Anyone else have a Brave New World inspired lifestyle?
>work in retail in a fast fashion store (ending is better than mending) >recreationally smoke legal marijuana (a gram is better than a damn, all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol and none of their defects) >entertain myself with video games (electro-magnetic golf) and VR porn (feelies) >go on vacations to reservations (Thailand, India, Bali) to have an experience of how the savages live and take pictures >use the pictures of my fun lifestyle on Tinder so that I can have sex with pneumatic girls >sometimes take MDMA and go to festivals (orgy porgy)
Seems to me like Huxley really was on to something and he wrote it 85 years ago!
Kayden Carter
But how's your Centrifugal Bumble Puppy, Epsilon?
Levi Reed
What would the real world equivalent be?
Ethan Ramirez
So you're just a standard retail loser?
Easton Hughes
Alphas wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard.
Evan Anderson
No, but I do smoke a lot of pot to stop my anxiety
Justin Cook
I've almost finished reading Brave new world, what should I read after.
I assume Brave new world revisited but after that does anyone have some suggestions. Other than H.P lovecraft and Highschool reads I have barely touched on fiction but I've read of a lot of non-fiction history
Adrian Cruz
Island
Ryan Davis
Unironically the Bible. The sooner you read it the easier reading every book written before 1945 will be.
Ian Reed
...
Easton Brown
Looks like I'll read island then tackle the bible. If I'm going for bible which version should I read.
Ideally I'd like to tackle a protestant version or maybe Anglican. (if there are different versions)
Dylan Cruz
I always recommend the KFC bible for its poetic value
Ethan Roberts
King James 1611 is the standard for English
Brandon Clark
Get an academic bible, not ye olde meme english shit translation king james LARP bible
Thomas Lewis
Not him but what do you guys think about pic related?
Ian Sanders
Have fun missing out on all those stylistic references, you twiddlethumbed ninny.
Benjamin Wood
Have fun missing out on the revelations of our Lord, proddy scum.
Grayson Howard
I actually thought BNW was really mediocre
Landon Baker
Are you admitting that you can't understand early modern English???
Sebastian Cruz
Not the person you're asking, but I have that one and its hella comfy. Lots of footnotes.
Xavier Moore
I can't think of one. If memory serves, it utilizes a sporting apparatus complex enough to increase consumption, uses balls, and has multiple players that could be viewed from a helicopter.
Isaiah Thomas
Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. A game in which children fling a ball onto a platform. The ball then rolls down the interior and lands on a rotating disk that flings the ball in a random direction, at which point the ball must be caught
Jack Baker
>Anyone else have a Brave New World inspired lifestyle? literally every first world westener.
Joseph Robinson
BNW is (or at least is used as) basically one big strawman against utilitarianism (which is pretty ironic in itself when you think about it) and transhumanism.
>soma (which is essentially boneless alcohol) somehow proves that psychedelics are bad and cannot provide peak experiences >artificial system is portrayed as evil, but they somehow can't make an all-alpha society, which implies that "natural" societies also have a caste system... which is somehow not evil >high arts create instability and violence somehow >a fuckload of other baseless contrivances that somehow prove that the only possible choice is between the chaos of today and a utopia of mediocrity, no real evidence provided of why a third option isn't possible
Matthew Ortiz
*artificial caste system
Liam Butler
I interpreted soma as a metaphor for physical hedonism in general (soma=body) so that it includes anything that is blissful and distracts one from one's problems (I reason that this could be anything stupidly entertaining, like video games). I feel like reading it as a metaphor for psychadelics is a pretty narrow interpretation
High arts represents seeking to capture the world's beauty and think about what stuff means, but being appreciative of aesthetics and being contemplative doesn't go great with consumerist ideals. I think this is the link. I don't think the book needs to be read as an argument against a certain kind of society, it could just as well be read as a critique against a certain mindset: Maybe going for acquiring maximum amount of capital as the ideal pursuit for members of society doesn't produce the most fulfilling human experience
Jose Wright
It can also how psychopathic we are if we think BNW isn't more utopian than our world though. Billions living in poverty, starvation, war and disease would all be saved, but muh authentic art somehow justifies the world of suffering we have.
It's easy to say that Africans should suffer for Shakespeare if you live a borderline BNW life yourself already but with a bit more drama.
Xavier Roberts
If you are looking for a sort of child of Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 is comparable.
Adam James
>BNW is (or at least is used as) basically one big strawman against utilitarianism (which is pretty ironic in itself when you think about it) and transhumanism. No, it isn't.
>>soma (which is essentially boneless alcohol) somehow proves that psychedelics are bad and cannot provide peak experiences You know how it's described as "Christianity without the tears"? Well the tears are the the only part of the experience that matter in the long run. An entheogenic experience that doesn't involve suffering at some level is just hedonism.
>>artificial system is portrayed as evil, but they somehow can't make an all-alpha society, which implies that "natural" societies also have a caste system... which is somehow not evil Their society is evil in a spiritual context, not a moral or ethical context.
>>high arts create instability and violence somehow What happens when a child is thrown out of their comfort zone?
>>a fuckload of other baseless contrivances that somehow prove that the only possible choice is between the chaos of today and a utopia of mediocrity, no real evidence provided of why a third option isn't possible Did we read the same book?