How would you feel about living in a world like the one in "Brave New World"?

Sounds horrible...

It would suck. Individuality matters more than society.

Just give me some Soma and I'll be happy.

I'm sure the people who are born into it would never really think of that part, though. Except for that one dude in the book who doesn't like it.

I think a lot of them would eventually realize they were brainwashed. Look at all the people who were raised in cults and grow up and decide to leave. It would still suck, nonetheless. I'd want people to be able to think for themselves and like what they want to like.

No thanks. I don't want some, I've already had any.

It was an interesting novel of the dystopian genre. There were hints of the outline for it in Huxley's semi-autobiographical novel Chrome Yellow. Overall, the world he depicted in Brave New World would strike me as depressing. Of course, if I were decanted into that world, I would be conditioned to like it, wouldn't I? Hmmm.....

Even people who are brainwashed/conditioned can hit upon just the right bit of outside information to 'wake them up'. Imagine the consequences of waking up from that.

All of it scares me...especially the brainwashing. I only like the part where pregnancy would no longer be an issue.

> Just give me some Soma and I'll be happy.

Interestingly enough while the soma in Brave New World seems to resemble LSD or mescaline, it was published in 1932, long before Huxley's own experience with psychedelics. Doors of Perception was published in 1963, but Huxley's first experience with mescaline sulfate, on which Doors was based, took place sometime in the mid- to late 1950s, I believe. If you get a chance, you might want to read his novel Island. This was a Utopian novel describing a society which used psychedelics as a tool for education and self-realization.

Huxley died of throat cancer in a hospital in 1964 I think. His last request was an intramuscular injection of 600 micrograms of LSD. Since LSD was still legal at the time, he got his request. He died with his wife holding his hand and talking to him in soothing encouraging tones, telling him how beautifully he was going to his last sleep. If you ask me, there are worse ways to go.

that's trippy, dude

That isn't life, it's a nightmare.

Just did a little more digging. Apparently, The Doors of Perception was first published in Great Britain in 1954. The 1963 date I gave earlier was a later edition. I have a copy of it somewhere about, but I tend to be a bit disorganized. I got a couple of dates wrong apparently. The following passage is from an online version of the book:

"By a series of, for me, extremely fortunate circumstances I found myself, in the spring of 1953, squarely athwart that trail. One of the sleuths had come on business to California. In spite of seventy years of mescalin research, the psychological material at his disposal was still absurdly inadequate, and he was anxious to add to it. I was on the spot and willing, indeed eager, to be a guinea pig. Thus it came about that, one bright May morning, I swallowed four-tenths of a gram of mescalin dissolved in half a glass of water and sat down to wait for the results."

The whole book is available online here: http://www.psychedelic-library.org/doors.htm

No thanks.

Have you read: Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin?

I haven't, but a number of friends of mine have and they all said it was excellent.

I would have to be brave.

No, I have not. But will give it a read. Probably not surprisingly, I have read a few books about psychedelics and the psychedelic experience. Varieties of Psychedelic Experience by John Masters, Ph.D. and Jean Houston, Ph.D and Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens being the two that come immediately to mind.

The scariest thing about Brave New World was that it wasn't a conspiracy to take over people's lives. It was all just due to the natural progression of society.

It doesn't sound very appealing.

There's actually research being done at the moment into using psychedelics (I think LSD specifically) for patients who are terminally ill - not as part of their end of life care, but as an intervention that may allow greater acceptance of their situation around the time of diagnosis. I'll have to see if I can track down the article I read about it...

> There's actually research being done at the moment into using psychedelics
> (I think LSD specifically) for patients who are terminally ill - not
> as part of their end of life care, but as an intervention that may
> allow greater acceptance of their situation around the time of diagnosis.
> I'll have to see if I can track down the article I read about it...

This idea has been around quite a while. I believe some suggestion like that was proposed by Masters and Houston in Varieties of Psychedelic Experience. I'm not sure, since it has been a really long time since I have read that book. But I have come across proposals like this here and there in my reading.

If you are interested, there is this article I found on the net: http://www.psychedelic-library.org/dying.htm

You will note that the dose Huxley requested was for 100 micrograms, rather than the 600 I originally mentioned. Memory quirks and personal bias, most likely, as 600 micrograms is my own preferred dose. I once took 1200 micrograms, but that may have been a mistake. I'm not really too sure about that though. The experience, while frightening at the time, nevertheless has intrigued me over and over again. Sometime in the future, when I can shuck a few over-riding responsibilities for a while, I may go for re-run.

I don't really care. The book's genius comes in its ability to present utopianism, dystopianism, and satire simultaneously. Everybody is happy, except for one disagreeable man. Those in the colonies and whatnot aren't happy. So, tough crap, they don't have families, but Bentham would be like 'oh crap.'

I'd love it. I think the Pros far outweigh the Cons.

Other - I say other not so much because I object to the premises listed here, but because it is a pure uncreative, uninvolved, consumer recreation culture unless you are an alpha, and even then your creative expectations are quite limited.

It's not a culture which supports true artists like wiccan herbalists.

Every culture brainwashes their children. The Skinner based conditioning methods may be severe, but it's no difference in essence than the way any child is brought up.

With the combo of in-utero testing and abortion, we have already become genetically selective.

One can love without monogamy and be like a saint (evn in an orgy lifestyle in my opinion), but monogamous love would be an entertaining loss. The loss of parental bonding is an even bigger shame, but also already a current trend. I'm all for parents trading years off myself, and taking turns in day care centers, rather than sending kids off with total strangers, although I must admit that those who have such jobs probably are best suited for lovingly raising toddlers.

Being raised to be happy with your position isn't such a bad thing, if that's truly what you are best suited for.

I much prefer BNW over 1984, that's for sure. We've been steadily heading towards both of those.

We are no less brainswashed. The only difference is that we don't do it scientifically, or for that matter even consciously for the most part. Childrens songs, games, rewards & punishments, and mostly just the judgements of good and bad, pleasurable & unfavorable, imparted in tone by our parents make up the majority of our life expectations and desires.

There was a time that driving over 10 mph was unfavorable. Things like capital punishment, human sacrifice, love of trees or progress come and go. Huxley tried to get a rise out of us with the conditioning against flowers, but we have similar conditioning. Few see the sculptural of textural beauty or a turd or iridescent oil spill because of our conceptional conditioning.

..and then there's the issue, wake up to what? It's one thing to wake up from your brainwashing to see reality as it really is, and another to wake up and find out that reality hasn't changed any. It would be like asking you to wake up and live as some primitives from 20 millienia ago you read about lived. I could tell you that you were brainswashed to enjoy movies, vacations, and pizza, but what would it change?

But we usually grow up and our desires change. We grow out of all the 'brainwashing'. We have people with vastly different likes, dislikes, beliefs, philosophies... how could we all be brainwashed if we can't all agree on anything? And what of kids who grew up with so many different caregivers that none of them were around long enough for any one set of rules/beliefs to stick?

If I were brainwashed to enjoy movies, then why don't I enjoy movies all that much? Or pizza for that matter.

Our brainwashing isn't absolute, we do find other peer influences, like arts or extreme sparts or something, but there's a saying "The nut doesn't fall far from the tree." Parents expect us to have dfferent subject matter interests, but values are largely passed down through families, things like righteousness, living in harmony, a need to create, those sorts of things.

As much as you might think your tastes aren't a product of your cultural conditioning, move to Afghanistan or the Congo, and I think you'd find differently.

I'm not saying people aren't intrinsically unique in any context, just that the brainwashing found in BNW isn't substantially different from what society does already when raising it's young, in either methods or results. By bible-belt standards, us liberal Californians have already brainwashed our youth to have BNW values.

Even your concepts of independence are a product of your living in Alaska. Compared to LA, aside from racial cultural distinctions, you folks in AK look the same but all do your own thing. Here people look more different, but more all do the same thing. LA is different from SF even. Compared to LA, folks in SF do things to please themselves rather than please others, and connect more through conversation than making an impression.

You mean we aren't living like that now...without the test tube births... We all must be politically correct, we must all be nice to everyone and not hurt their itty bitty feelings... you don't need a brain...Vote Democrat and let them take care of you...

I think my concepts of independence probably have more to do with the fact that not many values at all were drilled into me as a kid than the fact I grew up in Alaska.

A huge percentage of the population does not agree with political correctness, believes in thinking for yourself, and doesn't want to be 'taken care of'. A good percentage don't even believe in being nice. So no, we aren't living like that.

Not so much drilled into you, but adopted values for instance. Don't you have a lot more in common with your parents than most strangers?

A bit in common with my mom. We relate well.