaigner Maximilian Schrems, looking at whether the data of EU citizens should be considered safe if sent to the US in a post-Snowden revelation landscape.

“You might consider closing your Facebook account, if you have one,” Schima told attorney general Yves Bot in a hearing of the case at the European court of justice in Luxembourg.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/20...privacy-us

If the subjects of 1984 had the choice to withdraw from the state's attention, they would have taken it.

The citizens of Brave New World were bred to not want to take this choice. With the true nature and purpose of Facebook now being public knowledge, how many people will delete it? Very few.

Post: #16

The most dangerous dictatorship may at first sight be considered as a a jail with iron bars, but in reality, it looks like a golden birdcage.

Post: #17

(03-28-2015 02:45 PM)kbell Wrote:  I always thought prozac was basically Soma. Although caffeine and sugar could be as well. Haven't we discussed this before as well?

TV, media, internet is a Soma of our times.

Post: #18

Evidence of both of these authors being correct in their own way.

Link

The power of the state will be used to invade and put pressure on families should a child be exposed to mature rated content. A case of invading the privacy of your home via the child innocently revealing they have watched or played such games as GTA, Battlefield, COD etc.

Or a snooping third party.

If this was law then I have certainly broken it. My nephew has watched me play GTA, Battlefield and some mature themed comics on youtube.



This whole thing is taking the upbringing of children into the sphere of the government and undermines families. Yes there are broken, fucked up families spewing out children who become criminals and other dross but the majority are not like that. If it was then we would have anarchy.

The UK government and lobbyists see fit to educate young children on the methods of sexual intercourse and giving contraceptives away to them without the knowledge of the parents but at the same time demanding they control and prevent children from seeing mature video games and movies.

So which is it nanny state? Do parents have the right to enforce their will on their own flesh and blood or is it Big Brothers job?

Post: #19

The most predictive factor in 1984 was NewSpeak; we're surrounded by it now, and the language is being butchered and dumbed down so that people can't think coherently; the recent move in schools to teach students that everything is either a fact or an opinion is an example of this. If all moral statements are just opinions, then anything flies - even a set of moral statements that are contradictory. At the same time, however, only one set of moral statements is deemed to be 'correct' - even if it's an incoherent mess.

Just take the term Gay Marriage, for example; it's an oxymoron, but few have the erudition to realize this. All they understand is that Gay Marriage is 'nice' and traditional values are 'oppressive' - both mere opinions, but one is 'right'.

Post: #20

I haven't read a brave new world, but comparing 2015 to 1984 is a stretch. Unless I missed the part about partying with sluts and spending oil money (while it lasts).

Post: #21

(04-02-2015 04:42 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  I haven't read a brave new world, but comparing 2015 to 1984 is a stretch. Unless I missed the part about partying with sluts and spending oil money (while it lasts).

In 1984, the stated wanted to ensure reproduction, while preventing pair-bonding between couples. In our modern world the state's stumbled on to a better solution: import 3rd Worlders to replace the declining population, while distracting anybody who could get in their way with easy sex. This prevents pair bonding, and the sort of patriotism and sacrifice that comes from being an established family man with his own business and children to worry about.

Post: #22

There are a lot of places in the world that are 1984. China springs to mind, but ISIL is an easy one as well.

In the developed West, it's obviously Brave New World.

Average citizens know the truth. They continue to believe the lies, it's more comforting that way.

WIA

Post: #23

(04-02-2015 05:29 PM)Aurini Wrote:  

(04-02-2015 04:42 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  I haven't read a brave new world, but comparing 2015 to 1984 is a stretch. Unless I missed the part about partying with sluts and spending oil money (while it lasts).

In 1984, the stated wanted to ensure reproduction, while preventing pair-bonding between couples. In our modern world the state's stumbled on to a better solution: import 3rd Worlders to replace the declining population, while distracting anybody who could get in their way with easy sex. This prevents pair bonding, and the sort of patriotism and sacrifice that comes from being an established family man with his own business and children to worry about.

Post: #24

An even more insidious version of Brave New World. Dumbed down, hedonistic, but without free sex for all. Only shadows and illusions for beta males.

Post: #25

Brave New World.

Soma = antidepressants, Ritalin, pot, alcohol, Apple Products, Netflix, viral videos, free porn, trigger warnings, safe spaces.

If I recall in brave new world, all bad feelings were eliminated with soma and cultural indoctrination. People weren't able to handle any discomfort - in fact they weren't expected to experience anything unpleasant.

I think the ridiculous infantilzation of college students with the trigger warnings and safe rooms with play doh and crayons is an example of this.