
Huxley vs. Orwell: Infinite Distraction Or Government Oppression - nos4A2
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-day/08/24/huxley-vs-orwell-infinite-distraction-or-government-oppression/
======
rglover
It's most definitely both.

I've been really intrigued by this topic as of late because it's an easily
noticed problem. The general public (that's a fun term, aye) are becoming
equally insatiable as they are stupid.

There's an excellent film called Idiocracy that came out a few years back.
It's meant to be a farce but makes a really great point about where we might
end up in the future. Here's a clip of one of my favorite scenes:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79qbU>

It's funny, but it's also sad. At this point, I don't see much of a reversal
taking place. If you're an intelligent person, be thankful and try to help
those around you who are less aware of Spaceship Earth.

Edit: I misspoke. I thought about it and "I don't see much of a reversal
taking place" isn't true. The one thing that can reverse all of this is
parents. If you have children, take the time to educate them and make them
aware of their existence. Explain how systems work and the benefits/problems
with them. Don't use scare tactics, just talk to them. More likely than not,
they'll grow up with a head on their shoulders.

~~~
eckyptang
+1 for idiocracy. There is so much of society crammed into that film it's
unreal. Warning: it's by mike judge of Beavis and butthead fame so you have to
look past the fart jokes.

"ow my balls" is definitely a reference to wasting time on YouTube...

~~~
oinksoft
This film struck me as an educated elitist view of the lumpenproletariat. Once
upon a time, an itinerant person was the one who idled by reading, rather than
working, or enjoying the more "vigorous" pleasures of the hunt, etc. Reading
novels was thought (and by some, still is) to delude the mind with fantasies.
New mediums are often derided.

I also found the film prudish, implying that having a large family can only be
a product of ignorance and animalistic tendencies.

~~~
rglover
_I also found the film prudish, implying that having a large family can only
be a product of ignorance and animalistic tendencies._

I believe you're referring to the family tree scene where the affluent couple
wants to conceive but they cannot. Instead, they parallel their experience
against the destitute couple breeding at an infinite rate.

I don't believe this should be a slight against having a large family, but
rather, doing so under mindless pretenses. To be blunt: just having sex to
have sex, not to procreate with a purpose.

~~~
oinksoft
This would be my statement to the writer: Sex for sex' sake is far from
mindless, and a child conceived in love is no worse than one who is the
product of deliberation and effort. Also, pregnancies are equally likely to be
deliberated amongst low-income families, especially in rural societies.

~~~
StavrosK
I don't think it was just "sex for sex' sake". It's just that contraception
requires responsibility, and the irresponsible are the ones who, by default,
have more children, which is the opposite of how it should be.

~~~
rglover
Much better articulation of what I was trying to say.

------
rayiner
Why are techies as a group so apocalyptic? I think the world 100 years from
now will be a fairer, more just, more humane place than it is now. 100 years
ago, women still couldn't vote in the US and the country was legally
segregated instead of just segregated in practice. 100 years ago, child labor
was at its peak in the US, food safety was non-existstant, charlatans ran
rampant in the practice of medicine, and cities were thick with the pollution
of the industrial revolution. We live in a better world today than has ever
existed for the greatest number of people. Why should we believe that it will
be society, that has improved itself so, that will be its own undoing?

~~~
reasonattlm
Because they are people, and people as a group are apocalyptic.

Four to five decades back, everyone grew up convinced that atomic war was
inevitable. That was the zeitgeist, but wrong. Nuclear war is a great stride
forward in that it's the only methodology of war yet invented that is both
aggressively pursued by leaders and presents those leaders with a dire and
immediate threat of death if used. (As opposed to, say, war by assassination,
which only satisfies one of those criteria). So the incentives were aligned
against what popular sentiment said was inevitable.

Then all of that determined, grim sentiment sloshed over into the ready and
waiting environmentalist hair-shirt death cult after the collapse of the USSR.

As someone who advocates for engineered human longevity, I see a lot of this.
Most people, the majority, don't have a positive view of the future. At
present that is largely informed by what in a sane world would be extreme
environmentalist views, but in this world are middle of the road
environmentalist views - most people are convinced that the world is falling
apart, that there are too many people, that no-one should be allowed to extend
human life, that all resources are running out, and in short that Malthus was
right.

This view of the end of the world will no more come to pass than nuclear war
did. All the incentives are aligned against Malthusian limits of any sort, and
always have been. Hopefully one doesn't have to explain why that's the case to
the present audience.

~~~
gadders
I agree with you, but I also think that being a cynic/skeptic allows you to
_appear_ more intelligent, and that is why people (perhaps unconsciously) find
flaws in an idea.

By finding flaws, you're almost saying you've outwitted the idea proposer.

------
lmm
The one piece of science fiction that really struck me in this way is the
1960's BBC television play _The Year of the Sex Olympics_. It manages to
predict the onset and results of reality TV with startling accuracy. Highly
recommended, if you can find a copy.

~~~
manmal
Is that where Futurama's references to an "Olympic gold medal in limbo.. and
sex" comes from? I always found that quite curious, but could not find out
where the jape came from..

------
DanI-S
Does it even matter that a portion of the time once stolen away by grinding
toil in the fields (for the benefit of kings) is now stolen away by inane
cable television (for the benefit of CEOs)? Heart disease is a kinder killer
than starvation, drought and cold.

It's easy to forget that things are better now than they have ever been
before. Don't stop believing!

------
TeMPOraL
Planet Earth is a big place, and its inhabitants managed to reach both of
those destinies at the same time. There are places where people live like
Orwell predicted, and then there is this so called "First World", which looks
exactly like Huxley's vision portrayed by this comic.

The real question is: how do we fix both of those states?

------
mtgx
I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's a little bit of both. The
less people care about what's going on in politics and about defending their
rights, the more oppressive and invasive the Governments become.

~~~
mcphilip
I would consider myself much more aware of international events than most and
still believe that there is realistically no chance of defending my rights in
this age of a two party system where both are equally interested in seeing the
nightmares of Huxley and Orwell come to pass.

Sure there may be a lot of people who aren't educated about the dangers we
face, but from my own experience the bigger problem is all those that
understand but feel powerless to do anything meaningful about it.

~~~
maxerickson
Between women's suffrage, the civil rights act and pretty big reductions in
corruption, the story of the U.S. from 1900 to the present is one of massive
expansion of personal rights.

The last half of the 1800s wasn't so bad either.

(I'm not saying the U.S. does not have corruption, I'm claiming that it has
mostly gone down over the time mentioned)

~~~
flyinRyan
Yes, but all of these changes didn't just happen because people were posting
displeasure on reddit. There were nationwide movements. Where's our movements
now? We have some, and what happens to them?

I don't dispute for a second that we are better off today than ever before. I
just wonder if we've peaked...

------
lbarrow
I had the enormous privilege of having a teacher who assigned both _The End of
Education_ and _Amusing Ourselves To Death_ by Neil Postman my junior year of
high school. I can't recommend them enough; reading them was one of the
formative political experiences of my life.

We live in dangerous times; civic engagement and an educated, vibrant
population is more important than ever. But our political and cultural
discourse has fallen to its lowest point in as long as anyone can remember. If
I were not already politically engaged, I might become so if I watched Edward
Murrow at night -- but watching CNN these days seems to be no different from
watching the Jersey Shore.

~~~
gavinlynch
>>> " But our political and cultural discourse has fallen to its lowest point
in as long as anyone can remember."

Sure, but what does that really mean? To me, not much, as peoples memories are
short.. There are numerous examples in the last few centuries of much, much
worse political discourse. Think about the Lincoln-Douglas debates where
newspapers that were controlled by political parties would edit the
transcripts of the opposing candidate to enhance the standings of their own
horse in the race.

------
criswell
My vote is for infinite distraction. Government is taking advantage of this
right now. They can already do basically whatever they want without that much
blowback.

~~~
mtgx
Another problem in US besides a lot of people not being educated on the issues
and not caring about them, is the feeding of bad information through the
corrupt media. With today's media, it's almost too easy to get most people in
the country to think a certain country is the enemy and needs to be destroyed,
at whatever cost. Thanks to the same media, it's also pretty easy to pass bad
laws, too, either because the media is not covering them, or lies about them.

------
steauengeglase
The comic paints a picture from a very specific viewpoint, as if Huxley's were
the rational, correct one and Orwell's came from a delusional fantasy land.
Both men lived very different lives and they were responding to what they saw.

Huxley came from a family distinguished in science and rational thought, so he
had something to live up to. He was intellectually gifted, but was a poor
authoritarian who was barred from military service due to poor eyesight.

Orwell came from the gentry, was told that he was clever at a young age and
when given the chance to see authority and violence he jumped at it. Both
noticed just how broken the worlds they had stepped into were.

Huxley was never shot in the throat or saw the Soviets pervert his ideals in
Spain or endure a slow death by TB. Orwell had little interest in examining
the gullible, impatient, "zippy" world of the US that Sinclair Lewis and Co
were responding to, so he missed out on a taste of what the future would hold
for those with peacetime and plenty.

------
walru
I very much enjoyed the book..
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death>

~~~
louhike
The Time Machine is quite interesting on the same topic.

------
ianstallings
Neither will destroy us IMHO. Too many emo-burgers being slung lately. It's
not the end of the world when things go wrong. In fact, it's business as
usual.

------
lucian1900
And they're both happening. Great.

~~~
pdelgallego
Both has been happening for a long time. Romans used to say: "Bread and
circuses"

~~~
manmal
You mean "panem et circenses", which translates to "Bread and games", to be
exact :)

~~~
pdelgallego
You are the native speaker, so I guess you are right. In my defense, I checked
the wikipedia before I posted.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses>

------
philwelch
At the top of the page, there are logos for other blogs that if you mouseover
them, they pop down with inane headlines for things that don't matter. There
are three pictures linking to inane political cartoons above the article.
Above and to the left there is a "recent comments" widget and links to
Facebook and StumbleUpon, plus a couple of Flash banner advertisements to
round it out.

Below the comic there is a row of social networking widgets, plus a block of
linkspam along the lines of "The Hilarious College Liberal Meme", "10 Things
Much Worse Than Same-Sex Marriage (But Are Totally Legal)", "Nine Hilariously
Awkward Facebook Interactions", "50 Ridiculously Athlete Photos", and "Atom
Bomb Detonation May Have Alerted Aliens that We're Trouble". After a long
block of comments, there's more linkspam, including "19 Celebrity Drunk
Pictures (Bet They Regret These!)". At the bottom of the page, _even more
linkspam_ , from "We know who’s the boss. (That damn cat)." and "Sheep Poop
Bookmark" to "Cats Hate Wallpaper!" and "The Best Of The Overly Attached
Girlfriend". At the very bottom, you can sign up for emails from this website,
and there's another Twitter and Facebook widget for good measure.

Sometimes you have to step back a little before the message really sinks in.

------
chromaticorb
1984 is seemingly the only book everyone has read.

It is really frustrating to see people simplify all economics, (evidence-
based) social psychology and proper appraisal of philosophy applied to
historical perspectives only to reduce our future to these bizarre extremes.
The only reason people even give 1984 its credibility post Cold-War is that
its two chief components, the television and surveillance camera became a
reality. This is not to trivialise the presence of surveillance, but honestly,
I'm amazed anyone can read it past the hysterical Room 101 bit. BWN is
basically just 1984 told from the bourgeoisie perspective, the specifics are
different but both themes are two sides of the same coin.

tl;dr 1984 is the print version of those crackpot websites that are all made
in Frontpage, where every other word is formatted differently and there's a
maddening tree of stream of consciousness ramblings, some of which lead to
nowhere. The whole hoary debate can be summarised as basically one legible
paragraph of that.

------
stephengillie
It's too Kazinskian a perspective that these are the only choices we have...

------
anonymouz
False dichotomies.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Denial.

------
xutopia
For the record.. Huxley was Orwell's teacher at some point.

~~~
hluska
Aldous Huxley taught Eric Blair (George Orwell) at Eton. Perhaps most
interesting, George Orwell achieved success before Huxley and wrote some
rather scathing things about Brave New World!

~~~
omarchowdhury
Link, good sir!

~~~
typicalrunt
A quick Wikipedia search on "George Orwell" will provide you with evidence
that Huxley was Orwell's teacher.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell>

[http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-
world....](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html)

That wasn't too hard.

------
tokenadult
As several other comments here have pointed out, it's possible for neither bad
outcome to happen. Human beings always have frailties and make mistakes, and
even take advantage of one another, but the long-term trend line in human
society suggests the worries in the submitted article are overblown. By
coincidence, the Why Evolution Is True website today has a post that responds
to worries like this with actual research by careful scientists who know human
nature well.

[http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/things-
ar...](http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/things-are-getting-
better/)

The Hans Rosling video linked to from that post is familiar to some
participants on Hacker News; if you haven't seen it yet, it is well worth a
look.

------
nos4A2
Looks like the site is having load issues..
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r-Sz2Hq...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r-Sz2Hqe5GsJ:www.prosebeforehos.com/image-
of-the-day/08/24/huxley-vs-orwell-infinite-distraction-or-government-
oppression/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in)

------
Apreche
Both at the same time.

------
StavrosK
Okay, am I the only one who saw Brave New World as a utopia? Everyone's
_completely frigging happy_!

~~~
dstorrs
They aren't happy. They are drugged. Any time anyone starts to have any
questions or qualm of any kind, they have been trained to drug themselves into
insensibility rather than think about it. Anyone desiring individuality is a
pariah.

Furthermore, the siciety is completely static -- it's designed that way. It
cannot grow or adapt in the face of new opportunities or needs (eg climate
shift, resource depletion). Would you want to live like that?

~~~
StavrosK
> They aren't happy. They are drugged.

I don't see why the two are mutually exclusive.

> It cannot grow or adapt in the face of new opportunities or needs (eg
> climate shift, resource depletion).

It looks like they solved all their problems through technology, so they don't
need to adapt to anything. Just full-time happiness!

------
ryth
Neither, this is a false dilemma. Humanity, as any form of life, always
balances the equation when one side gets too prominent.

------
dtwhitney
asteroid

------
nacker
Both. So what can we do?

Resisting oppression calls for courage. If you merely complain or protest you
may be tracked down and threatened. If you go beyond that to active resistance
you definitely run the risk of being labelled a criminal or terrorist and put
in a cage.

Resisting distraction is a whole lot easier. It just requires self-discipline,
and a willingness to say no the the bait. Don't use a bank, credit card,
television, or unfree software. Don't buy industrially processed or GMO food.
Opt out.

Yes, it involves sacrifice, and other people will mock you, but if you are
short on bravery, what else can you do?

EDIT: Forgot this: Do not vote.

------
ktizo
Is somewhat odd and amusing that the copyright holders of the text (not the
author, as he died in 2003) requested that this comic be taken down from the
site that originally posted it. -
[http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-
Ourse...](http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-
Death.html)

[edit] I just read that the artist actually contacted the estate of Neil
Postman to check if they had any problem with it, just in case they ever sued,
and then removed it on their instruction. -
[http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/cartoon-blog/amusing-
ours...](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/cartoon-blog/amusing-ourselves-to-
death/)

~~~
thebigshane
Link to the full comic image:
[http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/images/Amusin...](http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/images/Amusing-
Ourselves-To-Death.jpg)

