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Comment by afterburner | Hacker News Reader

From what I remember, Brave New World centers largely around the use of drugs to regulate the populace, so while it might fit the debate with current day mood stabilizers, it's nowhere near as much about surveillance and a police state. It's like the opposite, regulation through conditioned happiness rather than suffocating oppression, with a similar loss of liberty. So the surveillance part resonates with PRISM.

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>Brave New World centers largely around the use of drugs to regulate the populace

Drugs are NOT central theme in BNW it's just simply a metaphor. Super king burgers, reality TV, NFL, wrestling, facebook, MTV, in essence all pop culture is SOMA of nowadays

"Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do as we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!"

Bill Hicks

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”

― Bill Hicks

God I love Bill Hicks.

Ah, nothing like a PRISM article to bring out the nerds circle-jerking about how the stupid things they like are so much better and more important than the stupid things other people like.

Oh well, at least it's not RationalWiki /trollface.jpg.

Ah, but what is freedom if I can't watch American Gladiators because I want to?

Or, in my case, what if I want a grilled cheese sandwich with tater tots instead of filet mignon and caviar? I hated Sundays on the boat because that was always "Steak & Lobster" day, and I was the one asshole who didn't like steak and didn't like lobster.

I agree that people should probably take an interest in civics. I agree that people should have the information needed to care deeply about civics, if they wish. I don't agree that people should feel compelled to care civics or anything else that Bill Hicks or any other self-righteous prententious jerk tells us to care about, any more than we should be compelled to care about what the government tells us to care about.

If the freedom to do as we please leads to people actually doing as they please, and that offends you, then perhaps freedom isn't what you were looking for in the first place.

>Ah, but what is freedom if I can't watch American Gladiators because I want to?

Nobody would want to watch American Gladiators if they were not made to do so. Not directly told to, but somehow... maneuvered into it. Not quite the same as the grilled cheese sandwich!!!

Is that really what you tell yourself? "The people aren't really that stupid, they're being influenced to watch this filth?".

And what makes you think that the same hidden influence by others isn't why I like grilled cheese?

You put words in my mouth, I never said stupid. If you believe that you have to be stupid so you may be influenced by other people, you have a flawed view of human mind based on XVIII century philosophy. And it is not an opinion, it is a neurological fact.

And of course you (and me) like grilled cheese sandwiches because of influence, but it might be a different kind of influence. I remember the sandwiches from my childhood and they had nothing to do with the gross multi-pound monsters presented in (sorry) Man vs Food and other glutony glorifying TV shows.

No matter how high your IQ, if you think yourself immune to any sort of influence, you have proven yourself a mark. But if you recognize the possibility of influence and learn at least a bit of the compliance techniques, you make yourself at least partially resistant.

> I hated Sundays on the boat because that was always "Steak & Lobster" day, and I was the one asshole who didn't like steak and didn't like lobster.

You aren't an asshole; you're a vegetarian. I hear that's quite respectable these days. Myself, I'll have your steak and lobster - thanks!

I am 100% not a vegatarian. But I don't like steak, and the only seafood I like comes in pre-frozen sandwich-sized squares. Do enjoy the steak and lobster though, and let me know if you want to trade it for some pizza rolls!

Pizza rolls in exchange for steak and lobster? My good sir, I will give you a fine deal, and trade you twice the weight in pizza rolls for weight of steak and lobster!

This is the worst discussion on HN I have ever seen.

Well, Mr. 95 days of being here, you haven't been here very long, so let me be the first to tell you that your comment added nothing to this conversation.

I'd downvote you if I could... but I think that's why you replied.

I commented to tell you my observance about your conversation in hopes that you wouldn't post more similar ones. That is what my commented contributed towards.

Everyone here created an account at some point. This one was created by me about 95 days ago. I see you have observed that. Very nice I guess.

> I commented to tell you my observance about your conversation in hopes that you wouldn't post more similar ones.

observance Noun

* The action or practice of fulfilling or respecting the requirements of law, morality, or ritual.

* An act performed for religious or ceremonial reasons.

> That is what my commented contributed towards.

Well, actually, you failed in your observance of the guidelines[1] of this website.

* Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.

I doubt you'd have said that to me in person. You can claim on here you would, of course.

* If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

Your account is less than a year old, which is a threshold of some merit here.

* Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

I assume this applies to comments as well as submissions.

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Jesus wept!

But isn't that the whole point? That we're so easily distracted by objectively useless entertainment? I spent hours this week looking at pictures of cats and viewing videos of cats jumping. It was a poor use of my time.

I would argue with "objectively useless". We are not just labor for the entrepreneurs.

You think there are objectively useful uses for your time? I mean, ok, profitable sure, but objectively useful? That one's a religious argument.

Super king burgers, reality TV, NFL, wrestling, facebook, MTV, in essence all pop culture is SOMA of nowadays

soylent, youtube, hacker news, reddit, 4chan and other internet pop culture, some of which are actually made in SOMA nowadays.

Of course, just different variates of soma: one for omega, other for alpha. And other varieties of soma for all people in between, nothing new here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_of_Market,_San_Francisco

I would to a lot of soul searching if you even imagine that the alpha of this world is "HN, Reddit...".

Try Delta+ Gamma-. A well kept secret by Condé Nast is how young / low on the wage curve their readers are compared to others in the same professions.

Alpha ‎(“the upper class”)‎ ‎Beta ‎(“the second upper class”)‎ ‎Gamma ‎(“the middle class”)‎ ‎Delta ‎(“the second lower class”)‎ ‎Epsilon ‎(“the lower class”)‎ ‎Double-Plus ‎(“the superior subdivision among Alphas”)‎ ‎Plus ‎(“the superior subdivision among Alphas, Betas, Gammas or Deltas, but inferior to Double-Plus”)‎ ‎Minus ‎(“the inferior subdivision among Alphas, Betas, Gammas or Deltas”)‎ ‎savage ‎(“a person outside the integrated portions of society, and therefore separate from all classes”)‎

Since we're referencing Huxley, I'd recommend "Island". And for everyone jumping on this dystopian bandwagon, I'd recommend "Stand on Zanzibar" as far more accurate.

I guess Epsilon reads something like Yahoo! Answers or celebrity tweets? What do Alpha or Beta classes read?

AOPA magazine. Maybe The Economist at the lower end?

A similar mismatch with 1984's also smoothed also as well, in my opinion: I found one of the most oddly salient features of that society was the absent (the "free"d) proletariat - even as far outnumbering those of perceived relevance as they might be. As it is they're still swept into our rhetoric: a far more interesting equivalence needs just a bit more time for the status quo to establish itself.

Funny how you said "day mood stabilizers", when marijuana would fit so much better. Except the roles are reversed - people want it, and the authorities are forbidding it.

I would have thought prozac was closer.

Been on Prozac?

I haven't, but I'm on another SSRI now, and I can't begin to see this as a drug useful for placating the masses. If anything, it's increased my motivation to fix things that are broken. It's replaced apathy with a wide range of sometimes intense emotions.

Some people call them happy pills, but my experience is they're something else entirely.

Actually I haven't. Alcohol is my drug of choice and now that I think about it, in terms of use is probably the closest thing we have to SOMA.

I live in a medical marijuana state, but I think alcohol is still more of a controlling factor. However, I think weed is replacing it in the younger generation. This is especially true for the "just out of college" population. In this group you have a lot of people with degrees, lots of debt, etc. who are working crappy jobs they hate that are often unrelated to their education and who are getting paid close to minimum wage. I know quite a few people like this who are big into weed, and the first thing they do when they get up in the morning is smoke a bowl. I can't fathom getting high at the start of my day. I'm pretty liberally minded when it comes to parting, but I used to wonder why anyone would want to dull their senses and numb their mind when they are doing their job and going about their day. Then I realized if I was massively in debt and/or stuck in a dead end job, I might turn into one of those people too...

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