[ExI] Huxley or Orwell - who got it right?

[BillK]

On 4 February 2017 at 22:04, spike  wrote:
> Brave New World is a book I found interesting, but not horrifying at all.
> It wasn’t clear to me that it was dystopian, certainly not all of it.  He
> commented about how things changed over the years as he drove college
> students to sports events.  He recalled how raucus those were and how they
> began to get quieter starting around 1985, to the point where twenty years
> later it would be nearly silent as the students sat back there gazing at
> computer screens, seldom saying a word to each other.
>
> The article seems to think we are in danger of amusing ourselves to death,
> but I would argue that if one dies laughing, one does not literally perish
> in most cases, and even if so, that would be a good way to go.
>

I'm sure that amusing ourselves to death has been suggested as a
solution to the Fermi paradox.
You are right that it is not dystopian - it's irresistibly attractive!

Every advanced civ develops virtual reality worlds that are far more
interesting than the boring real world. Combine that with uploaded
intelligences processing so fast that the outside world isn't just in
slow motion, it seems frozen. That's why uploaded intelligences don't
bother with the real world.


BillK