I've been really intrigued by this topic as of late because it's an easily noticed problem. The general public (that's a fun term, aye) are becoming equally insatiable as they are stupid.
There's an excellent film called Idiocracy that came out a few years back. It's meant to be a farce but makes a really great point about where we might end up in the future. Here's a clip of one of my favorite scenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79qbU
It's funny, but it's also sad. At this point, I don't see much of a reversal taking place. If you're an intelligent person, be thankful and try to help those around you who are less aware of Spaceship Earth.
Edit: I misspoke. I thought about it and "I don't see much of a reversal taking place" isn't true. The one thing that can reverse all of this is parents. If you have children, take the time to educate them and make them aware of their existence. Explain how systems work and the benefits/problems with them. Don't use scare tactics, just talk to them. More likely than not, they'll grow up with a head on their shoulders.
+1 for idiocracy. There is so much of society crammed into that film it's unreal. Warning: it's by mike judge of Beavis and butthead fame so you have to look past the fart jokes.
"ow my balls" is definitely a reference to wasting time on YouTube...
This film struck me as an educated elitist view of the lumpenproletariat. Once upon a time, an itinerant person was the one who idled by reading, rather than working, or enjoying the more "vigorous" pleasures of the hunt, etc. Reading novels was thought (and by some, still is) to delude the mind with fantasies. New mediums are often derided.
I also found the film prudish, implying that having a large family can only be a product of ignorance and animalistic tendencies.
I also found the film prudish, implying that having a large family can only be a product of ignorance and animalistic tendencies.
I believe you're referring to the family tree scene where the affluent couple wants to conceive but they cannot. Instead, they parallel their experience against the destitute couple breeding at an infinite rate.
I don't believe this should be a slight against having a large family, but rather, doing so under mindless pretenses. To be blunt: just having sex to have sex, not to procreate with a purpose.
This would be my statement to the writer: Sex for sex' sake is far from mindless, and a child conceived in love is no worse than one who is the product of deliberation and effort. Also, pregnancies are equally likely to be deliberated amongst low-income families, especially in rural societies.
I don't think it was just "sex for sex' sake". It's just that contraception requires responsibility, and the irresponsible are the ones who, by default, have more children, which is the opposite of how it should be.
While we're discussing relevant recommendations, I'll humbly chip in with my 2 cents: Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime, a progressive metal concept album heavily influenced by 1984. Probably not a timeless masterpiece like 1984 and Brave New World if you just consider the plot; but considered a masterpiece in its genre, probably worthy of the compliment if you also consider the amazing music and plot devices.
Why are techies as a group so apocalyptic? I think the world 100 years from now will be a fairer, more just, more humane place than it is now. 100 years ago, women still couldn't vote in the US and the country was legally segregated instead of just segregated in practice. 100 years ago, child labor was at its peak in the US, food safety was non-existstant, charlatans ran rampant in the practice of medicine, and cities were thick with the pollution of the industrial revolution. We live in a better world today than has ever existed for the greatest number of people. Why should we believe that it will be society, that has improved itself so, that will be its own undoing?
Because they are people, and people as a group are apocalyptic.
Four to five decades back, everyone grew up convinced that atomic war was inevitable. That was the zeitgeist, but wrong. Nuclear war is a great stride forward in that it's the only methodology of war yet invented that is both aggressively pursued by leaders and presents those leaders with a dire and immediate threat of death if used. (As opposed to, say, war by assassination, which only satisfies one of those criteria). So the incentives were aligned against what popular sentiment said was inevitable.
Then all of that determined, grim sentiment sloshed over into the ready and waiting environmentalist hair-shirt death cult after the collapse of the USSR.
As someone who advocates for engineered human longevity, I see a lot of this. Most people, the majority, don't have a positive view of the future. At present that is largely informed by what in a sane world would be extreme environmentalist views, but in this world are middle of the road environmentalist views - most people are convinced that the world is falling apart, that there are too many people, that no-one should be allowed to extend human life, that all resources are running out, and in short that Malthus was right.
This view of the end of the world will no more come to pass than nuclear war did. All the incentives are aligned against Malthusian limits of any sort, and always have been. Hopefully one doesn't have to explain why that's the case to the present audience.
I agree with you, but I also think that being a cynic/skeptic allows you to appear more intelligent, and that is why people (perhaps unconsciously) find flaws in an idea.
By finding flaws, you're almost saying you've outwitted the idea proposer.
I think you're right. Historically apocalyptic ideas have always been popular. Neal Stephenson had a good point when he compared the Apocalypse of John to the singularity.
"I can never get past the structural similarities between the singularity prediction and the apocalypse of St. John the Divine. This is not the place to parse it out, but the key thing they have in common is the idea of a rapture, in which some chosen humans will be taken up and made one with the infinite while others will be left behind. "
http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-r...
If Stephenson is right, the idea of the singularity could be considered another modern apocalyptic idea.
I haven't studied it closely but I suspect similar arguments could be made about ancient sightings of gods/angels/demons vs modern encounters with aliens/UFOs.
These things are connected in that they are expressions of universal human characteristics or desires or something.
Your views on environmentalism are interesting. Do you have data about most people being convinced "that no-one should be allowed to extend human life", or "that Malthus was right"? If we're going anecdote vs. anecdote, I really don't see what you're talking about - I hear very little about longevity or exponential population growth being the problem.
What you mention that I do hear a lot about is that resources are running out. This concept seems almost a tautology to me - if resources are finite, and we are using them without replacing them, then they are running out. This says nothing of how quickly they are running out, which is why people are doing lots of research on this problem.
Your point about incentives is actually exactly why the possibility of resource shortage frightens me more than nuclear war - the people of the world and their leaders are currently incentivized to trade off long-term resource scarcity for short-term economic growth, and there are currently many economies in need of growth.
I don't see a flaw in Malthus' argument (population grows exponentially, food production does not). The green revolution mostly pushed it back a couple of decades (except for people here and there who actually did starve to death) through modernizing worldwide agriculture and massive use of petroleum as fertilizer and pesticide, but it can't be repeated--oil probably already peaked and we don't have even more advanced farming techniques held in reserve. The incentives are right but they only help if some feasible solution exists; I'm not aware of any short of inventing nanotech or invent cold fusion (scaling fission is too slow because we have to mine all our fuel) or an extremely authoritarian yet effective sterilization campaign (which would make China's look like Disneyland).
The progress you mention did not happen on its own, it took decades of struggle against powerful forces of exploitation and oppression to achieve. Those forces still exist, but their maneuverings and their goals are more well hidden from the public eye. They're no longer out there publicly saying that blacks are an inferior race, they're silently investigating neuro-marketing techniques to help them more effectively shape public opinion. Since their aims and means are no longer transparent to the public, comics like this are needed to illustrate what could happen if we continue to allow those in power to placate us with pleasure and pimp our instincts for profit.
> Why should we believe that it will be society, that has improved itself so, that will be its own undoing?
Because we learn lessons from history.
Every "empire" that has improved humanity's standard of living throughout the centuries has met the same result, and it's no accident. There are such clear patterns throughout history that anyone who has taken the time to study it can make some pretty reasonable predictions about the world tomorrow.
For starters, the past 100 years included two world wars, and countless others - costing the lives of countless millions. If we continue the historical trend - this century will see at least a billion killed in wars. Is it worth it for the progress, or better standard of living people 'might' have in 100 years time - only for them to repeat the mistakes over again.
While today, the greatest number of people might have the highest standard of living that they've ever had - it must be realized that it's no coincidence that this is not shared between everyone. The developed world enjoys a high standard of living today largely because it has taken advantage of countries which don't have the same standard. We've raped and pillaged nations, and supported countries which still engage in slavery - for our own economic benefit.
Technology could bring a high standard of living for everyone on the planet - but not with our current capitalist system, which uses technology to transfer more wealth from the poor to the rich. Consider the ongoing trend to replace manual labour with robotics to get an idea - human labour is becoming obsolete, yet there is nothing to replace it. Humans still need to "earn" to eat, yet they can no longer earn - and they don't own any land - thus, we are becoming enslaved to those who do own land, and those who have the robotics to manufacture goods.
And lets not forget that our political systems are becoming more and more irrelevant. We are still using systems from hundreds of years ago, which didn't account for an idea like the internet - where people can communicate so effectively, that voting on people to represent you elsewhere is unnecessary. The increasing police state is a reaction by those in power to try and remain relevant, but their obsolescence is about due.
> the past 100 years included two world wars, and countless others - costing the lives of countless millions. If we continue the historical trend - this century will see at least a billion killed in wars.
You could just as easily say we had two world wars start within 30 years of each other in the early 1900's but it's been over 70 years since the last one started. If we continue the historical trend, this century will see no more than a few million killed in wars. You can always cherry-pick. Look up Steven Pinker, who is convinced that global violence is the lowest it's ever been...
> not with our current capitalist system, which uses technology to transfer more wealth from the poor to the rich.
There's an enormous growing middle class in Asia and Africa that begs to differ. Some think the rising global demand for oil will lead to collapse; I don't, but the main reason that demand is rising so much is because hundreds of millions around the world are now rich enough to own cars.
> You could just as easily say, 1900-1950 had two world wars and hundreds(?) of millions of death, 1950-2000 had zero world wars and many fewer deaths. If we continue the historical trend, this century will see no more than a few million killed in wars. You can always cherry-pick. Look up Steven Pinker, who is convinced that global violence is the lowest it's ever been...
While deaths in wars post 1950 might be much smaller, it's still far from insignificant. Are we content that millions of lives are disposable?
It's possibly worth pointing out that of the post 1950 wars, a significant portion of them have been perpetrated by the US and it's allies, who have not yet been held to account for their crimes.
> There's an enormous growing middle class in Asia and Africa that begs to differ...
Don't just look what's happening, but ask why. The growing middle class in Asia is due to the demand created by our outsourcing of manufacturing to there, along with the growing Asian based industries. They're given more opportunities to work. Not coincidentally, this coincides with the growing unemployment and poverty in the US and Europe. It's more economical to hire Asian labour than western labour.
But with the improvements in the physical and cognitive capabilities of computers/robots, it won't be long before that huge demand that brought work to Asia is replaced by machines. Where then are those Asians going to find employment?
> Are we content that millions of lives are disposable?
Red herring. Can't we be discontented with imperfection while still rejoicing in the progress of hundreds of millions of fewer people being killed by war?
> The growing middle class in Asia is due to the demand created by our outsourcing of manufacturing to there.
There are definitely connections, but if it was a zero-sum game with US and Europe, I would expect global oil demand (for instance) to stay the same and just shift, not greatly increase as it has. This suggests a real increase in wealth; capitalism is not zero-sum. However, I don't know what the future of robots means for it all...
This is a great post. I would love for some country to be founded on a direct representation concept and just let people directly vote for what they want instead of voting for a person who will tell you want you want to hear and then go do what gives them the most money/power. I can't see a way for it to happen though.
As technology gets more powerful, the oops factor comes into play. Oops, I dropped a flask in my lab: 1 million people dead. Oops, the SCRAM system for a reactor that's out of control, it had a software bug: 10 million people dead.
Technical people understand how fragile modern systems are. As life gets more complicated, innocent mistakes can turn a country into a desert. Malicious intent raises the body count even higher.
You make it sound like there's a societal cruise control that magically improves our quality of living. I'm glad the activists of history didn't share your sentiment.
rayiner is in no way discounting the important role of activists. Accurately examining history is, I believe, a celebration of those brave men and women.
If you pay attention to the self-congratulatory subtext of such complaints, it becomes clear that it's not really anything to do with being apocalyptic. No one is concerned that they personally are descending into a vapid, consumption-oriented existence -- it's always about how stupid and hopeless all those other people are.
You mean like you just did? I don't think that about e.g. Huxley at all. I think he was genuinely worried about his fellow man and wanted to make them aware.
Those were social problems solved by activists. Sorry if this doesn't jive with your techno triumphalism, but the technology makers were the ones who brought us child labor, crappy mass processed food, and smog. Since you mentioned segregation, you might want to read the MLK speech you haven't heard about, Beyond Vietnam : http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documen.... "When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." Unfortunately, the people who give a damn and are pointing out the problems wtih say, government surveliance, are being drowned out by people like you. So I'm not optimistic.
I personally believe that the fact of being "apocalyptic" help people shaping a better world.
Thinking that something might not be right in the future is a rather good incentive to try to make it better.
I'm not arguing that the world is not evolving in a better way, but, for example, the awareness risen by Orwell and Huxley might play a part in the fact that some people are trying to make a better future.
I don't think it's a characteristic of a particular group of people you call, "techies." I think the disease of cynicism has well spread to all demographics and levels in society. There have been humans predicting the end of the world ever since we were able to weave tales. The method of the apocalypse always seems to change but the idea that we are doomed does not.
The irrational thing about it is that despite generations of these prophets fore-telling us of the end-times humanity has continued to survive and in the last few hundred years it might have even improved. I suspect that even if we ushered in an era of ever-lasting peace and solved all of our problems that these cynics would just find another story to tell.
>100 years ago, women still couldn't vote in the US and the country was legally segregated instead of just segregated in practice. 100 years ago, child labor was at its peak in the US, food safety was non-existstant, charlatans ran rampant in the practice of medicine, and cities were thick with the pollution of the industrial revolution.
Well, today women can vote but it doesn't matter who you vote anymore, the country is segregated in practice which is as worse as being legally segregated (and hypocritical to top), the labour movement is gone and burried, children are burdened by overprotective parents, money-grabbers ran rampant in the practice of medicine (including Big Pharma), the environment is severely damaged with the pollution of the industrial revolution, we have the capacity to kill everyone several times over with nukes (and bio weapons), neo-colonialism runs rampant, drones and similar technology pretty much ensure a future dictatorship of the most technologically advanced, mass surveillance was never as widespread as now, torture became en vogue again and somehow killing and or adducting citizens of sovereign states is now an acceptable practice even for western democracies, huge corporations control the worldwide food chain (Monsanto) and even invest in the water supply, while others patent DNA.
(I didn't even got into the economic depression that will be long-term, the wars for water of the future, or the possibility of peak oil).
>We live in a better world today than has ever existed for the greatest number of people
No. We just have better technology. Nothing special about our ethics or practices.
I'm on my phone and can't reply to the substance of your post, and for that I apologize, but your comments demonstrate a stark ignorance of history. Overbearing parents (what does that even mean?) is as bad as child labor? Sure.
I don't think it's just technology. We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been. Now, it might be the product of prosperity, it is easier to be fair when you're not at the edge of survival, but I don't think that changes the fact that we are better regardless.
>but your comments demonstrate a stark ignorance of history. Overbearing parents (what does that even mean?) is as bad as child labor? Sure.
Perhaps it's this view that shows a "stark ignorance of history"? Who said "child labor" was widespread in the past?
Child labour with today's sense got widespread only in industrial societies. Working in the fields with your parents, as teenagers used to do in pre-industrial societies, is not "child labour" in the Nike-sweatshop or victorian England way.
I can assure you that even 40-50 years ago, kids used to play far more out in the open, and for far more than they do today, e.g:
>We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been.
The "more just and humane" is just a thin veneer when you have enough money not to care for smaller things. As soon as interests come into play people are even worse than they were.
Nixon got the shaft for Watergate. Today, under Bush and Obama we see far worse crimes, covering the whole of the population, and nobody gets the blame. I see far more hypocrisy and money-grabbing than in the past, and more isolated and a-political existence. Where are mass movements like the civil rights movement, the labour movement, the sixties peace and counter-culture movements, and such today?
The one piece of science fiction that really struck me in this way is the 1960's BBC television play The Year of the Sex Olympics. It manages to predict the onset and results of reality TV with startling accuracy. Highly recommended, if you can find a copy.
Is that where Futurama's references to an "Olympic gold medal in limbo.. and sex" comes from? I always found that quite curious, but could not find out where the jape came from..
Does it even matter that a portion of the time once stolen away by grinding toil in the fields (for the benefit of kings) is now stolen away by inane cable television (for the benefit of CEOs)? Heart disease is a kinder killer than starvation, drought and cold.
It's easy to forget that things are better now than they have ever been before. Don't stop believing!
Planet Earth is a big place, and its inhabitants managed to reach both of those destinies at the same time. There are places where people live like Orwell predicted, and then there is this so called "First World", which looks exactly like Huxley's vision portrayed by this comic.
The real question is: how do we fix both of those states?
I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's a little bit of both. The less people care about what's going on in politics and about defending their rights, the more oppressive and invasive the Governments become.
I would consider myself much more aware of international events than most and still believe that there is realistically no chance of defending my rights in this age of a two party system where both are equally interested in seeing the nightmares of Huxley and Orwell come to pass.
Sure there may be a lot of people who aren't educated about the dangers we face, but from my own experience the bigger problem is all those that understand but feel powerless to do anything meaningful about it.
Between women's suffrage, the civil rights act and pretty big reductions in corruption, the story of the U.S. from 1900 to the present is one of massive expansion of personal rights.
The last half of the 1800s wasn't so bad either.
(I'm not saying the U.S. does not have corruption, I'm claiming that it has mostly gone down over the time mentioned)
Yes, but all of these changes didn't just happen because people were posting displeasure on reddit. There were nationwide movements. Where's our movements now? We have some, and what happens to them?
I don't dispute for a second that we are better off today than ever before. I just wonder if we've peaked...
I had the enormous privilege of having a teacher who assigned both The End of Education and Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman my junior year of high school. I can't recommend them enough; reading them was one of the formative political experiences of my life.
We live in dangerous times; civic engagement and an educated, vibrant population is more important than ever. But our political and cultural discourse has fallen to its lowest point in as long as anyone can remember. If I were not already politically engaged, I might become so if I watched Edward Murrow at night -- but watching CNN these days seems to be no different from watching the Jersey Shore.
>>> " But our political and cultural discourse has fallen to its lowest point in as long as anyone can remember."
Sure, but what does that really mean? To me, not much, as peoples memories are short.. There are numerous examples in the last few centuries of much, much worse political discourse. Think about the Lincoln-Douglas debates where newspapers that were controlled by political parties would edit the transcripts of the opposing candidate to enhance the standings of their own horse in the race.
My vote is for infinite distraction. Government is taking advantage of this right now. They can already do basically whatever they want without that much blowback.
Another problem in US besides a lot of people not being educated on the issues and not caring about them, is the feeding of bad information through the corrupt media. With today's media, it's almost too easy to get most people in the country to think a certain country is the enemy and needs to be destroyed, at whatever cost. Thanks to the same media, it's also pretty easy to pass bad laws, too, either because the media is not covering them, or lies about them.
The comic paints a picture from a very specific viewpoint, as if Huxley's were the rational, correct one and Orwell's came from a delusional fantasy land. Both men lived very different lives and they were responding to what they saw.
Huxley came from a family distinguished in science and rational thought, so he had something to live up to. He was intellectually gifted, but was a poor authoritarian who was barred from military service due to poor eyesight.
Orwell came from the gentry, was told that he was clever at a young age and when given the chance to see authority and violence he jumped at it. Both noticed just how broken the worlds they had stepped into were.
Huxley was never shot in the throat or saw the Soviets pervert his ideals in Spain or endure a slow death by TB. Orwell had little interest in examining the gullible, impatient, "zippy" world of the US that Sinclair Lewis and Co were responding to, so he missed out on a taste of what the future would hold for those with peacetime and plenty.
Neither will destroy us IMHO. Too many emo-burgers being slung lately. It's not the end of the world when things go wrong. In fact, it's business as usual.
At the top of the page, there are logos for other blogs that if you mouseover them, they pop down with inane headlines for things that don't matter. There are three pictures linking to inane political cartoons above the article. Above and to the left there is a "recent comments" widget and links to Facebook and StumbleUpon, plus a couple of Flash banner advertisements to round it out.
Below the comic there is a row of social networking widgets, plus a block of linkspam along the lines of "The Hilarious College Liberal Meme", "10 Things Much Worse Than Same-Sex Marriage (But Are Totally Legal)", "Nine Hilariously Awkward Facebook Interactions", "50 Ridiculously Athlete Photos", and "Atom Bomb Detonation May Have Alerted Aliens that We're Trouble". After a long block of comments, there's more linkspam, including "19 Celebrity Drunk Pictures (Bet They Regret These!)". At the bottom of the page, even more linkspam, from "We know who’s the boss. (That damn cat)." and "Sheep Poop Bookmark" to "Cats Hate Wallpaper!" and "The Best Of The Overly Attached Girlfriend". At the very bottom, you can sign up for emails from this website, and there's another Twitter and Facebook widget for good measure.
Sometimes you have to step back a little before the message really sinks in.
1984 is seemingly the only book everyone has read.
It is really frustrating to see people simplify all economics, (evidence-based) social psychology and proper appraisal of philosophy applied to historical perspectives only to reduce our future to these bizarre extremes.
The only reason people even give 1984 its credibility post Cold-War is that its two chief components, the television and surveillance camera became a reality. This is not to trivialise the presence of surveillance, but honestly, I'm amazed anyone can read it past the hysterical Room 101 bit.
BWN is basically just 1984 told from the bourgeoisie perspective, the specifics are different but both themes are two sides of the same coin.
tl;dr 1984 is the print version of those crackpot websites that are all made in Frontpage, where every other word is formatted differently and there's a maddening tree of stream of consciousness ramblings, some of which lead to nowhere. The whole hoary debate can be summarised as basically one legible paragraph of that.
Aldous Huxley taught Eric Blair (George Orwell) at Eton. Perhaps most interesting, George Orwell achieved success before Huxley and wrote some rather scathing things about Brave New World!
As several other comments here have pointed out, it's possible for neither bad outcome to happen. Human beings always have frailties and make mistakes, and even take advantage of one another, but the long-term trend line in human society suggests the worries in the submitted article are overblown. By coincidence, the Why Evolution Is True website today has a post that responds to worries like this with actual research by careful scientists who know human nature well.
Don't think the intention of the artist was to make a prediction, or to draw parallels with today (however true those parallels might be), its just comparing two dystopic fictional futures..
They aren't happy. They are drugged. Any time anyone starts to have any questions or qualm of any kind, they have been trained to drug themselves into insensibility rather than think about it. Anyone desiring individuality is a pariah.
Furthermore, the siciety is completely static -- it's designed that way. It cannot grow or adapt in the face of new opportunities or needs (eg climate shift, resource depletion). Would you want to live like that?
Resisting oppression calls for courage. If you merely complain or protest you may be tracked down and threatened. If you go beyond that to active resistance you definitely run the risk of being labelled a criminal or terrorist and put in a cage.
Resisting distraction is a whole lot easier. It just requires self-discipline, and a willingness to say no the the bait. Don't use a bank, credit card, television, or unfree software. Don't buy industrially processed or GMO food. Opt out.
Yes, it involves sacrifice, and other people will mock you, but if you are short on bravery, what else can you do?
[edit] I just read that the artist actually contacted the estate of Neil Postman to check if they had any problem with it, just in case they ever sued, and then removed it on their instruction. - http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/cartoon-blog/amusing-ours...
I've been really intrigued by this topic as of late because it's an easily noticed problem. The general public (that's a fun term, aye) are becoming equally insatiable as they are stupid.
There's an excellent film called Idiocracy that came out a few years back. It's meant to be a farce but makes a really great point about where we might end up in the future. Here's a clip of one of my favorite scenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79qbU
It's funny, but it's also sad. At this point, I don't see much of a reversal taking place. If you're an intelligent person, be thankful and try to help those around you who are less aware of Spaceship Earth.
Edit: I misspoke. I thought about it and "I don't see much of a reversal taking place" isn't true. The one thing that can reverse all of this is parents. If you have children, take the time to educate them and make them aware of their existence. Explain how systems work and the benefits/problems with them. Don't use scare tactics, just talk to them. More likely than not, they'll grow up with a head on their shoulders.