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Such practices is why the Brave New World is a dystopia
by coldtea 2y ago
Such practices is why the Brave New World is a dystopia
- emidln 2y agoNot the universal usage of a euphoria-inducing, pacifying drug covering large-scale psychological manipulation and inudstrialist domination of society? Brave New World is a dystopia because it shows a fully satiated and socially occupied doesn't care that it is being manipulated and repressed. You don't care about your caste,or the atrocities committed to others, or learning to better yourself because you take another hit of Soma and join an orgy. Did we read the same book?
- aaomidi 2y ago> You don't care about your caste,or the atrocities committed to others Totally not our society! But yeah this invention is a good thing
- kanzure 2y agoGenerally speaking, when it comes to _Brave New World_, the answer is no - people did not read the same book: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/crispr.2019.0046 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/crispr.2019.0046
- trey-jones 2y agoWell it's definitely possible to have different takeaways from the same book. I can't remember what I took away as a high school student, but when I read it again in my late 30s (I think) it blew my mind a little bit because I had adopted a sort of libertarian view that anything that doesn't directly impede the happiness of someone else should be legal. Coming down to the idea that personal happiness is ultimately what I want (not just for myself; for everybody). Brave New World (which is almost 100 years old at this point) says, "OK, here is a world where everyone can be happy all the time. What do you think?" And as a reader, of course I'm on the side of John Savage. The Soma holiday and ignorance (bliss) is not what I'm after. And of course, without contrast against strife and unhappiness, how can there be happiness at all?
- coldtea 2y ago>Did we read the same book? Yes, and the engineered factory humans is part of the dystopian point it makes. The dehumanization begins at that, it's not just the soma. Which is also why the normally born people (in the wildling "reservation"), the regular aging, the regular pregancy, are also in the book as a antithesis to the dystopian society (but one which they can not belong as outsiders, like we can't be "natives", only LARP it).
- spondylosaurus 2y agoI don't think we have to take a nearly century-old work of fiction's viewpoints seriously unless we want to. The book can argue that IVF or artificial gestation is horrific and we can in turn argue "well, I don't think that's true."
- coldtea 2y ago>I don't think we have to take a nearly century-old work of fiction's viewpoints seriously unless we want to. I want to. And the book's age has nothing to do with whether it's points are valid or not. Literature doesn't have an expiration date. And some ideas about what it means to be human aren't meant to be transient - though their adoption might be.
- spondylosaurus 2y agoI mean, I think its age is a valid consideration in the sense that IVF was literally not possible 100 years ago. Whereas it is now, and... it turns out IVF babies are normal humans too. But I was also trying to convey that "this piece of literature argues X, therefore X is true" can't possibly hold up for every given work of literature. You can find an author for any viewpoint! They can't all be true at once!
- inglor_cz 2y agoPeople were similarly apprehensive about IVF. Some contemporary takes about "test tube babies" were positively hysterical. Fear of the unknown is strong in us, especially when it comes to our bodies. See also, anti-vaxxerism.
- api 2y agoI think humans will eventually self-improve with genetic engineering -- e.g. shifting the median IQ up by 30 points, life extension, disease resistance, eliminating heritable conditions -- but the ethical and societal issues will take much longer to address than the technology. We could already do some of this. I think some of the concern is reasonable and some isn't.
- coldtea 2y ago>People were similarly apprehensive about IVF And rightly so. It's used as a patch for many social issues (like declining fertility and careerism).
- inglor_cz 2y agoIsn't the entire civilization about "patching issues"? Outside rural Sahel or Afghanistan, the world has moved on to an industrial or post-industrial society, where it is no longer desirable to keep women illiterate and start having babies at 17, when the natural fertility is at its peak, then immediately employing small kids as goatherds. IVF is a partial patch for increasing educational levels of the general population. I am fine with a more educated population.
- coldtea 2y ago>Isn't the entire civilization about "patching issues"? Too general a statement to answer - if anything and everything can be considered a "patch". The course of civilization solves some problems and creates others. Some of the issues it solves are huge wins. Other times, the problems can be way worse than what there was. For example, if we accept, for argument's sake, that the AI doomers are right, and AI kills or enslaves us all, that would be an example of a civilization's patch being worse than the issue patched. >IVF is a partial patch for increasing educational levels of the general population. I am fine with a more educated population. If the alternative is decline and death, I'd chose life. Goat-herder sure beats office drones and depressed doom-scrollers, which is what we increasingly produce.
- timcobb 2y agoHave you ever had kids? If you are not a birthing person, have you ever been with a birthing person for the duration of their pregnancy?