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/lit/ - Literature

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3674921 No.3674921 [Reply] [Original]

The society described in this book sounds pretty good to me. John's an idiot.

>> No.3674925

a society made for just sex would be incredibly dull.

>> No.3674927

>>3674925
There's also soma and feelies. And I think that there's some type of tennis.

>> No.3674962

You are what is known as a "Philistine."

>> No.3674977

5/5
bretty well ordered society. would live in it

>> No.3675618

The best part is that if you're edgy you get to go to an edgy island where you live the literary life while leeching of the mainland drones

>> No.3675633

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine

>> No.3675649

>>3675618
2edgy4me.jpg

>> No.3675659

>>3675633
This is interesting, but assumes the very existence of a reality. If you take a Cyrenaic approach all we can experience is phenomena and the only thing we can be certain about is how they appear to us and make us feel. There is no hierarchy in realities and lesser states of experience, as it were. To see is to see and to feel is to feel. Other differentiations are arbitrary.

>> No.3675661
File: 11 KB, 300x225, Someone-watching-Porn-on-a-Computer-35988897488.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3675661

>>3675633
>Nozick also believes that if pleasure were the only intrinsic value, people would have an overriding reason to be hooked up to an "experience machine," which would produce favorable sensations.

>> No.3675698

>>3675633
>implying we aren't happily using a precursor to the experience machine right now

Nozick can fuck right off.

>> No.3675746

>>3675698
I have nothing against your post, but find the practice of saging on /lit/ despicable

>> No.3675768

>>3675746
The opposite of sage is age.
>>3675661
Would this work the other way? If we find people to hook themselves up to this experience machine once it's been invented (And we can kinda say it has in a way and people do use them) that would mean that he thinks the only intrinsic value is pleasure?

>> No.3675820

>>3675661
The average human being doesn't watch porn all the time. Unless you're a porn addict, but then you have a serious problem.

>> No.3675846

The problem with the society in Brave New World is the power of an individual to choose has been taken away. Thus, things like high art, or expression of human imagination or creativity, are gone.

>> No.3675864

>>3674921
>The society described in this book sounds pretty good to me.

The point is that it would 'sound pretty good' to most people.

Because most people are stupid peasants.

>> No.3676001

>>3675864
Which loftier ambitions do you have that transcend a being content and doing stuff you like then?

>> No.3676007

>>3675768
I think in a lot of ways the way we use the internet and entertainment devices are not necessarily about experiencing active pleasure but more about alleviating boredom and displeasure. Videogames can be a great example of this. A lot of people play them for fun, but the true addicts play them to enter a sort of neutral state that doesn't confront them with the aspects of their life they dislike. It's immersive and thereby dissolves abstract problems. It's like an unhealthy crack version of meditation.

>> No.3676014

>>3676001
saving the world exerting my will on the other 7 billion people I share the planet with

>> No.3676017

>>3676014
So you would like the Brave New World world, you'd just like to be one of the political elite.

>> No.3676019

>>3676017
Yes, very much so.

>> No.3676032

>>3676019
Well that's the beauty of the Brave New World world. People instinctively think "I don't want to be a work drone this is disgusting" (meanwhile most of them being workdrones top fucking lel) but there's also the political sphere for powermongers like you and the bohemian islands for artists and edgy do-nothings like yours truly.

>> No.3676034

>>3675846
>The problem with the society in Brave New World is the power of an individual to choose has been taken away. Thus, things like high art, or expression of human imagination or creativity, are gone.

Except >>3675618

>> No.3676096
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3676096

>mfw everyone keeps calling Brave New World a dystopia

It's only a dystopia if those who aren't happy with it can't opt out, and as we can see, you can opt out and go live the literary life, or if you aren't smart enough for that you can go live in a reservation.

>> No.3676105

>>3676096
I thought it was a Utopia. It's a perfect and good world. We are reading from a outside view, so we know the difference between alpha and gama, but if we were a part of that world, we would be happy for being alpha, beta, gama or whatever.

>> No.3676142

In our world, we're still determined for a certain social class. We just can't grasp the determinism.
At lest in Brave New World, you're guaranteed to be happy with your standing.

>> No.3676146

>>3676096
This. Even the primitivist fags can do as they like.

Let's make it happen.

>> No.3676189

In the Prologue, Huxley details the methods through which he would create a perfect society out of our own and how when he wrote the book he didnt consider the threat of nuclear warfare because it didnt exist yet. Heres an excerpt:
The most important Manhattan Projects of the future will be vast government-sponsored enquiries into what the politicians and scientists will call "the problem of happiness"- in other words, the problem of making people love their servitude. Without economic security, the love of servitude cannot possibly come into existence; for the sake of brevity, I assume that the all-powerful executive and its managers will succeed in solving the problem of permanent security. But security tends very quickly to be taken for granted. It's achievement is merely a superficial, external revolution.
The love of servitude cannot be established except as the result of deep, personal revolution in human minds and bodies. To bring about that revolution, we require, among others, the following discoveries and inventions:

1st - A greatly improved technique of suggestion- rough infant conditioning and, later, with the aid of drugs, such as scopolamine.

2nd - A fully developed science of human differences, enabling government managers to assign any given individual to his or her proper place in the social and economic hierarchy. (Round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and to infect others with their discontents.)

3rd - Since reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays, a substitute for alcohol and other narcotics, something at once less harmful and more pleasure-giving than gin or heroin.

4th - This would be a long term project, which would take generations of totalitarian control to bring to a successful conclusion: a foolproof system of eugenics, designed to standardize the human product and so to facilitate the task of the managers.

>> No.3676227

>>3676189
What's amazing about this to me is point number 3. The substance that fits that description that immediately comes to mind is Cannabis. And what's more, the future of the plant is going to be much more potent than it is today.

>> No.3676234

>>3676227
>cannabis
>more pleasure than gin and heroin

get a load of this hippie

>> No.3676238
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3676238

>>3676234
Also, cannabis doesn't vibe well with a lot of people. It's also too spacy for the general populace and can trigger all types of mental problems. It's far from perfect. I'd rather be sober than smoke weed everyday.

>> No.3676240

>>3676234
I was focusing on the "less harmful" aspect

>> No.3676279

>>3676240
You shouldn't though. Tea is less harmful, doesn't make it a heroin substitute.