31 ms·

Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

505 points by rzk 2y ago

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
A person running for president of this country comes from show business and there are venture capitalists like Mark Andreeson who seriously talk about him as somebody who knows policy all because they can get a seat at the table.
- zabzonk 2y ago
  A person ELECTED for president of the USA came from show business - Reagan.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    If I remember correctly, Trump was also elected once, as stupid as that is.
    - samllmas 2y ago
      He dabbled in show biz though.
  - gomerspiles 2y ago
    A demented figurehead with other people behind him directing the show. It's as if acting was the perfect training for the worst idea for a position in a system of checks and balances.
    - tuatoru 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - gomerspiles 2y ago
        Biden was never an entertainer like the other 2 demented old men (entrusted with WMDs) under discussion. If we send you to space you'll have to pass a fitness test.. Because we aren't stupid? But sure, anyone in the middle of a psychotic break who can't tell fact from fiction should be fine for the entirety of national interests. Shoot down another plane for the old Gipper!
        mdp2021 2y ago
        > If we send you to space you'll have to pass a fitness test.. Because we aren't stupid? The real problem societies face is reaching a good fitness test for decision makers. That includes voters - discriminating, promoting, managing (etc.) the best electorate. And we had more focus and success in the past (abbeys, Venice etc.) than in the present, where the matter of electoral systems is kept like a theoretical branch of political science. And in running reality, people get Gerrymandering - an _opposite_ effort.
        gomerspiles 2y ago
        That's a problem, but I think the problem is checks and balances for actual repairs to the checks and balances that would restrict a role are prohibitely hard to make while privilege escalations enlarging a role are at best temporarily denied. Mr Trump was supposed to be picked up by a military tribunal and probably executed. Whether that tribunal system is overreaching would have been an excellent discussion, after the execution.
        bsenftner 2y ago
        That "fitness test" would be measuring a person's maturity, or better said "lack of immaturity". How to measure maturity might just be the most important measure ever devised by the human race, because it would enable US, the humans being led by our democracies, to finally demote the power hungry smooth talking immature, short sighted leaders.
  - robotresearcher 2y ago
    As did Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      I don't think he can run for office in the US so this is false.
      - robotresearcher 2y ago
        You chose to take an ambiguous statement that could be read as true or false, and call out the false interpretation. Of course the true statement was the intended meaning, as I’m sure you knew.
        hackable_sand 2y ago
        Yep, you understood
- valval 2y ago
  And that should disqualify a presidential candidate… why exactly?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    It ain't democracy if you ain't won. -Vocal Minority, Intellectual Minority, Minorities et al.
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    The OP did not express the idea properly: people are not prejudicially disqualified because of the industries they worked in, but intrinsic disqualification comes from twisted profiles. "Guts exciters", getting followers through seducing their lower instances, is one of them. I am not labelling individuals here - but there are very many around the world fitting that description.
    - valval 2y ago
      My question was rhetorical, since I knew the previous poster’s position was indefensible. Whatever point you’re trying to make is also hilarious to watch. In democracy it does not matter what instincts were provoked to get the votes. Sometimes the person you didn’t like wins, and that’s part of the deal.
      - mdp2021 2y ago
        «Deal» as in "I was dealt this"? As in, you play a cretinous game and we should be part of it? You seem to say, you called 'democracy' a game in which "who is elected rules, whatever the means that brought to election" - i.e. you are stating that a game is there which is pure filth. To that, you also seem to add that no judgement or criticism should be added, because the game would be under some unexplained extraordinary protection. And you are also resolving "bestiality" with "dislike", as if arbitrary, as if relativistic. Hilariousness not fitting.
- hshshshsvsv 2y ago
  Congrats. You brainwashed yourself into believing only certain class of people can run the country. Founding fathers would be proud.
  - onion2k 2y ago
    I think it's fair to say the "why not inject yourself with bleach!" people shouldn't be running the show while there's a class of people who do what people tell them without questioning whether it's a good idea. People in power have a responsibility not to suggest things that would kill people. That isn't a high bar.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
      This assumes people are stupid and have no intelligence of their own and needs to be told what they should be doing.
      - onion2k 2y ago
        Not quite. It assumes that some people don't verify what they're told, and so follow what people in authority tell them. That means people in authority have a responsibility not to abuse their authority. If everyone was rational and didn't do what they were told, choosing to verify everything and only follow what was appropriate, then the entire marketing, ad, government, legal, prison, etc industries would all collapse because they wouldn't be necessary any more. It's fairly obvious that there are people who follow dangerous, stupid advice.
        hshshshsvsv 2y ago
        Okay. That's fair.
      - JKCalhoun 2y ago
        I'd prefer that the people elected to lead are smarter than I am.
- jjaacckk 2y ago
  And yet the alternative is worse.
naming_the_user 2y ago
Legendary comment from the old boy Terry Davis as the top post there.
- becquerel 2y ago
  The only true seer of the modern age.
- rlt 2y ago
  RIP
- edm0nd 2y ago
  Gods true OS
podviaznikov 2y ago
Live Neil Postman. Discovered him around 2016 and read many of his books. And planning to regularly reread him. So many things changed since he died but his ideas hold up pretty good.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tines 2y ago
  Technopoly is also amazing, make that your next read.
  - podviaznikov 2y ago
    yes, I’ve read that and many of his books. they all a bit similar and he reuses tons of similar quotes and ideas. but that is even better, he just tries to drive the same points.
    - larkinnaire 2y ago
      I remember rolling my eyes at Technopoly a lot more than I did at Amusing Ourselves, but actually...I read Technopoly maybe 15 years ago, when the Internet had a lot more promise and less downside. Maybe if I read it now it would seem a lot more correct. Amusing Ourselves, on the other hand, was brilliant when I first read it, but now we seem to be living in a world that is both Orwell and Huxley. The free market provides endless pap, AND governments/political figures have learned to use new media to provide endless misinformation designed to keep us fearful. So maybe if I read it today it would not seem as relevant.
- doubleorseven 2y ago
  He passed away before the first iPhone and now my only 2 wishes are: 1) a new book about how smartphones revolutionize the modern world and 2) a new Lauryn hill album
becquerel 2y ago
Hey guys, what if good things were actually bad? Wow!! Instead of enjoying ourselves we should instead spend eight hours a day intently studying woodworking & tax policy. The fact that people enjoy talking to each other and looking at cat pictures on social media proves that people will accept fascism and that Western liberal democracy is fated for impotence.
- theobreuerweil 2y ago
  There is a middle ground between woodworking and TikTok, no? People enjoyed talking to each other and had fun before we had technology. It’s easy to see social media as harmless, and maybe it is, but it also has the potential to act as a powerful tool for serving propaganda and brainwashing. I’m not suggesting an actual conspiracy theory here but it’s concerning that a few huge companies have the power to broadcast (and control) the flow of information to a majority of population, who will consume that information by and large without suspicion. If for some reason Facebook or TikTok really wanted to meaningfully shift public opinion, they probably could, and in any direction they might choose.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    > before we had technology There wasn't a time "before we had technology". Best to avoid that line of thinking if you want to escape the determinist (Veblem) trap and end up like Kaczynski. Postman is an author we enjoy but seldom acknowledge the wider genre into which he fits. It's called "tech critique". You can study it through the ages, comparing the outlooks and influences of Einstein, Ellul, Freud, Fromm, Heidegger, Illich, Kaczynski, Marcuse, Mumford, Nietzsche, and Postman, as well as sci-fi writers like Wells, Forster, Clarke, Gibson, Le Guin, Dick...It makes a very good companion to a study of the philosophy of science. Some takeaways (at least ones that stick in my mind): Technology is inseparable from the human condition, There are no primitivist escapes, noble savages or gardens of Walden. By the same token there is not and won't ever be any golden age of Utopian technology. Technology most closely resembles a "drug" in all its manifest functions. Technology comes with an accumulative maintenance cost. It is monotonic/directional. There's no easy way back and we can't uninvent stuff. Minimising the _harms_ of technology while maximising the benefits and maintaining human dignity amidst it is the best we can do. Even if initially excited by new developments all people are ultimately ambivalent about technology. They fear it, use it begrudgingly and resent their dependency on it. Iron bridges and steam locomotives raised the same questions as GPS and iPhones do today. Many people romanticise and worship technology. It is a secular God. If we "love" it, it's the sick love of an addict or the sadomasochistic power glee (tech "dealers" like Ellison, Zuck, and Musk) A tiny few (that's us) enjoy a curious fascination that makes tech an "end in itself". Those people get used to create a supply for the dealers and addicts. Anyway you gotta love Postman, if only for exquisite use of "centrifugal bumblepuppy". What he describes in this passage is really the soporific control/domination effects of technology in the hands of tyrants/dealers who delight in the subjugation of attention - which I think is made best by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America.
imjonse 2y ago
The book's title is a nod to the Roger Waters album/song that deals with the same theme.
- LeonB 2y ago
  I think it’s the other way around — the book is from ~ 1985 while the Roger Waters albums is ~ 1992.
  - imjonse 2y ago
    Thank you, my bad, you are right, as the other sibling comment.
- kurtdev 2y ago
  The book predates the song and album by about 7 years, so the album name references the book. Postman even mentioned the fact in his 1995 book "The end of education"
  - m-i-l 2y ago
    > "Postman even mentioned the fact in his 1995 book "The end of education"" Quote from Postman according to wikipedia[0]: "the level of sensibility required to appreciate the music of Roger Waters is both different and lower than what is required to appreciate, let us say, a Chopin étude." Ouch. I actually got the album when it came out, and was roughly aware of the concept and the book from reviews in the music press. Had I known that it was comparing Orwell and Huxley I'd have definitely made the effort to read more. But this was before the internet so it wasn't easy (you had to do things like going to a public library), so technological progress is not all downside. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
  - imjonse 2y ago
    Thank you. I was mislead by the date on the post and did not know the book was older. TIL.
cen4 2y ago
Think more about Attention. Not about Information. Information is exploding and global available Attention doesn't grow. People who pay attention to one thing, can't use the same time to pay attention to something else. So govts and corps fight over this common pool of Attention using the Media (TV/Movies/Radio/Social/News/Sports/Gaming etc etc), just like they fought over land and oil and other natural resources. Media is literally used like front line troops of colonial empires in Attention capture wars. But no one wins as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose. We await someone or some group to articulate that vision. Until then people working in Attention Capture fields will keep amusing us to death.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Attention is all you need?
  - detourdog 2y ago
    Attention is how we see ourselves reflected in others.
  - ianpenney 2y ago
    This is a very deep thought that has crossed my mind quite a lot as I’ve used LLMs and other AI. Ironically, we are discovering the human condition by evaluating what we are “not”. … but, we are.
- portaouflop 2y ago
  > as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose We tried out the grand visions to improve the human condition with one great push in the 20th century- didn’t work out so well
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    The failure of some grand visions doesn’t doom all future ones. That’s just silly.
moffkalast 2y ago
It is interesting that these two books essentially show the most extreme end result of the two major economic systems. Socialist authoritarian communist states gravitate towards 1984, capitalist liberal democracies turn into Brave New World.
- rramadass 2y ago
  Exactly! Both Orwell and Huxley are right but in different contexts. Also note that both of their works are an exaggerated caricature of aspects of Society which they wished to highlight and show its insidiousness. Thus one has to look beyond the "painted picture" and understand what was being meant. However; Orwell had a better insight on the overall issues which can be found in his essays eg. "Notes on Nationalism", "All Art is Propaganda", "Politics and the English Language" (eg. Newspeak) etc.
- renanoliveira0 2y ago
  Well said. I think the issue stems from the same point. Both cases assume that individuals are being coerced out of their potential to transform the world for the better, whether by Big Brother or by TikTok. In my view, both stem from an assumption that I don’t see playing out in the real world: that all individuals have the desire or capacity to make a difference and be something "more". I think this idea came from the Enlightenment. That’s when we started to forget that, unfortunately, the overwhelming majority are just here to occupy space.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
dave333 2y ago
Doing things merely to stimulate pleasurable brain chemistry is fine unless all you do is play games or watch formulaic media that have no lasting effect or achievement.
- mediumsmart 2y ago
  whats wrong with headshots on the PC while doomscrolling on the phone in the age of monsters and idiots?
  - jll29 2y ago
    If you, like me, would have had to watch people play Candy Crush on the Tube [= the London subway] on the way to work every morning for seven years, you would not ask. I felt terribly sorry for that loss of GDP and decline in mean global IQ.
    - Trasmatta 2y ago
      Why would playing Candy Crush on the subway have any impact on GDP or IQ? Sounds like a non sequitur.
      - Toorkit 2y ago
        The plebians should be doing business during their commute, never stop hustling! /s
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Formulaic or novel media doesn’t make a huge difference, it’s just passive consumption either way. Coincidentally I’ve been listening to Divers a bunch recently (which is a really great album, although I am just passively consuming just like everything else… I don’t know if it falls under formulaic for you, but it is a good formula if so). A lot of it is about death and time, and she ends one of the songs with a sort of gentle sing-songy “Look, and despair.” I always read the “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” in Ozymandias as a giant “fuck your hopes and achievements” from that ancient king. Anyway, Joanna Newsom’s delivery is a lot more gentle, so maybe the fact that all of our effects and achievements will ground to dust is not so bad. Mattering would be very stressful.
alexashka 2y ago
Thinly veiled 'I despise stupid people', this one. They'd be boozing (more than they already are) if there wasn't such variety of cheap and available entertainment, the author doesn't seem to realize? It's not what stupid people do in their free time - it's what capable and smart people value and pursue that makes all the difference. Nietzsche laid this out quite beautifully in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Huxley and Orwell are kindergarten philosophy by comparison.
- yldedly 2y ago
  >it's what capable and smart people value and pursue that makes all the difference. How do you know capable and smart people will keep having good values? Seems to me that it's true until it isn't - populism takes over politics, ideology takes over the humanities, science gets Goodharted to death, etc. Values are highly circular - we value what high-status people in our (sub)culture value, and you become high-status by getting what people value. This holds for smart people as well.
  - alexashka 2y ago
    > How do you know capable and smart people will keep having good values? 'Good' values don't exist, so we need not worry about that one :)
    - yldedly 2y ago
      Then what do you mean when you say "make a difference"?
      - moffkalast 2y ago
        I think they mean the literal opposite of things staying the same, not the "helping people" idiom.
        yldedly 2y ago
        Fair enough, but for the sake of this conversation, if we say 'good' values are those that keep things from staying the same, aren't the values of smart people just as likely to evolve towards 'bad' ones? For example, I'm sure most people know at least one smart person who only plays video games; it does seem that we'll keep inventing forms of entertainment that wirehead people more and more effectively, which seems in line with the Brave New World scenario.
r721 2y ago
Original comic source: https://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html https://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ours... (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20100111052839/http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100111052839/http://www.recomb...) HN discussion from 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554733 Wikipedia entry for the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
- seabombs 2y ago
  Bit of an aside, it was fun to notice the Australian references in the comic. Surprises me still to see something Australian on the "regular" internet.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > the Australian references I read the comic. Which Aus refs?
    - everybodyknows 2y ago
      "orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy"? These are unknown to most Americans.
      - 0_____0 2y ago
        Isn't that a reference to Brave New World?
        Jtsummers 2y ago
        Yes.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        Why is this downvoted? Man, HN is so weird sometimes...
anthk 2y ago
Brave New World and 1984 are books to avoid every extreme on politics, either left or right (put every Monopoly neocon fanboy, racist non-civic nationalist or burocratic socialist in there). 1984 looked scary, but BNW was hopeless. It exerced a much better control. The world of 1984 collapsed down itself.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  What's wrong with BNW? Have you forgotten the islands?
  - anthk 2y ago
    On "The Island", well, it's the book Huxley wrote as a counterpart against BNW.
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      The islands in BNW: "[Bernard is] being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson."
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      For those unfamiliar with both: Brave New World features islands which are limited domains in which free-thinking is both permitted and encouraged, as Mustapha Mond explains to Bernard and Helmholtz late in the novel. In part these serve as centres of creativity which the World State needs. Island is a paradise world which largely stands, as you note, as a counterpart to BNW. Though all does not go well. Here and now boys! Here and now ...
  - JKCalhoun 2y ago
    Yeah, I have to re-read Brave New World because over the time since I have read it I have come to believe it was actually Utopian. The artists and others that could not conform were in fact given an island where like-minded artists could flourish. Sometimes I think that's all we all want: to find a community of like-minded people we can live among.
mixtureoftakes 2y ago
Most of us will read this and continue living our life exactly the same way as before …wake up
- jumping_frog 2y ago
  Even if people wake up and "do something", govts will just tire us out. Similar to how online protests against reddit, (or on ground protests like occupy [X], and so on) and others failed. We have no option but to accept what is handed out to us.
- epicide 2y ago
  Wake up and... do what exactly? Tell others to "wake up" ad nauseum? The whole "wake up, sheeple, you're being manipulated" is both correct and amusingly self-terminating. Metacognition, for all its benefits, comes with the newfound sisyphean task of being unable to intentionally avoid thinking about a white elephant for an entire minute. "Don't be influenced by the ads/media/propaganda" works about as well. So perhaps the best way to reduce manipulation is to find a way back to sleep sometimes. A sort of meta-meta-cognition, if you will. It's self-awareness all the way down.
- r721 2y ago
  Reminds me of my favorite copypasta: >If you're reading this, you've been in a coma for almost 20 years because of a car accident. We're trying a new technique. We don't know where this message will end up in your dream, but we hope we're getting through. Please wake up.
tehnub 2y ago
People make too much of what Orwell supposedly feared may happen some day. He was writing about stuff the Soviet and British governments were doing in his time, and in particular, imagined what Soviet rule over Britain may look like. Assigning this philosophy to him and criticizing him for it seems unfair.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  Also… maybe he achieved his purpose? Most people have read his books, and it helped generate a widespread aversion to authoritarianism… actually preventing it from happening in the USA and Britain. Many countries nowadays do have societies and governments that look a lot like 1984.
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    I think you are right. I wish people paid attention to Blade Runner, Alien, etc. and realized what an equal or greater danger unchecked corporations are.
    - hermitcrab 2y ago
      Another, non-fictional, example of a corporation run wild is the British East India company. At one point they had a larger army than Britain. Because many of the British establishment had investments in the company and because the awful things it did were 'out of sight' it seems they were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted. As long as they kept turning a profit.
      - kbolino 2y ago
        Both the EIC and its Dutch equivalent VOC were eventually dissolved by their respective governments. This disarms people from viewing even rampant corporations as truly dangerous; even corporations that fielded armies and waged wars ultimately weren't beyond the reach of the law.
        2y ago
helloplanets 2y ago
A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements … they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship. A game of chess does not add a single new fact to the mind; it does not excite a single beautiful thought; nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties. Scientific American, July, 1858 [0]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-concern-trollingchess-mere-amusement-very-inferior-character-180953281/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-conce...
- kubb 2y ago
  I kind of agree. Chess sucks big time, especially played online. Playing with your grandpa in the park is OK.
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mikub 2y ago
      Why does he have to be bad at chess if he doesn't like playing online? Also I think "Playing with your grandpa." was just a metaphor for, playing with people you like. Some people just play games to have fun, you know, not everything has to be a competition.
      - ffsm8 2y ago
        Because their argument wasn't "competitive gameplay is terrible for society", but "chess is bad". But even if it was the former argument: that's unquestionably false too. Just look at professional sports like soccer or Basketball. Surely you're not going to argue that this is bad...? Because that's fundamentally the same, just on a different topic
    - 2y ago
indy 2y ago
Dopamine is one hell of a drug.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  Outrage and fear are exhausting, let me tell ya. Somehow I cannot get away from nursing my PTSD online, with sick pleasure in picking fights and "winning" arguments. Sometimes I wake up with a thread racing through my mind and the perfect retort to my "adversary" I honestly don't hate you guys, but you give my life purpose and meaning... So thank you
tlb 2y ago
The sad thing is that none of it is very amusing. Current events twitter is more aggravating than amusing. We're aggravating ourselves to death.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Yeah, and then you do something fun to distract you from said current events.
- tempodox 2y ago
  The point is that it's both distraction. Social media has told us that enragement sucks up even more attention than amusement. Mission accomplished.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ptero 2y ago
    While the situation may be grave it was usually much worse for the vast majority of the population. People are aggravated and enraged by famine deaths precisely because they affect much smaller percentage of people than they used to, where death from hunger was common. The debt and likely coming financial repression is a weaker form of coin debasement practiced regularly by many kings. And so on...
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    I briefly spent some time on Twitter a few months ago, and it was almost entirely widespread hysteria over things that were easily verifiable as trivially false. For example, at the time people were enraged about a supposed trans woman winning a boxing match in the olympics- but she was not in fact a trans woman. My take is that X/Twitter is mostly sharing fake rage bait, to emotionally manipulate people into supporting various hate based political movements.
    - fiffled 2y ago
HellDunkel 2y ago
A couple of years ago i was working for a design studio which produced an image movie for a big cooperation which somehow painted an utopian future for their upcoming product ideas. In that movie there was a woman reading in "Brave new World".[EDITED] It was clear none of the people involved read the book. My remarks were swept aside by claiming hardly anyone has read the book anyway... headlessness might be a real issue.
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  Do you mean "Brave New World"?
- _yb2s 2y ago
  That’s hilariously ironic
have_faith 2y ago
People always reference 1984 but Orwell’s essay “Pleasure Spots” is probably more relevant to this subject: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/pleasure-spots/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
- jumping_frog 2y ago
  I think there was a quote by a Nordic writer (possibly Hans Christian Andersen) in which he talked about how circuses and amusement parks keep people distracted and busy so we don't focus on important policy issues. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220818-the-surprisingly-scandalous-origins-of-disneyland https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220818-the-surprisingl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
  - robocat 2y ago
    That references the Latin phrase: panem et circenses Paragraph from a page describing it: It refers to a concept prevalent in ancient Rome, where the government would provide its citizens with free food and entertainment in the form of lavish spectacles, such as gladiator fights, chariot races, and theatrical performances. The phrase highlights the strategy employed by the ruling class to keep the population content and distracted from important political issues and matters of governance. Orwell and Huxleys work are both centralised (authoritarian - you had to take your Soma) whereas our current risk is possibly more systematic and less conspirational.
  - yamrzou 2y ago
    La Boétie? Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects … that the stupified peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures, … learned subservience as naively, bit not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.
willguest 2y ago
Given that the vast majority of people go to work to earn money for businesses that exist either to exploit natural resources or appreciate in value in the eyes of an economic system that prioritizes increasing capital valuations above all else, including human dignity, long-term survival and the life of other species, I would say we're already there. Talking about a dystopian future is a convenient way to assuade our sense of dissonance that the present is most certainly not that. Case in point, nobody wants to rid the Earth of insects, fill the oceans with plastic or plough microplastics into every orifice, but we are all complicit and can't seem to gather ourselves to fix it.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > Given that the vast majority of people go to work to earn money for businesses that exist either to exploit natural resources ... Or for governments, doing government jobs that produce absolutely nothing of value and force people to waste a big chunk of their lives on administrative tasks...
  - epicide 2y ago
    Or for corporations that produce things of negative value and force people to waste a big chunk of their lives on administrative tasks.
  - specproc 2y ago
    I come from a town where the biggest employer is the state in a few different forms. I think it's entirely valid for the government to keep them all busy 9-5, salaried and pensioned. Main function of the state IMO. I don't fear government, I fear the lack of it.
    - willguest 2y ago
      This doesn't deserve to be downvoted, it is very legitimate point. I think there is a role for public organisation, with political groups being one type. I am, however, critical of the prevailing agenda, since they often exist in a system where money can play a big role in deciding which priorities rise to the top. I am not sure that politics plays such a central role as it used or as many people assume. Our society today seems to be divided functionally... we answer to many bosses, some economic, some political, some technological, and so on. For me the more/less gov't debate misses the important points. It is the incentives, mechanism and processes that determine their value. I think you are referring to maintain order and keeping the peace - valuable functions, but made more necessary when people are under such strain in their daily lives.
IndrekR 2y ago
(2014)
keybored 2y ago
The article just lifts the content from the book and doesn’t add anything original. Great. We’ve heard.
- bsenftner 2y ago
  Exactly, and the comments here are not about the point in the article, just like the article points out people missing the point of Huxley.
- jll29 2y ago
  I would say 1984 is rather more subtle than portrayed here. For instance, the masses are kept at bay by scaring them with perpetual wars on the one hand and by keeping them distracted with machine-generation filthy "literature" (we only reached the level of technical sophistication to do that courtesy GPT/Llama last year). That part is more similar to what the post portrays as the "Huxley" view, perhaps. The appendix of 1984 ("Newspeak") is a masterpiece on its own, redefining English words like "freedom" so that they can only mean "free from lice", with the notion of freedom forgotten.
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j_maffe 2y ago
Content from Amusing Ourselves to Death presented as a visual comic to facilitate/"enhance" its communication is deeply ironic. Can't wait for the TikTok video.
- musicale 2y ago
  I'll just read the AI-generated summary of the TikTok video.
- igornadj 2y ago
  Nothing ironic about it. On the spectrum of the dry academic textbooks to binging the Kardashians, painting a picture is way way to the left.
alecco 2y ago
Given the current pro-war propaganda all over the place combined with the creeping cost of living, I think Nineteen Eighty-Four is becoming more prescient than Brave New World.
- r721 2y ago
  The topic of "creeping cost of living" reminded me of two other good dystopian novels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/334_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/334_(novel)
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
  1984 can't be more prescient than a book that has already become reality in most of the world that matters (culture, art, science, influence wise). If you don't see that hedonism and general moral decay has become the overwhelming norm, you're probably part of it. 1984's surveillance may be here, but the brute force is only reserved for the rare nails sticking out; if those haven't already gone crazy from surviving in the sane asylum.
meow_catrix 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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dangus 2y ago
Huxley’s fears presented in this particular way are immediately debunked by actual book sales and education statistics. Independent bookstores have been consistently growing since 2009: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpolicy/reinventing-retail-novel-resurgence-independent-bookstores https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpol... The book industry is expanding with particularly strong growth in e-books and audiobooks: https://worldmetrics.org/book-industry-statistics/ https://worldmetrics.org/book-industry-statistics/ Educational attainment is generally increasing as time goes on in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... Voter turnout has increased over time in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States... If anything I think that the general population is becoming more aware and educated. A more diversified leisure industry with more options than the days of having three channels on television is not the same as drowning in amusement, or the average person spending more time on amusement than on “serious” and “thoughtful” activities. Instead, it means that the individual has more options for forms of amusement they enjoy.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  I think you can argue that 'books' were deemed as intellectual in Huxley/Orwell's time, so banning them would be a sign of society decline ---> BUT, todays books can be seen as just part of the entertainment distraction. Books sales are up, but how many of them are YA, Manga , Pop-Fiction. They are as shallow and distracting as a TV Show. I tend to think even reading the worst trash book is still better than Video. But it is still playing into distraction. Note: I Like Manga, but those series that are 100 volumes long, that is distracting.
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- rramadass 2y ago
  > If anything I think that the general population is becoming more aware and educated. Not necessarily. Read Jacques Ellul's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul) book "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M... The wikipedia page has a good synopsis of all the major points. Read carefully his arguments specifically on "Information" and "Education" and how they actually make you more susceptible to Propaganda. Excerpt; "Information" Is an essential element of propaganda, which must "have reference to political or economic reality" to be credible. In fact, no propaganda can work until the moment when a set of facts has become a problem in the eyes of those who constitute public opinion." Education permits the dissemination of propaganda in that it enables people to consume information. Information is indistinguishable from propaganda in that information is an essential element of propaganda because for propaganda to succeed it must have reference to political or economic reality. Propaganda grafts itself onto an already existing reality through "informed opinion". Where no informed opinion with regard to political or economic affairs propaganda cannot exist making it an indispensable aspect. Propaganda means nothing without preliminary information that provides the basis for propaganda, gives propaganda the means to operate, and generates the problems that propaganda exploits by pretending to offer solutions. It is through information that the individual is placed in a social context and learns to understand the reality of his own situation. Information allows us to evaluate our situation feel our own personal problems are a general social problem thus enabling propaganda to entice us into social and political action. Information is most effective when it is objective and broad because it creates a general picture. With information quantity is better than quality, the more political or economic facts believed to be mastered by an individual, the more sensitive their judgment is to propaganda. In fact, only in and through propaganda do the masses have access to political economy, politics, art, or literature. The more stereotypes in a culture, the easier it is to form public opinion, and the more an individual participates in that culture, the more susceptible he becomes to the manipulation of these symbols. Now add to it all that we have discovered since then in Neuroscience/Neurobiology on how to bypass the "rational" side of the Brain and you will realize that we mostly have "Informed Opinions" and "General Confusion" rather than Real "Education" and "Awareness". If anything, the latter has become far more difficult to achieve today.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
The book came out in 2005. Was there any follow up, I didn't see one on the wiki. It seems like we are accelerating to this. Even the changes between 2005 and 2024. Near 20 years, we've leaned into the Huxley vision. Really leaned into it. This is all getting really scary. I feel like we should do something. We should really band together and change course. I volunteer to go out and do something, except of course, I'm a bit distracted at the moment, so maybe can we put off the change for another week? I really need to see the end of this season of "Industry". Then we can do something, I'm sure I'll have some free time next week to get right on this.
- layer8 2y ago
  The book came out in 1985. The author was already dead in 2005.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Missed that. It was re-issued in 2005. For 20th anniversary. So nearly 40 years.
- deleted 2y ago
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aklemm 2y ago
I just listened to this a few weeks ago. It’s incredible and really helps frame how we got here and is still very relevant to social media even though it’s written about TV/Hollywood. You’ll be hard pressed to find deeper media analysis that remains very approachable.
photochemsyn 2y ago
Brave New World supposes a world of plenty controlled by a few ruling oligarchs and aristocrats; 1984 supposes a world of scarcity also controlled by a few ruling oligarchs and aristocrats. One society is controlled by the carrot, and in the other society, given the shortage of carrots, the stick is brought out to maintain the social order.
bschmidt1 2y ago
It's amazing that solving death and aging is not Goal #1 of every rich and poor person on the planet. Death is coming for you and you're trying to get rich? Engaging in politics? Fighting? What's that gonna do when you're falling apart in real time? We're all dying fast. Medical industry can't stop it either, they don't know how. Nobody does. Yet nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
- teamspirit 2y ago
  That’s what bugs me about gen ai. How is it that all these resources are being used on recreating things that humans already do and not entirely focused on aging, health, and the climate? We already have artists, we don’t have a cure for what we’ve done to the climate. It’s frustrating.
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- wrkronmiller 2y ago
  Even if you could solve aging, you could never solve death. Probability and entropy will catch up with you eventually. I think that most people over a certain age are quite aware of their own mortality, and are looking to bring meaning to the time that they have.
  - bschmidt1 2y ago
    > eventually I'll take millions of years instead of 75 thanks > looking to bring meaning to the time that they have Everybody says something like this in response to this kind of question about death/aging - or they go all religious on me talking about Jesus etc. I'm like "what is 2 + 2" and half or more of the people go "I like cake"
- gessha 2y ago
  Some[1] do invest, others don’t. Personally, I see myself on the poor side, rather than the rich side and what I care about is having a good life however short it is. Family, friends and adventure. I don’t believe in the afterlife in any form and I wish I could live forever with my loved ones but I’ve also accepted it’s natural to die. Maybe one day we will overcome death and we will live until the heat death of the universe. Meh. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)
richk449 2y ago
For those who haven’t read the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death is incredible, and absolutely worth reading. One of my mentors gave it to me years ago and it became one of those mind blowing reads. In the book, Postman analyzes how media affects humans and society. He basically gives a framework for predicting and understanding the effects of different types of media. The book was written before social media, so the examples are books, newspapers, tv, radio, etc. But so much of social media seems obvious once you read his analysis. Every time I see the typical discussion (person A: social media makes people dumb; person B: Plato said books make people dumb) I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society.
- antisthenes 2y ago
  > I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society. I think media simply mostly brings out the behaviors already inherent to people. If a shitty person sees their behavior validated in media, they are now more likely to act it out in real life. Likewise for good behaviors. Some people are definitely more susceptible to such influence than others.
  - mihaic 2y ago
    People have a wide spectrum of inherent behaviors. I don't think you'd expect any medium to simultaneously amplify all of them. So if some behaviors are amplified more than other, isn't that equivalent to considering that a medium induces more frequently a certain behavior?
- Liquix 2y ago
  Precisely - the medium is the message. Books are slow, deliberate, require imagination and attention. Seven second tiktok videos are the opposite. The method by which we consume the information impacts us just as much if not more than its content.
schmookeeg 2y ago
I find it really strange that the 3 paragraphs of text at the top needed the comics summarizing them below. Like, did our short attention spans need those little footholds in order to progress through the point being made? :) Sounds like I need this book added to my reading list. I've not been able to get through Brave New World, but I might give it another try also.
ccorcos 2y ago
This comic misses some of my favorite details from the book. The book talks a lot about Marshall McLuhan's quote "the medium is the message" and about how discourse has turned more and more into entertainment. Nixon lost to Kennedy because he was more attractive on television, and people are judged by how they look or behave as opposed to what they say. More than anything, this book really made me appreciate written discourse.
JeremyNT 2y ago
For a novel about this (among many other things, including semi professional tennis) you might be interested in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.[0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest
musicale 2y ago
> incredible, and absolutely worth reading ... so much of social media seems obvious once you read his analysis (richk449) > dated ... commentary on the evils of tv (zetsurin) Hmm... I suppose both of these could be accurate.
nvlled 2y ago
This goes beyond media entertainment. All of our senses are being exploited and overstimulated for commercial gains. Food, perfumes, music, furniture. People crave for saltiest or sweetest food. They fill their noses with strong artificial fragrances, their heads with loud, distracting, catchy music, all the while butt-slouched on the comfiest couches or beds. If this continues on, there will be a point where humanity will be so desensitized and can no longer feel anything natural with their own senses.
jcul 2y ago
I read both many years ago, first 1984 and later Brave New World. It's been so long I've forgotten some of the details. Though, to my surprise, I remember while reading Brave New World, finding myself agreeing with a lot of the practices of that society. A gram of soma, less aversion / denial of death, more liberal sexual norms.
amagi 2y ago
Imo, the "Media Bias Chart" is an appeal to authority Postman may have warned against. Iirc, it rates articles 'in the news cycle'. Except those very sources determine which "news" items are worthy of coverage. Sources that are not in the prescribed 'news cycle' like AntiWar.com, FEE, The Institute For Justice, MintPressNews are not on the self-licking-icecream-cone list.
nuxi 2y ago
The precursor to both "1984" and "Brave New World" is a novel titled "We" from 1921 by Yevgeny Zamyatin[0]. The mass surveillance by One State is an apt analogy for the adtech-ruled world of today. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
racosa 2y ago
"Orwell had just published his groundbreaking book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which received glowing reviews from just about every corner of the English-speaking world. His French teacher, as it happens, was none other than Aldous Huxley who taught at Eton for a spell before writing Brave New World (1931), the other great 20th century dystopian novel." Aldous Huxley to George Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours (1949) - https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aldous-huxley-george-orwell-hellish-vision-future-better-1949.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aldous-huxley-george-orw...

505 points by rzk 2y ago

A person running for president of this country comes from show business and there are venture capitalists like Mark Andreeson who seriously talk about him as somebody who knows policy all because they can get a seat at the table.

zabzonk 2y ago
A person ELECTED for president of the USA came from show business - Reagan.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  If I remember correctly, Trump was also elected once, as stupid as that is.
  - samllmas 2y ago
    He dabbled in show biz though.
- gomerspiles 2y ago
  A demented figurehead with other people behind him directing the show. It's as if acting was the perfect training for the worst idea for a position in a system of checks and balances.
  - tuatoru 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - gomerspiles 2y ago
      Biden was never an entertainer like the other 2 demented old men (entrusted with WMDs) under discussion. If we send you to space you'll have to pass a fitness test.. Because we aren't stupid? But sure, anyone in the middle of a psychotic break who can't tell fact from fiction should be fine for the entirety of national interests. Shoot down another plane for the old Gipper!
      - mdp2021 2y ago
        > If we send you to space you'll have to pass a fitness test.. Because we aren't stupid? The real problem societies face is reaching a good fitness test for decision makers. That includes voters - discriminating, promoting, managing (etc.) the best electorate. And we had more focus and success in the past (abbeys, Venice etc.) than in the present, where the matter of electoral systems is kept like a theoretical branch of political science. And in running reality, people get Gerrymandering - an _opposite_ effort.
        gomerspiles 2y ago
        That's a problem, but I think the problem is checks and balances for actual repairs to the checks and balances that would restrict a role are prohibitely hard to make while privilege escalations enlarging a role are at best temporarily denied. Mr Trump was supposed to be picked up by a military tribunal and probably executed. Whether that tribunal system is overreaching would have been an excellent discussion, after the execution.
        bsenftner 2y ago
        That "fitness test" would be measuring a person's maturity, or better said "lack of immaturity". How to measure maturity might just be the most important measure ever devised by the human race, because it would enable US, the humans being led by our democracies, to finally demote the power hungry smooth talking immature, short sighted leaders.
- robotresearcher 2y ago
  As did Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    I don't think he can run for office in the US so this is false.
    - robotresearcher 2y ago
      You chose to take an ambiguous statement that could be read as true or false, and call out the false interpretation. Of course the true statement was the intended meaning, as I’m sure you knew.
      - hackable_sand 2y ago
        Yep, you understood
valval 2y ago
And that should disqualify a presidential candidate… why exactly?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  It ain't democracy if you ain't won. -Vocal Minority, Intellectual Minority, Minorities et al.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  The OP did not express the idea properly: people are not prejudicially disqualified because of the industries they worked in, but intrinsic disqualification comes from twisted profiles. "Guts exciters", getting followers through seducing their lower instances, is one of them. I am not labelling individuals here - but there are very many around the world fitting that description.
  - valval 2y ago
    My question was rhetorical, since I knew the previous poster’s position was indefensible. Whatever point you’re trying to make is also hilarious to watch. In democracy it does not matter what instincts were provoked to get the votes. Sometimes the person you didn’t like wins, and that’s part of the deal.
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      «Deal» as in "I was dealt this"? As in, you play a cretinous game and we should be part of it? You seem to say, you called 'democracy' a game in which "who is elected rules, whatever the means that brought to election" - i.e. you are stating that a game is there which is pure filth. To that, you also seem to add that no judgement or criticism should be added, because the game would be under some unexplained extraordinary protection. And you are also resolving "bestiality" with "dislike", as if arbitrary, as if relativistic. Hilariousness not fitting.
hshshshsvsv 2y ago
Congrats. You brainwashed yourself into believing only certain class of people can run the country. Founding fathers would be proud.
- onion2k 2y ago
  I think it's fair to say the "why not inject yourself with bleach!" people shouldn't be running the show while there's a class of people who do what people tell them without questioning whether it's a good idea. People in power have a responsibility not to suggest things that would kill people. That isn't a high bar.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
    This assumes people are stupid and have no intelligence of their own and needs to be told what they should be doing.
    - onion2k 2y ago
      Not quite. It assumes that some people don't verify what they're told, and so follow what people in authority tell them. That means people in authority have a responsibility not to abuse their authority. If everyone was rational and didn't do what they were told, choosing to verify everything and only follow what was appropriate, then the entire marketing, ad, government, legal, prison, etc industries would all collapse because they wouldn't be necessary any more. It's fairly obvious that there are people who follow dangerous, stupid advice.
      - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
        Okay. That's fair.
    - JKCalhoun 2y ago
      I'd prefer that the people elected to lead are smarter than I am.
jjaacckk 2y ago
And yet the alternative is worse.

naming_the_user 2y ago

Legendary comment from the old boy Terry Davis as the top post there.

becquerel 2y ago
The only true seer of the modern age.
rlt 2y ago
RIP
edm0nd 2y ago
Gods true OS

podviaznikov 2y ago

Live Neil Postman. Discovered him around 2016 and read many of his books. And planning to regularly reread him. So many things changed since he died but his ideas hold up pretty good.

deleted 2y ago
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tines 2y ago
Technopoly is also amazing, make that your next read.
- podviaznikov 2y ago
  yes, I’ve read that and many of his books. they all a bit similar and he reuses tons of similar quotes and ideas. but that is even better, he just tries to drive the same points.
  - larkinnaire 2y ago
    I remember rolling my eyes at Technopoly a lot more than I did at Amusing Ourselves, but actually...I read Technopoly maybe 15 years ago, when the Internet had a lot more promise and less downside. Maybe if I read it now it would seem a lot more correct. Amusing Ourselves, on the other hand, was brilliant when I first read it, but now we seem to be living in a world that is both Orwell and Huxley. The free market provides endless pap, AND governments/political figures have learned to use new media to provide endless misinformation designed to keep us fearful. So maybe if I read it today it would not seem as relevant.
doubleorseven 2y ago
He passed away before the first iPhone and now my only 2 wishes are: 1) a new book about how smartphones revolutionize the modern world and 2) a new Lauryn hill album

becquerel 2y ago

Hey guys, what if good things were actually bad? Wow!! Instead of enjoying ourselves we should instead spend eight hours a day intently studying woodworking & tax policy. The fact that people enjoy talking to each other and looking at cat pictures on social media proves that people will accept fascism and that Western liberal democracy is fated for impotence.

theobreuerweil 2y ago
There is a middle ground between woodworking and TikTok, no? People enjoyed talking to each other and had fun before we had technology. It’s easy to see social media as harmless, and maybe it is, but it also has the potential to act as a powerful tool for serving propaganda and brainwashing. I’m not suggesting an actual conspiracy theory here but it’s concerning that a few huge companies have the power to broadcast (and control) the flow of information to a majority of population, who will consume that information by and large without suspicion. If for some reason Facebook or TikTok really wanted to meaningfully shift public opinion, they probably could, and in any direction they might choose.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  > before we had technology There wasn't a time "before we had technology". Best to avoid that line of thinking if you want to escape the determinist (Veblem) trap and end up like Kaczynski. Postman is an author we enjoy but seldom acknowledge the wider genre into which he fits. It's called "tech critique". You can study it through the ages, comparing the outlooks and influences of Einstein, Ellul, Freud, Fromm, Heidegger, Illich, Kaczynski, Marcuse, Mumford, Nietzsche, and Postman, as well as sci-fi writers like Wells, Forster, Clarke, Gibson, Le Guin, Dick...It makes a very good companion to a study of the philosophy of science. Some takeaways (at least ones that stick in my mind): Technology is inseparable from the human condition, There are no primitivist escapes, noble savages or gardens of Walden. By the same token there is not and won't ever be any golden age of Utopian technology. Technology most closely resembles a "drug" in all its manifest functions. Technology comes with an accumulative maintenance cost. It is monotonic/directional. There's no easy way back and we can't uninvent stuff. Minimising the _harms_ of technology while maximising the benefits and maintaining human dignity amidst it is the best we can do. Even if initially excited by new developments all people are ultimately ambivalent about technology. They fear it, use it begrudgingly and resent their dependency on it. Iron bridges and steam locomotives raised the same questions as GPS and iPhones do today. Many people romanticise and worship technology. It is a secular God. If we "love" it, it's the sick love of an addict or the sadomasochistic power glee (tech "dealers" like Ellison, Zuck, and Musk) A tiny few (that's us) enjoy a curious fascination that makes tech an "end in itself". Those people get used to create a supply for the dealers and addicts. Anyway you gotta love Postman, if only for exquisite use of "centrifugal bumblepuppy". What he describes in this passage is really the soporific control/domination effects of technology in the hands of tyrants/dealers who delight in the subjugation of attention - which I think is made best by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America.

imjonse 2y ago

The book's title is a nod to the Roger Waters album/song that deals with the same theme.

LeonB 2y ago
I think it’s the other way around — the book is from ~ 1985 while the Roger Waters albums is ~ 1992.
- imjonse 2y ago
  Thank you, my bad, you are right, as the other sibling comment.
kurtdev 2y ago
The book predates the song and album by about 7 years, so the album name references the book. Postman even mentioned the fact in his 1995 book "The end of education"
- m-i-l 2y ago
  > "Postman even mentioned the fact in his 1995 book "The end of education"" Quote from Postman according to wikipedia[0]: "the level of sensibility required to appreciate the music of Roger Waters is both different and lower than what is required to appreciate, let us say, a Chopin étude." Ouch. I actually got the album when it came out, and was roughly aware of the concept and the book from reviews in the music press. Had I known that it was comparing Orwell and Huxley I'd have definitely made the effort to read more. But this was before the internet so it wasn't easy (you had to do things like going to a public library), so technological progress is not all downside. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
- imjonse 2y ago
  Thank you. I was mislead by the date on the post and did not know the book was older. TIL.

cen4 2y ago

Think more about Attention. Not about Information. Information is exploding and global available Attention doesn't grow. People who pay attention to one thing, can't use the same time to pay attention to something else. So govts and corps fight over this common pool of Attention using the Media (TV/Movies/Radio/Social/News/Sports/Gaming etc etc), just like they fought over land and oil and other natural resources. Media is literally used like front line troops of colonial empires in Attention capture wars. But no one wins as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose. We await someone or some group to articulate that vision. Until then people working in Attention Capture fields will keep amusing us to death.

moffkalast 2y ago
Attention is all you need?
- detourdog 2y ago
  Attention is how we see ourselves reflected in others.
- ianpenney 2y ago
  This is a very deep thought that has crossed my mind quite a lot as I’ve used LLMs and other AI. Ironically, we are discovering the human condition by evaluating what we are “not”. … but, we are.
portaouflop 2y ago
> as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose We tried out the grand visions to improve the human condition with one great push in the 20th century- didn’t work out so well
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  The failure of some grand visions doesn’t doom all future ones. That’s just silly.

moffkalast 2y ago

It is interesting that these two books essentially show the most extreme end result of the two major economic systems. Socialist authoritarian communist states gravitate towards 1984, capitalist liberal democracies turn into Brave New World.

rramadass 2y ago
Exactly! Both Orwell and Huxley are right but in different contexts. Also note that both of their works are an exaggerated caricature of aspects of Society which they wished to highlight and show its insidiousness. Thus one has to look beyond the "painted picture" and understand what was being meant. However; Orwell had a better insight on the overall issues which can be found in his essays eg. "Notes on Nationalism", "All Art is Propaganda", "Politics and the English Language" (eg. Newspeak) etc.
renanoliveira0 2y ago
Well said. I think the issue stems from the same point. Both cases assume that individuals are being coerced out of their potential to transform the world for the better, whether by Big Brother or by TikTok. In my view, both stem from an assumption that I don’t see playing out in the real world: that all individuals have the desire or capacity to make a difference and be something "more". I think this idea came from the Enlightenment. That’s when we started to forget that, unfortunately, the overwhelming majority are just here to occupy space.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

dave333 2y ago

Doing things merely to stimulate pleasurable brain chemistry is fine unless all you do is play games or watch formulaic media that have no lasting effect or achievement.

mediumsmart 2y ago
whats wrong with headshots on the PC while doomscrolling on the phone in the age of monsters and idiots?
- jll29 2y ago
  If you, like me, would have had to watch people play Candy Crush on the Tube [= the London subway] on the way to work every morning for seven years, you would not ask. I felt terribly sorry for that loss of GDP and decline in mean global IQ.
  - Trasmatta 2y ago
    Why would playing Candy Crush on the subway have any impact on GDP or IQ? Sounds like a non sequitur.
    - Toorkit 2y ago
      The plebians should be doing business during their commute, never stop hustling! /s
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
bee_rider 2y ago
Formulaic or novel media doesn’t make a huge difference, it’s just passive consumption either way. Coincidentally I’ve been listening to Divers a bunch recently (which is a really great album, although I am just passively consuming just like everything else… I don’t know if it falls under formulaic for you, but it is a good formula if so). A lot of it is about death and time, and she ends one of the songs with a sort of gentle sing-songy “Look, and despair.” I always read the “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” in Ozymandias as a giant “fuck your hopes and achievements” from that ancient king. Anyway, Joanna Newsom’s delivery is a lot more gentle, so maybe the fact that all of our effects and achievements will ground to dust is not so bad. Mattering would be very stressful.

alexashka 2y ago

Thinly veiled 'I despise stupid people', this one. They'd be boozing (more than they already are) if there wasn't such variety of cheap and available entertainment, the author doesn't seem to realize? It's not what stupid people do in their free time - it's what capable and smart people value and pursue that makes all the difference. Nietzsche laid this out quite beautifully in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Huxley and Orwell are kindergarten philosophy by comparison.

yldedly 2y ago
>it's what capable and smart people value and pursue that makes all the difference. How do you know capable and smart people will keep having good values? Seems to me that it's true until it isn't - populism takes over politics, ideology takes over the humanities, science gets Goodharted to death, etc. Values are highly circular - we value what high-status people in our (sub)culture value, and you become high-status by getting what people value. This holds for smart people as well.
- alexashka 2y ago
  > How do you know capable and smart people will keep having good values? 'Good' values don't exist, so we need not worry about that one :)
  - yldedly 2y ago
    Then what do you mean when you say "make a difference"?
    - moffkalast 2y ago
      I think they mean the literal opposite of things staying the same, not the "helping people" idiom.
      - yldedly 2y ago
        Fair enough, but for the sake of this conversation, if we say 'good' values are those that keep things from staying the same, aren't the values of smart people just as likely to evolve towards 'bad' ones? For example, I'm sure most people know at least one smart person who only plays video games; it does seem that we'll keep inventing forms of entertainment that wirehead people more and more effectively, which seems in line with the Brave New World scenario.

r721 2y ago

Original comic source: https://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html https://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ours... (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20100111052839/http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100111052839/http://www.recomb...) HN discussion from 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554733 Wikipedia entry for the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

seabombs 2y ago
Bit of an aside, it was fun to notice the Australian references in the comic. Surprises me still to see something Australian on the "regular" internet.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > the Australian references I read the comic. Which Aus refs?
  - everybodyknows 2y ago
    "orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy"? These are unknown to most Americans.
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      Isn't that a reference to Brave New World?
      - Jtsummers 2y ago
        Yes.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      Why is this downvoted? Man, HN is so weird sometimes...

anthk 2y ago

Brave New World and 1984 are books to avoid every extreme on politics, either left or right (put every Monopoly neocon fanboy, racist non-civic nationalist or burocratic socialist in there). 1984 looked scary, but BNW was hopeless. It exerced a much better control. The world of 1984 collapsed down itself.

082349872349872 2y ago
What's wrong with BNW? Have you forgotten the islands?
- anthk 2y ago
  On "The Island", well, it's the book Huxley wrote as a counterpart against BNW.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    The islands in BNW: "[Bernard is] being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson."
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    For those unfamiliar with both: Brave New World features islands which are limited domains in which free-thinking is both permitted and encouraged, as Mustapha Mond explains to Bernard and Helmholtz late in the novel. In part these serve as centres of creativity which the World State needs. Island is a paradise world which largely stands, as you note, as a counterpart to BNW. Though all does not go well. Here and now boys! Here and now ...
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Yeah, I have to re-read Brave New World because over the time since I have read it I have come to believe it was actually Utopian. The artists and others that could not conform were in fact given an island where like-minded artists could flourish. Sometimes I think that's all we all want: to find a community of like-minded people we can live among.

mixtureoftakes 2y ago

Most of us will read this and continue living our life exactly the same way as before …wake up

jumping_frog 2y ago
Even if people wake up and "do something", govts will just tire us out. Similar to how online protests against reddit, (or on ground protests like occupy [X], and so on) and others failed. We have no option but to accept what is handed out to us.
epicide 2y ago
Wake up and... do what exactly? Tell others to "wake up" ad nauseum? The whole "wake up, sheeple, you're being manipulated" is both correct and amusingly self-terminating. Metacognition, for all its benefits, comes with the newfound sisyphean task of being unable to intentionally avoid thinking about a white elephant for an entire minute. "Don't be influenced by the ads/media/propaganda" works about as well. So perhaps the best way to reduce manipulation is to find a way back to sleep sometimes. A sort of meta-meta-cognition, if you will. It's self-awareness all the way down.
r721 2y ago
Reminds me of my favorite copypasta: >If you're reading this, you've been in a coma for almost 20 years because of a car accident. We're trying a new technique. We don't know where this message will end up in your dream, but we hope we're getting through. Please wake up.

tehnub 2y ago

People make too much of what Orwell supposedly feared may happen some day. He was writing about stuff the Soviet and British governments were doing in his time, and in particular, imagined what Soviet rule over Britain may look like. Assigning this philosophy to him and criticizing him for it seems unfair.

_yb2s 2y ago
Also… maybe he achieved his purpose? Most people have read his books, and it helped generate a widespread aversion to authoritarianism… actually preventing it from happening in the USA and Britain. Many countries nowadays do have societies and governments that look a lot like 1984.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  I think you are right. I wish people paid attention to Blade Runner, Alien, etc. and realized what an equal or greater danger unchecked corporations are.
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    Another, non-fictional, example of a corporation run wild is the British East India company. At one point they had a larger army than Britain. Because many of the British establishment had investments in the company and because the awful things it did were 'out of sight' it seems they were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted. As long as they kept turning a profit.
    - kbolino 2y ago
      Both the EIC and its Dutch equivalent VOC were eventually dissolved by their respective governments. This disarms people from viewing even rampant corporations as truly dangerous; even corporations that fielded armies and waged wars ultimately weren't beyond the reach of the law.
      - 2y ago

helloplanets 2y ago

A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements … they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship. A game of chess does not add a single new fact to the mind; it does not excite a single beautiful thought; nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties. Scientific American, July, 1858 [0]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-concern-trollingchess-mere-amusement-very-inferior-character-180953281/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-conce...

kubb 2y ago
I kind of agree. Chess sucks big time, especially played online. Playing with your grandpa in the park is OK.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mikub 2y ago
    Why does he have to be bad at chess if he doesn't like playing online? Also I think "Playing with your grandpa." was just a metaphor for, playing with people you like. Some people just play games to have fun, you know, not everything has to be a competition.
    - ffsm8 2y ago
      Because their argument wasn't "competitive gameplay is terrible for society", but "chess is bad". But even if it was the former argument: that's unquestionably false too. Just look at professional sports like soccer or Basketball. Surely you're not going to argue that this is bad...? Because that's fundamentally the same, just on a different topic
  - 2y ago

indy 2y ago

Dopamine is one hell of a drug.

AStonesThrow 2y ago
Outrage and fear are exhausting, let me tell ya. Somehow I cannot get away from nursing my PTSD online, with sick pleasure in picking fights and "winning" arguments. Sometimes I wake up with a thread racing through my mind and the perfect retort to my "adversary" I honestly don't hate you guys, but you give my life purpose and meaning... So thank you

tlb 2y ago

The sad thing is that none of it is very amusing. Current events twitter is more aggravating than amusing. We're aggravating ourselves to death.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Yeah, and then you do something fun to distract you from said current events.
tempodox 2y ago
The point is that it's both distraction. Social media has told us that enragement sucks up even more attention than amusement. Mission accomplished.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
[flagged]
- ptero 2y ago
  While the situation may be grave it was usually much worse for the vast majority of the population. People are aggravated and enraged by famine deaths precisely because they affect much smaller percentage of people than they used to, where death from hunger was common. The debt and likely coming financial repression is a weaker form of coin debasement practiced regularly by many kings. And so on...
- _yb2s 2y ago
  I briefly spent some time on Twitter a few months ago, and it was almost entirely widespread hysteria over things that were easily verifiable as trivially false. For example, at the time people were enraged about a supposed trans woman winning a boxing match in the olympics- but she was not in fact a trans woman. My take is that X/Twitter is mostly sharing fake rage bait, to emotionally manipulate people into supporting various hate based political movements.
  - fiffled 2y ago

HellDunkel 2y ago

A couple of years ago i was working for a design studio which produced an image movie for a big cooperation which somehow painted an utopian future for their upcoming product ideas. In that movie there was a woman reading in "Brave new World".[EDITED] It was clear none of the people involved read the book. My remarks were swept aside by claiming hardly anyone has read the book anyway... headlessness might be a real issue.

hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
Do you mean "Brave New World"?
_yb2s 2y ago
That’s hilariously ironic

have_faith 2y ago

People always reference 1984 but Orwell’s essay “Pleasure Spots” is probably more relevant to this subject: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/pleasure-spots/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

jumping_frog 2y ago
I think there was a quote by a Nordic writer (possibly Hans Christian Andersen) in which he talked about how circuses and amusement parks keep people distracted and busy so we don't focus on important policy issues. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220818-the-surprisingly-scandalous-origins-of-disneyland https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220818-the-surprisingl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
- robocat 2y ago
  That references the Latin phrase: panem et circenses Paragraph from a page describing it: It refers to a concept prevalent in ancient Rome, where the government would provide its citizens with free food and entertainment in the form of lavish spectacles, such as gladiator fights, chariot races, and theatrical performances. The phrase highlights the strategy employed by the ruling class to keep the population content and distracted from important political issues and matters of governance. Orwell and Huxleys work are both centralised (authoritarian - you had to take your Soma) whereas our current risk is possibly more systematic and less conspirational.
- yamrzou 2y ago
  La Boétie? Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects … that the stupified peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures, … learned subservience as naively, bit not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.

willguest 2y ago

Given that the vast majority of people go to work to earn money for businesses that exist either to exploit natural resources or appreciate in value in the eyes of an economic system that prioritizes increasing capital valuations above all else, including human dignity, long-term survival and the life of other species, I would say we're already there. Talking about a dystopian future is a convenient way to assuade our sense of dissonance that the present is most certainly not that. Case in point, nobody wants to rid the Earth of insects, fill the oceans with plastic or plough microplastics into every orifice, but we are all complicit and can't seem to gather ourselves to fix it.

TacticalCoder 2y ago
> Given that the vast majority of people go to work to earn money for businesses that exist either to exploit natural resources ... Or for governments, doing government jobs that produce absolutely nothing of value and force people to waste a big chunk of their lives on administrative tasks...
- epicide 2y ago
  Or for corporations that produce things of negative value and force people to waste a big chunk of their lives on administrative tasks.
- specproc 2y ago
  I come from a town where the biggest employer is the state in a few different forms. I think it's entirely valid for the government to keep them all busy 9-5, salaried and pensioned. Main function of the state IMO. I don't fear government, I fear the lack of it.
  - willguest 2y ago
    This doesn't deserve to be downvoted, it is very legitimate point. I think there is a role for public organisation, with political groups being one type. I am, however, critical of the prevailing agenda, since they often exist in a system where money can play a big role in deciding which priorities rise to the top. I am not sure that politics plays such a central role as it used or as many people assume. Our society today seems to be divided functionally... we answer to many bosses, some economic, some political, some technological, and so on. For me the more/less gov't debate misses the important points. It is the incentives, mechanism and processes that determine their value. I think you are referring to maintain order and keeping the peace - valuable functions, but made more necessary when people are under such strain in their daily lives.

IndrekR 2y ago

(2014)

keybored 2y ago

The article just lifts the content from the book and doesn’t add anything original. Great. We’ve heard.

bsenftner 2y ago
Exactly, and the comments here are not about the point in the article, just like the article points out people missing the point of Huxley.
jll29 2y ago
I would say 1984 is rather more subtle than portrayed here. For instance, the masses are kept at bay by scaring them with perpetual wars on the one hand and by keeping them distracted with machine-generation filthy "literature" (we only reached the level of technical sophistication to do that courtesy GPT/Llama last year). That part is more similar to what the post portrays as the "Huxley" view, perhaps. The appendix of 1984 ("Newspeak") is a masterpiece on its own, redefining English words like "freedom" so that they can only mean "free from lice", with the notion of freedom forgotten.

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j_maffe 2y ago

Content from Amusing Ourselves to Death presented as a visual comic to facilitate/"enhance" its communication is deeply ironic. Can't wait for the TikTok video.

musicale 2y ago
I'll just read the AI-generated summary of the TikTok video.
igornadj 2y ago
Nothing ironic about it. On the spectrum of the dry academic textbooks to binging the Kardashians, painting a picture is way way to the left.

alecco 2y ago

Given the current pro-war propaganda all over the place combined with the creeping cost of living, I think Nineteen Eighty-Four is becoming more prescient than Brave New World.

r721 2y ago
The topic of "creeping cost of living" reminded me of two other good dystopian novels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/334_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/334_(novel)
BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
1984 can't be more prescient than a book that has already become reality in most of the world that matters (culture, art, science, influence wise). If you don't see that hedonism and general moral decay has become the overwhelming norm, you're probably part of it. 1984's surveillance may be here, but the brute force is only reserved for the rare nails sticking out; if those haven't already gone crazy from surviving in the sane asylum.

meow_catrix 2y ago

[flagged]

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dangus 2y ago

Huxley’s fears presented in this particular way are immediately debunked by actual book sales and education statistics. Independent bookstores have been consistently growing since 2009: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpolicy/reinventing-retail-novel-resurgence-independent-bookstores https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpol... The book industry is expanding with particularly strong growth in e-books and audiobooks: https://worldmetrics.org/book-industry-statistics/ https://worldmetrics.org/book-industry-statistics/ Educational attainment is generally increasing as time goes on in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... Voter turnout has increased over time in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States... If anything I think that the general population is becoming more aware and educated. A more diversified leisure industry with more options than the days of having three channels on television is not the same as drowning in amusement, or the average person spending more time on amusement than on “serious” and “thoughtful” activities. Instead, it means that the individual has more options for forms of amusement they enjoy.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
I think you can argue that 'books' were deemed as intellectual in Huxley/Orwell's time, so banning them would be a sign of society decline ---> BUT, todays books can be seen as just part of the entertainment distraction. Books sales are up, but how many of them are YA, Manga , Pop-Fiction. They are as shallow and distracting as a TV Show. I tend to think even reading the worst trash book is still better than Video. But it is still playing into distraction. Note: I Like Manga, but those series that are 100 volumes long, that is distracting.
- deleted 2y ago
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rramadass 2y ago
> If anything I think that the general population is becoming more aware and educated. Not necessarily. Read Jacques Ellul's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul) book "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M... The wikipedia page has a good synopsis of all the major points. Read carefully his arguments specifically on "Information" and "Education" and how they actually make you more susceptible to Propaganda. Excerpt; "Information" Is an essential element of propaganda, which must "have reference to political or economic reality" to be credible. In fact, no propaganda can work until the moment when a set of facts has become a problem in the eyes of those who constitute public opinion." Education permits the dissemination of propaganda in that it enables people to consume information. Information is indistinguishable from propaganda in that information is an essential element of propaganda because for propaganda to succeed it must have reference to political or economic reality. Propaganda grafts itself onto an already existing reality through "informed opinion". Where no informed opinion with regard to political or economic affairs propaganda cannot exist making it an indispensable aspect. Propaganda means nothing without preliminary information that provides the basis for propaganda, gives propaganda the means to operate, and generates the problems that propaganda exploits by pretending to offer solutions. It is through information that the individual is placed in a social context and learns to understand the reality of his own situation. Information allows us to evaluate our situation feel our own personal problems are a general social problem thus enabling propaganda to entice us into social and political action. Information is most effective when it is objective and broad because it creates a general picture. With information quantity is better than quality, the more political or economic facts believed to be mastered by an individual, the more sensitive their judgment is to propaganda. In fact, only in and through propaganda do the masses have access to political economy, politics, art, or literature. The more stereotypes in a culture, the easier it is to form public opinion, and the more an individual participates in that culture, the more susceptible he becomes to the manipulation of these symbols. Now add to it all that we have discovered since then in Neuroscience/Neurobiology on how to bypass the "rational" side of the Brain and you will realize that we mostly have "Informed Opinions" and "General Confusion" rather than Real "Education" and "Awareness". If anything, the latter has become far more difficult to achieve today.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

The book came out in 2005. Was there any follow up, I didn't see one on the wiki. It seems like we are accelerating to this. Even the changes between 2005 and 2024. Near 20 years, we've leaned into the Huxley vision. Really leaned into it. This is all getting really scary. I feel like we should do something. We should really band together and change course. I volunteer to go out and do something, except of course, I'm a bit distracted at the moment, so maybe can we put off the change for another week? I really need to see the end of this season of "Industry". Then we can do something, I'm sure I'll have some free time next week to get right on this.

layer8 2y ago
The book came out in 1985. The author was already dead in 2005.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Missed that. It was re-issued in 2005. For 20th anniversary. So nearly 40 years.
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aklemm 2y ago

I just listened to this a few weeks ago. It’s incredible and really helps frame how we got here and is still very relevant to social media even though it’s written about TV/Hollywood. You’ll be hard pressed to find deeper media analysis that remains very approachable.

photochemsyn 2y ago

Brave New World supposes a world of plenty controlled by a few ruling oligarchs and aristocrats; 1984 supposes a world of scarcity also controlled by a few ruling oligarchs and aristocrats. One society is controlled by the carrot, and in the other society, given the shortage of carrots, the stick is brought out to maintain the social order.

bschmidt1 2y ago

It's amazing that solving death and aging is not Goal #1 of every rich and poor person on the planet. Death is coming for you and you're trying to get rich? Engaging in politics? Fighting? What's that gonna do when you're falling apart in real time? We're all dying fast. Medical industry can't stop it either, they don't know how. Nobody does. Yet nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.

teamspirit 2y ago
That’s what bugs me about gen ai. How is it that all these resources are being used on recreating things that humans already do and not entirely focused on aging, health, and the climate? We already have artists, we don’t have a cure for what we’ve done to the climate. It’s frustrating.
- deleted 2y ago
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wrkronmiller 2y ago
Even if you could solve aging, you could never solve death. Probability and entropy will catch up with you eventually. I think that most people over a certain age are quite aware of their own mortality, and are looking to bring meaning to the time that they have.
- bschmidt1 2y ago
  > eventually I'll take millions of years instead of 75 thanks > looking to bring meaning to the time that they have Everybody says something like this in response to this kind of question about death/aging - or they go all religious on me talking about Jesus etc. I'm like "what is 2 + 2" and half or more of the people go "I like cake"
gessha 2y ago
Some[1] do invest, others don’t. Personally, I see myself on the poor side, rather than the rich side and what I care about is having a good life however short it is. Family, friends and adventure. I don’t believe in the afterlife in any form and I wish I could live forever with my loved ones but I’ve also accepted it’s natural to die. Maybe one day we will overcome death and we will live until the heat death of the universe. Meh. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)

richk449 2y ago

For those who haven’t read the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death is incredible, and absolutely worth reading. One of my mentors gave it to me years ago and it became one of those mind blowing reads. In the book, Postman analyzes how media affects humans and society. He basically gives a framework for predicting and understanding the effects of different types of media. The book was written before social media, so the examples are books, newspapers, tv, radio, etc. But so much of social media seems obvious once you read his analysis. Every time I see the typical discussion (person A: social media makes people dumb; person B: Plato said books make people dumb) I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society.

antisthenes 2y ago
> I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society. I think media simply mostly brings out the behaviors already inherent to people. If a shitty person sees their behavior validated in media, they are now more likely to act it out in real life. Likewise for good behaviors. Some people are definitely more susceptible to such influence than others.
- mihaic 2y ago
  People have a wide spectrum of inherent behaviors. I don't think you'd expect any medium to simultaneously amplify all of them. So if some behaviors are amplified more than other, isn't that equivalent to considering that a medium induces more frequently a certain behavior?
Liquix 2y ago
Precisely - the medium is the message. Books are slow, deliberate, require imagination and attention. Seven second tiktok videos are the opposite. The method by which we consume the information impacts us just as much if not more than its content.

schmookeeg 2y ago

I find it really strange that the 3 paragraphs of text at the top needed the comics summarizing them below. Like, did our short attention spans need those little footholds in order to progress through the point being made? :) Sounds like I need this book added to my reading list. I've not been able to get through Brave New World, but I might give it another try also.

ccorcos 2y ago

This comic misses some of my favorite details from the book. The book talks a lot about Marshall McLuhan's quote "the medium is the message" and about how discourse has turned more and more into entertainment. Nixon lost to Kennedy because he was more attractive on television, and people are judged by how they look or behave as opposed to what they say. More than anything, this book really made me appreciate written discourse.

JeremyNT 2y ago

For a novel about this (among many other things, including semi professional tennis) you might be interested in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.[0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest

musicale 2y ago

> incredible, and absolutely worth reading ... so much of social media seems obvious once you read his analysis (richk449) > dated ... commentary on the evils of tv (zetsurin) Hmm... I suppose both of these could be accurate.

nvlled 2y ago

This goes beyond media entertainment. All of our senses are being exploited and overstimulated for commercial gains. Food, perfumes, music, furniture. People crave for saltiest or sweetest food. They fill their noses with strong artificial fragrances, their heads with loud, distracting, catchy music, all the while butt-slouched on the comfiest couches or beds. If this continues on, there will be a point where humanity will be so desensitized and can no longer feel anything natural with their own senses.

jcul 2y ago

I read both many years ago, first 1984 and later Brave New World. It's been so long I've forgotten some of the details. Though, to my surprise, I remember while reading Brave New World, finding myself agreeing with a lot of the practices of that society. A gram of soma, less aversion / denial of death, more liberal sexual norms.

amagi 2y ago

Imo, the "Media Bias Chart" is an appeal to authority Postman may have warned against. Iirc, it rates articles 'in the news cycle'. Except those very sources determine which "news" items are worthy of coverage. Sources that are not in the prescribed 'news cycle' like AntiWar.com, FEE, The Institute For Justice, MintPressNews are not on the self-licking-icecream-cone list.

nuxi 2y ago

The precursor to both "1984" and "Brave New World" is a novel titled "We" from 1921 by Yevgeny Zamyatin[0]. The mass surveillance by One State is an apt analogy for the adtech-ruled world of today. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

racosa 2y ago

"Orwell had just published his groundbreaking book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which received glowing reviews from just about every corner of the English-speaking world. His French teacher, as it happens, was none other than Aldous Huxley who taught at Eton for a spell before writing Brave New World (1931), the other great 20th century dystopian novel." Aldous Huxley to George Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours (1949) - https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aldous-huxley-george-orwell-hellish-vision-future-better-1949.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aldous-huxley-george-orw...