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

spike spike66 at att.net
Sat Feb 4 22:04:40 UTC 2017


 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2017 1:15 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: [ExI] Huxley or Orwell - who got it right?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley?utm_source=pocket <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits> &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

bill w

 

 

 

Good article BillW, reminiscent of so many debates I had with my father-in-law who is much more a Huxley fan than I am, while I am more an Orwell fan than he.

 

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.

 

I offered that this would make a driver’s job much easier.  But the history teacher side of him found it far too creepy.  I suggested the students were watching the lectures they missed for the event to which he was taking them.

 

Soon the subject changed to another Huxleyan nightmare: designer babies.  Oh the horror!  Why?  What would be so bad?  We fertilize twenty embryos, let them divide about 5 times, select a cell from each, read the DNA, determine which one is most free of known genetic pathologies, implant.  Obvious question: what do you do with the rest of them?  My answer: leave them frozen.  Who would ever use them?  Why do we need to know that?  But only the wealthy would have healthier babies!  Ja.

 

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.

 

spike

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