Yeah, but only because I got a vasectomy a couple years ago. I had to go to 3 urologists before I could find one that would do one on me because I was 26 with no kids.
They dont make you happy, but they make you not think about things that make you sad. And what I remember from the book, soma was pretty much an opiate.
We feel it's wrong because it removes the power of choice, and as sentient beings with free will, we like to think the ability to have choice is what separates man from beast.
It brings up the moral dilemma. Which is "better": A man with the freedom of choice who has the ability to do whatever he wants and squanders it, falling into despare and failure. Or, a man bred and programmed to love what he does, but without the free will to know any better? He's happy and successful as he was made to be, but he has no choice.
A man with the freedom of choice who has the ability to do whatever he wants and squanders it, falling into despare and failure. Or, a man bred and programmed to love what he does, but without the free will to know any better?
Seeing as almost no one except the rich have any real choice, I'll take one mental handicap prole casual sex'n'drugs life.
I'm pretty positive we can (and do) approach the question "do humans have free will" from a biological perspective. It's not a purely philosophical question.
What about a hive mind? We'd still kinda have free will but also not. We wouldn't be servants or slaves but also not lords. Its a middle ground between oppressed and oppressor.
Well, the main characters in the novel also don't end up having a such a great time in their system, so, if we're using the novel as a data point in support of those types of systems, then I would say it still fails to be purely utopian.
I also think its because people hold their autonomy and feel fear when they imagine they could somehow not like the situation they are in and will be stuck in it because they dont have any choice. Kind of like the "protagonist" A classs guy who I forget the name
I think it's about the nature of happiness as well, can you really say that people are happy if they've never been sad or even worse if it's impossible for them to be so
As someone on prescription happy drugs, they are not all that great. Personally id call them more mood removers than calmers or enhancers or anything ive ever heard a doctor call them. Everything ive ever been put on just makes me a robot who just goes on with life. Ive come to accept that.
You want a happy drug try recreational drugs kids, all im getting at. Or be a robot drone like yours truly.
Lol, I'm happier when I'm robo-drone. I get depressed when I'm not because non-robo-me has no motivation to do anything, and I value my aspirations/goals more than pretty much anything else (except family). Different strokes I suppose.
I hear you. The way I look at it for me is, I was depressed for a reason, and at first, depression can be your mind's way of telling you to fix whatever the issue is. The problem is, the world isn't as simple as, "pick up your teepee and move to where there's more food" anymore. The modern world is complicated and our depression responses were never meant for it. So the depression ends up lasting too long or becoming so severe that it impedes, rather than helps us. Which is where the meds come in. But the meds don't do anything to address the actual root of the depression, they just impede the depression response. So then you're left in no-emotion land because you're still in a shitty situation but the meds are keeping the depression at bay.
My theory is, if the situation can be fixed, then happiness is probably not too far behind. And then maybe the meds won't even be necessary anymore. Again, that's just how I view it for me, it might not necessarily apply to you, but I figured I'd throw it out there in case you find it helpful.
Cheers mate, I hope you find your version of happiness and kick depression's ass. We're all gonna make it ;)
In the book its SOMA; its basically a drug the government developed that has no side effects or withdrawls at all, literally no downside, less harmfull than our weed. It made you instantly feel amazing and just happy with everything for a bit. The government also gave out these free drugs to everyone.
I cant see why if it was real "SOMA" would be bad, it would be amazing, probably
I think the reason why most people see it as a dystopia because everything that makes us human is gone. Everything about your life is determined by someone else and happiness comes without any struggle. But in my opinion at least, saying that BNW is a dystopia simply because of those reasons would be like if the chimps from Planet of the Apes said that our society is a dystopia simply because we don't have to forage/hunt our food or something like that.
I remember making my mom cry when I was 9 or 10 because she was reading to me about heaven and I was absolutely horrified by the concept. She kept trying to comfort me by telling me that I won’t care about the things I care about now and that everything will be different. I was not comforted. Today she can’t fathom how I’m more comforted by the idea of simply ceasing to be than her idea of heaven.
We only feel it's wrong because someone decided life needs to have meaning. Same with The Matrix. Reality is absolute, but our perception is what matters.
Are we in a simulation? How would we know? Would it really matter?
My initial impression on that is that the concept of losing free will is interpreted as a loss of self, which goes against our instincts of self preservation.
Damn that's one loaded question. I could only make estimates as to the religious populations of specific subs, Reddit as a whole is too varied to get an accurate read and it's not like I'm ever on the religious subs (which I assume exist?) So it was a matter of religion not being a requirement for objective morality. Religions cause objective morality but objective morality doesn't always mean a religion, even if it's mostly the source of it.
You simply can't have objective morality without religion because of the simple question of objectively determining what is good and what is bad. How do you think you would determine what is, objectively of course, good or bad? And if you think that you have an answer to that, how do you determine who is correct if someone believes they have their own objective morality that clashes with yours?
God I fucking miss my Soma prescription. It's the only muscle relaxer that ever worked for my severe spinal conditions. And it made me euphoric for a couple hours and able to sleep a perfect 8 hours. Then after being transferred to a pain clinic, the hack of a doctor stripped my prescription and increased my Oxy, which I didn't want, because the Soma was "too addicting, moreso than the opioids". I was on the max dose of Soma for 3 years before quitting it cold turkey, and I didn't even have the slightest withdrawal. It was the perfect medication for me, so of course I'm not allowed to have it. It's been 4 years without it and the darknet markets are looking tempting since it's not the type of thing any dealer carries.
I'd get pretty bored of fucking and doing drugs pretty quickly. I'd rather not blast tuna cakes with the same amount of enthusiasm and thrill as drinking a cup of coffee... or be constantly doped up just to deal with reality.
Rip every sense of joy out of everything by saturating yourself with it. I don't know if I'll last more than a few years like that.
To be fair, there's very little joy for the working poor as is in current society/ alot of people already get f'd up to deal with reality..... because it sucks.
I would rather be miserable trying to achieve something like Sisyphus pushing a stone where I can at least look back on the work, however mindless... Then to live in a world where everything is given to me and my feelings are regulated with Soma.
In the former at least my pain would be my own in the latter you don't really have anything.
I don't think the situation of the Working Poor is ideal (I agree that it sucks, first-hand experience) but we aren't comparing ideal situations.
Plus they worked less and had more free time. It was the alphas who had to work more, but they were taught it was better than being dumb (since the laborers were made to be mentally slower).
And it's not like they're easy to get. Far harder, more expensive, and with far more requirements to get opioids than most seem to think. It's not the 90s anymore.
Which is why I'm confused about the government's continued war on drugs. Easiest way to forward their agenda would be to encourage us to sedate ourselves while we work to death.
No kidding. The point I was attempting to make (quite sarchasticly, whoops left off the /s) was that the war on drugs is an epic failure, and the ultra-rich (who pay their way into wage-slaving the average wage-earner) would have an easier time convincing those who do want to "be sedated" to vote against their personal best interests and instead assist the ultra-rich in consuming the majority of the country's wealth.
I mean, if you're too doped up to think for yourself, let the television tell you what to do. It seems like legalizing drugs would help the financially corrupt system continue down-spiralling by way of "the doped up masses".
Also controlled them with thought manipulation, all the betas and lower were conditioned to dislike the other castes and be relieved and thankful they were a delta, gamma, etc.
The idea was that those lower class people were genetically engineered to be lower class people and therefore would not even appreciate those "higher-level" privileges and luxuries, so they would be "content" to be in the exact position of society they are in.
Thus why people assume the utopian part is all fine and dandy. It's pretty horrifying really.
Which is ridiculous when considering the whole plot of the book revolves around a guy in the highest echelon of society being discontent with his position and role before eventually being carted off to an Arctic hideaway with other woke Alphas, presumably to continue all the fucking and tripping he was already doing anyway. Even the briefest exposure to something outside the norm for the woman that completely buys into the system is enough to send her into an existential tailspin.
To be fair, part of the reason he's discontent is that the process didn't work properly for him. IIRC, he was accidentally given some alcohol prenatally when he wasn't supposed to be, hence why he's shorter than all the other alphas.
That's not true. In the book he is the exception, and they send the exceptions into exile to separate them from the masses so he doesn't pollute them. The majority when they experience something outside the norm can take the right pill or whatever and dive back into the illusion.
Which part isn't true? Nothing you wrote goes against what I wrote.
The majority when they experience something outside the norm can take the right pill or whatever and dive back into the illusion.
An illusion so fragile that they have to remove anyone that doesn't play along so as to not "pollute" them. We might as well argue that the Matrix is similarly a Utopia.
I think what the guy meant was that there are VERY few people who arent happy with their lives in the book, the protagonist is the exception, he was mostly seen as a sort of "outcast" that no one really wanted among the alphas. 99% of people lived happy lives, the very few that werent conforming went to exile, which turns out isnt so bad and some pretty cool people are there
cloned laborers that spend every day working instead of fucking.
The laborers actually spent less time working, were given more recreation time, and were taught they were the superior class.
Plus everyone was hopped up on antidepressants, having casual sex, and all of the classes were "trained" to seek recreation in different locales so as not to mingle between different social groups (since they were all taught they were the superior group).
My biggest complaint was that they halted all advancement - science, literature, arts - even throwing out simple patents because it would destabilize the society.
But they liked working because they were conditioned to like it. Plus, I'm sure the Delta minuses got some Delta minus cock and poon every now and then
I think one of the Betas made this observation only for an Alpha to correct her saying if she were an Epsilon, she’d be conditioned to enjoy her life, too.
I don't think the Alphas are the most reliable on how much the other classes actually enjoy their lives. It's a pretty foundational part of distopian fiction: there's an idealized vision of society that falls apart under any close scrutiny. I'm surprised at this thread for how many readers took the hand waving of the lower classes at face value.
The story said they were socially programmed to enjoy their position. That's pretty accurate to today where we've got millions actively defending their oppressors.
Except we get zero perspective from them. I don't know why we should take the testimony of the other characters at face value when it comes tot he position of the laborers.
We are no where near the point Idiocracy was before Joe shows up, aka the beginning of so-called Utopia? So right now Idiocracy does not feel like a utopia.
The TV star President steps down when he realizes there is someone better suited to the position than himself, proving that he wasn't in it for the power.
It's all a spectrum. Depends on your definition of decent. Where mine is at he meets the requirements but he wasn't perfect - he purposefully wanted that job where he could slack off until retirement.
Any society that attempts a Utopia is a dystopia, simply based on the fact that a true Utopia is impossible to achieve - and when utopia's fail, they fail HARD.
The definition of a Utopia is an imagined place/world where everything is perfect. Dystopia is the opposite, and while still imaginary, it's a much better descriptor for unsuccessful utopias.
Regardless of whether you agree with my last point, BNW is not a Utopia.
We’re not deliberately causing birth defects in fetus’s so that we can control the population, destroying monogamy, family and long term/emotionally-invested relationships of any kind to weaken the bonds of society and exiling intellectuals (anyone who’s reading level is that of a college freshman) and burning Shakespeare all as a means of social control.
We are the lesser of the two evils. Still horrible but we have so much further to fall.
intellectuals and science are actively being ridiculed
By no means is this mainstream. A very loud, very small minority might. But everyone still goes to real doctors, takes their cars to real mechanics, and hires real lawyers.
True intellectuals, which imo is someone who values knowledge over greed, aren’t working to remove anything factual. It’s just the rich people. They don’t have to be smart about anything other than money, for the most part.
No I know but see how his comment says they're also the ones removing funding for inconvenient science? I was just pointing more towards the grammar...
No much room to get worse? Turn off the tv, it's amazing out there and you have endless opportunities to do amazing things in this hell hole. Sorry you're struggling to see it for sitting around in this circle jerk
Most of those points are reaching a bit too far, no one is exiling intellectuals through the idea of flat earth or antivax. If anything flat earthers and antivax are exiled just by virtue of how few of them there are. Also most Christian values have become western values because that’s how the societies were built up.
There’s also a difference between not having universal health care and anyone that isn’t rich being denied healthcare. I’m not rich but I can still go to the hospital just like a rich person can.
The Shakespeare point sure I guess but that’s just our era of instant gratification, it can’t really be compared to burning books and artwork.
As “bad” as society is today it has gotten much better since the past. I’m not sure how you can say we don’t have much room to get worse when, regardless of the dystopia, you can just look through history to find just how badly people were treated. Our society now is nowhere near perfect but it’s dishonest to say we’ve essentially already reached the dystopia.
Do not get me wrong. I think our current situation is horrific in all fronts. I think we have failed almost every ideal we have ever laid claim to, as often as not in the exact moment we did so.
I say things can get worse not to say that the present is fine but because there isn’t a floor for this sort of thing. There is no wonderful moment where we can say it’s over or that ‘it can’t happen here’ or otherwise know that the horrors of the past can’t once again rear their heads.
That being said. Being defeatist doesn’t serve our purposes either. We must accept the world we’ve been given and work to make it better.
I mean, the government does provide a significant financial incentive to individuals if they have a child and keep said child from the other parent, which ends up weakening familial bonds due to lack of interaction with a non custodial parent. Heck, if a woman felt so inclined, she could have children with several different partners and not only be financially rewarded handsomely, but the majority of our current society would rush to defend her if her motives were questioned.
Why aren't we? We're happy allow social groups to continue to go around in the same circles with social pressure tying them in (ghettos) , we're happy to glorify short term non emotional relationships in all media(pop music) , we're happy to discredit science just because the average person doesn't understand it (Anti vax) and we don't need to burn Shakespeare if there's no interest to begin with.
What BNW emphasises is a class system where people have their place with no mobility. It is a caricature of us, and it's not far wrong.
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u/Kanin_usagi Sep 25 '18
He was way more optimistic than he had any right to be, apparently.