brave new world and other futuristic type books

[lithe]

BNW and 1984 were written in the context of fears of totalitarian fascist regimes, nowadays those aren't the prevalent fears. there was a noticeable shift in the concerns of people from the power of the military and the government, to environmental damage, and the unfettered progress of science, technology, and bio-tech. modern dystopias aren't about totalitarian regimes, or not explicitly, but rather they're about the destruction of the world by science. over the last decades we've been repeatedly told that as a race we're going to destroy the world, and thereby ourselves.. and modern dystopias reflect that. my fave of this category would be Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, but stuff like the Matrix would also fit in.

i'm not totally sure that BNW and 1984 are really all that similar though. 1984 is explictly the story of bureaucratic control, whereas the premise of BNW combines the idea of the misuse of science and the governmental control that results.

sidekick, take ENGL464A - "Unreal Cities & Landscapes", it's a dystopia class under the heading of 20th century studies. we read BNW, Oryx and Crake, a Clockwork Orange, the Matrix, White Noise, Neuromancer, and Microserfs. all good reads, and the discussion was fascinating.

[wum]

Originally Posted by lithe

BNW and 1984 were written in the context of fears of totalitarian fascist regimes, nowadays those aren't the prevalent fears.

i just had to quote this.

someone one wanna take on the 9/11 debacle?

edit: it's funny how people will acknowledge shit like government/corporate racketeering at almost every level, phony wars, monopolizing food production, social engineering, national ID cards, etc. but keep saying, "oh, that's a dinosaur in history. Tyranny doesn't exist anymore silly."

[lithe]

i'm not saying that problems don't exist, but people seem to be less aware of them. the first half of the 20th century was rife with incredibly powerful totalitarian rulers who dominated the world-view of the western world... imo, that doesn't hold true anymore. without the stalins and the hitlers of the past, the coming to power of fascist rule is pushed to the background of the collective psyche.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by wum

i just had to quote this.

someone one wanna take on the 9/11 debacle?

Not much to say except to note that the American government totally capitalised on it as an excuse to parade on some rights of Americans.

But it's not like they managed to plummet themselves into the totalitarian regime. A lot of the Patriot Act has actually been deemed unconstitutional by the US Court system. DMCA is crumbling. A lot of the totalitarian legislation that the Bush administration has tried to push through hasn't seen nearly enough of the light of day to really be anywhere near the whole 1984 society.

Unless you're talking about the middle east, in which case I'd deem you "naive".

What I've learned about the situation in the middle east: They're all in the exact same boat as we are. It's just that we're dropping more bombs on them, so their government has more excuses to restrict rights and freedoms.

[wum]

Originally Posted by lithe

i'm not saying that problems don't exist, but people seem to be less aware of them. the first half of the 20th century was rife with incredibly powerful totalitarian rulers who dominated the world-view of the western world... imo, that doesn't hold true anymore. without the stalins and the hitlers of the past, the coming to power of fascist rule is pushed to the background of the collective psyche.

hmm.. you're definately right about the perception part. Although it's much worse if people will only open their eyes.

[wum]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Not much to say except to note that the American government totally capitalised on it as an excuse to parade on some rights of Americans.

But it's not like they managed to plummet themselves into the totalitarian regime. A lot of the Patriot Act has actually been deemed unconstitutional by the US Court system. DMCA is crumbling. A lot of the totalitarian legislation that the Bush administration has tried to push through hasn't seen nearly enough of the light of day to really be anywhere near the whole 1984 society.

ahem.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/magi_12_04_02.mp3

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Unless you're talking about the middle east, in which case I'd deem you "naive".

explain

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by wum

explain

I'm not sure? I think I had something to say about it, decided it was stupid, deleted it and forgot to delete that line. So I guess I take it back. The next paragraph is what I really meant to say.

[wum]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

I'm not sure? I think I had something to say about it, decided it was stupid, deleted it and forgot to delete that line. So I guess I take it back. The next paragraph is what I really meant to say.

i thought maybe you were trying to say why exactly the US was in the middle-east or something like that.

Anyway, I agree with the follow up paragraph. Did'ja hear about how the Iraqi people have written into their new legislation that they're not allowed to grow their own crops and must depend on Monsanto foodstuffs?

http://prorev.com/2005/01/monsanto-e...er-food_25.htm

I say the middle east is the testing grounds for the new Tyranny that will come.

[ebbomega]

Tyranny comes with War.

Remember when Lenin took power? His "War Communism" was a lot closer to Stalinism than his later policies, which were basically capitalism, that he took after the Russian civil war. War is over, less need for restriction it seems. Then Lenin died and Stalin kind of just jumped into the vacuum, took his power and started declaring war on stuff.

The fact that we, in Canada, have no been in a domestic war since the war of 1812 is one of the main reasons I think our freedoms are less eroded than the Americans'.

[wum]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Tyranny comes with War.

Remember when Lenin took power? His "War Communism" was a lot closer to Stalinism than his later policies, which were basically capitalism, that he took after the Russian civil war. War is over, less need for restriction it seems. Then Lenin died and Stalin kind of just jumped into the vacuum, took his power and started declaring war on stuff.

The fact that we, in Canada, have no been in a domestic war since the war of 1812 is one of the main reasons I think our freedoms are less eroded than the Americans'.

um... what about this perpetual War on Terrorism?

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by wum

um... what about this perpetual War on Terrorism?

It's like the Cold War except there's no other side.

Brilliant one, isn't it? Ever seen Canadian Bacon, when they're trying to get people's minds off of how horrible things are so they decide to go back to the Cold War, Russia wants no part of it, so they try to mess it up with Canada instead?

It's like that, except they don't need to pick on a country everybody likes. This way they can just pick whatever's convenient, call them terrorists and be justified in whatever war they choose to distract their populous with.

We are at war with Terror. We have always been at war with Terror.

Don't even need to confuse the populous by changing the name of the country being attacked.

Notice how I don't live in America.

[Grapes]

you mean really OMG huzzah Im gonna shed a tear thank you Grapes

*shrugs*.. Christ, it was just a compliment.. I guess you have trouble dealing with those?

[sidekick]

Originally Posted by wum

what makes you think they won't go all the way?

what we have today is essentially neo-mercantalism. The pharmaceutical lobby is the most powerful in the US and flexes the FDA as a way to curb competition from non-patented drugs.

the same people who are major stock holders in these companies are also people sitting on the board of education, pushing for things like the "Freedom Initiative" which is forced psychological testing.

Just look at how how teachers are trained to "diagnose" kids with ADD so they can be subsequently put on a cocktail of drugs

Tyranny pervades every part of our lives, and the people running it are obsessed with control. During Mao's era they confiscated cooking implements and made it illegal to prepare your own food.

Now the monopolization of food has become more sophisticaed where the courts keep ruling in favor of Monsanto and their terminator crops.

wake the fuck up man.

the nature of people who seek power is to always want more.

that's just what i was saying though. if anyone is going to do a take-over of society it's going to be the corporations, not our government because the government is increasingly being controlled more and more by these giant mammoth companies with a profit-making agenda.

i have to go to class now, but i will read the rest of this thread later and reply.

[wum]

Originally Posted by Sidekick

that's just what i was saying though. if anyone is going to do a take-over of society it's going to be the corporations, not our government because the government is increasingly being controlled more and more by these giant mammoth companies with a profit-making agenda.

i have to go to class now, but i will read the rest of this thread later and reply.

I was responding more to your statement that things would never get "Orwellian" bad.

Who do you think is pushing for globalization? who is creating Free Trade zones everywhere and obliterating the middle class? what about this protection racket called the War on Terrorism?

Replace the word "corporation" with "feudal lord" and everything will soon make sense.

[sidekick]

Originally Posted by wum

I was responding more to your statement that things would never get "Orwellian" bad.

i still don't think things will get 'orwellian' bad if we're just looking at governments. i don't think that it's possible right now to have a totalitarian government take-over. i do, however, believe it is possible for things to get 'orwellian' bad through a totalitarian regime built out of corporate power.

[brokencrayon]

I read BNW I while back last year... a few others like that are "The Chrysalids" and "The Giver" ... also very good books! I love novels like that, they really make you wonder and think about things...

[sidekick]

ps. just finished reading 'Brave New World' this morning. cool ending.

i like 'The Giver', but didn't really enjoy 'The Chrysalids".

[wum]

Originally Posted by Sidekick

i still don't think things will get 'orwellian' bad if we're just looking at governments. i don't think that it's possible right now to have a totalitarian government take-over. i do, however, believe it is possible for things to get 'orwellian' bad through a totalitarian regime built out of corporate power.

at this point they're pretty much one and the same.

google the name "Smedley Butler" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[brokencrayon]

Originally Posted by Sidekick

ps. just finished reading 'Brave New World' this morning. cool ending.

i like 'The Giver', but didn't really enjoy 'The Chrysalids".

yeah I liked "The Giver" way better than "The Chrysalids" but damn it was still a good book I think :)

[sidekick]

Originally Posted by wum

at this point they're pretty much one and the same.

i'm not so sure if they're the same. i know they are extremely inter-mingled, but the power seems to lie within the corporations. they hold a lot of sway in laws that are passed and in court decisions. the government looks as if it's bending to the needs of corporations and not of the citizens of the society that they were elected to protect.

[crookedking]

i stole the chyrsalids from my old school.

i was thinking of rereading it when i saw brian lumley instead.

[brokencrayon]

^ haha so did I! and a few other books aswell :nerd:

has anyone mentioned Farenheit 451?

[crookedking]

Originally Posted by Junglist

has anyone mentioned Farenheit 451?

what does the temperature to burn paper have anything to do with the topic at hand?

[diaphorrhoea]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

#2: If you want a book that's about as prophetic of the future as it gets, check out Neal Stephenson's 1992 post-cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Compare:
CIC Database vs. Google.com
Metaverse vs. Internet
L. Bob Rife vs. Dubya
US Government vs. any assembly-line thinker job (like, say, call centre tech support)
and so forth. Almost scary how dead-on it was. And a fucking awesome novel.

Seconded. Not only does it contain some fairly apt social commentary, it's a really fun read. I almost want to see this made into a movie, but at the same time hope it never will be because they would probably get some assfuck like Michael Bay to direct it and it would turn into a steaming shitpile.