1984 and Brave New World. I've had lots of conversations where these two classics are juxtaposed. I prefer 1984 but that's just personal taste. I've read it dozens of times, always scares the shit out of me. What Winston goes through really tugs my heartstrings but that's an aside. I was bored at work the other day so I read BNW and I got to wondering - which is the most effective paradigm for controlling the masses? Both have real world parallels. Perhaps not as far gone as in the novels but you can see it if you choose to look.
Personally I can't see Big Brother's state ever getting that far without an uprising of some sorts but maybe...
Huxley's vision, on the other hand doesn't seem so far off. Western civilisation seems hell bent on swallowing as much soma as it can get hold of, in all of it's pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical guises.
Is one more practical than the other? Is a synthesis possible? It could be argued that there's crossover between the two author's visions to begin with. Newspeak and doublethink dovetail nicely into Huxley's civilisation. Likewise the rigidly enforced class structure.
If one were inclined to take the bull by the horns and put the finishing touches on the enslavement of humankind, which approach would be most effective?
Pretty sure it's Huxley, mainly because I agree that we're already farther on the road in that direction than to 1984.
But in addition, it also needs two equivalent parties, one of which hates aborting babies :lulz:
I definitely think that the world is far closer to BNW than 1984. I think part of this may be due to 1984 being a better, and more frightening, book, so more people have read it and taken the warnings in it to heart.
It has recently occurred to me that Big Brother did not need to exist, people only needed to think he did. Once you have everyone believing there is an all powerful being who is watching you all the time and can read your thoughts, it's game over -you can do whatever you want. Which gets us to the current state of fundamentalist religious nonsense happening in the USA (God bless it). It doesn't matter if God exists, if everyone believes he does, and if the president is the God-appointed leader, then, well, what can the government not get away with?
I need to re-read 1984, but I think big brother doesn't actually exist -and it doesn't matter. In which case 1984 is not really a distopic vision of the future, but a reality in any fundamentalist fascist state, past, present, and future. The only twist is that Big Brother is explained as a technological reality, instead of a transcendental one. In either case belief is all that matters for crowd control. I think the 1984 route has proven to already be effective in this sense. However, Eris has saved us from any system of crowd control working too well. Hail fucking Eris.
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 14, 2011, 10:22:24 PM
Pretty sure it's Huxley, mainly because I agree that we're already farther on the road in that direction than to 1984.
But in addition, it also needs two equivalent parties, one of which hates aborting babies :lulz:
:mittens:
So far as I can see, Orwell got some of it right, with the ubiqitous use of surveillance and Newspeak (or, as Steven Poole would have it, Unspeak (http://unspeak.net).
On the other hand, his vision of the future is relentlessly grim and depressing, even to the protagonist. Seriously, it's like two steps off the WH40k Universe at times. People seem to have so little to lose than I could very easily see some kind of uprising happening, even though it'd probably be more Warsaw Ghetto than Tahrir Square.
So I think Huxley was the more creative, and possibly more accurate thinker. As you say, there sure is a lot of soma going around these days. I would argue that, unlike in Orwell's world, which tends to a form of political desensitisation, the current world we live in is more like an information overload, a sugar-rush of facts, theories, ideas and stories.
Huxley based his view of the Brave New World around Fordism, a variant of Taylorism that was very popular both in the Soviet Union and in the capitalist west. There are some Adam Curtis documentaries who deal in part with this theory, which are well worth watching. While in many senses we are in a post-Fordist world, that just means Fordism in a new guise, that of service and the knowledge economy, rather than production and manufacturing.
Orwell, for all the credit he got as a writer and for recognizing the nature of the Soviet Union, was not a very deep political thinker. Huxley, by contrast, through luck or skill, put his finger on one of the major organising principles of modern society and extrapolated from that in a way that was quite prescient.
Another thing that may explain why I'm seeing BNW happening over 1984 is that BNW is actually, surprisingly, the more realistic scenario. I say surprisingly, because it's got a lot more science-fictioney stuff in it, whereas all the elements that make up 1984 were already there 20 years ago.
Or maybe I'm just hoping that.
What I think is that this complete information control surveillance state in fact doesn't actually work. Thing is, we got ECHELON, and it's just too much data to dig through. All the security cameras in the UK, but who is going to watch them? Only after the fact, right? Phones are tapped in NL in absolute numbers more than in the US (for srs!) but I dunno what they actually do with it, doesn't seem to be keeping a lid on the citizens though.
All this data is all over the fucking place, people are slowly realizing the privacy implications, but I don't quite see the surveillance state emerging yet. The ingredients are surely there, but they don't quite seem to fit together into the world that Orwell envisioned.
One thing that may change this is if the ubiquitous street cameras improve their image quality by a ton so you can actually zoom in on a face. This is very expensive, all the cameras are already there, need to be replaced, and it's "slow technology", not like computer capacity or something, which doubles every 1.5 years, you can't just wait a year and get a better quality camera lens for the same price.
Additionally, that's not going to solve the problem of "who's going to watch all these camera feeds?" so for that you need a bunch of supercomputers with advanced machine learning / computer vision algorithms doing facial recognition and tracking everyone from one camera to another. The state of the art isn't quite there yet, though. Whether it's actually even theoretically or practically possible, I'm not sure. It'd need a fuckton of computing power, but it's hard to guess whether it's prohibitively much, or just in the "wait a few years" category. I fear it's the latter, because it's a typical problem that can be parallelized easily, so you can just throw more cores and GPUs at it, which is the direction computing power is going anyways.
But then still, say you [the oppressive gvmt] got a full complete picture of the physical location of everybody. And in addition you can tap all of their communications. Well they're just going to encrypt part of the communications and there's pretty much nothing you can do about that, but even then. It's just far too much data, far too many people, making far too many problems, and not enough dudes watching the feeds to go around.
Thinking to the distant future though, technology could and probably will act as "force multiplier", allowing less people to keep tabs on increasing numbers of others. I'm thinking here of a hi-tech version of Bentham's panopticon, with advanced facial recognition software and behaviour-recognition which allows it to detect certain categories of act and flag them for human analysis (for CCTV) and similar linguistic analysis software for phone taps. The trend of the moment does seem to be towards accumulation rather than reducing false positives, but that is because, in part, they're not just looking at terrorists, foreign spies, hackers etc by gathering more information on everyone, you can analyse social trends and demographic patterns which allow for a continuation of the status quo.
But no doubt eventually spooks will get tired of interviewing the 900th Afghani goatherder who shares a similar tonal inflection to a suspected insurgent commander, and press for such changes.
I still think it will be large and unwieldy, overall, but it will get smarter and more streamlined than it currently is.
Fuck all, slow this conversation down until I've had my coffee. No fair, what with you Eurospags being several hours in the future and all.
j/k, proceed. I'll catch up in a bit
Quote from: Cain on July 15, 2011, 11:46:11 AM
Thinking to the distant future though, technology could and probably will act as "force multiplier", allowing less people to keep tabs on increasing numbers of others. I'm thinking here of a hi-tech version of Bentham's panopticon, with advanced facial recognition software and behaviour-recognition which allows it to detect certain categories of act and flag them for human analysis (for CCTV) and similar linguistic analysis software for phone taps. The trend of the moment does seem to be towards accumulation rather than reducing false positives, but that is because, in part, they're not just looking at terrorists, foreign spies, hackers etc by gathering more information on everyone, you can analyse social trends and demographic patterns which allow for a continuation of the status quo.
But no doubt eventually spooks will get tired of interviewing the 900th Afghani goatherder who shares a similar tonal inflection to a suspected insurgent commander, and press for such changes.
I still think it will be large and unwieldy, overall, but it will get smarter and more streamlined than it currently is.
's gotta be quite a distant future though.
friend of mine is working on a piece of AI to detect "aggressive behaviour" from a combination of camera feed + sound. Mostly sound, though, tone of voice is very well possible to classify. it's not just random scientific research, but for an actual security company, so I'm guessing they're getting decent results.
that's behaviour recognition, or "sentiment analysis", but I can't yet see it getting a lot more advanced than that, and of course "aggressive behaviour" is probably the easiest sentiment to classify. also it's already pretty hard for a human to get a clear idea what's going on from a camera feed.
and so far, any "similar linguistic analysis software", really is going nowhere. it's a littlebit of an elephant in the room of AI research. we were really supposed to have talking computers by now, but there's some ... ontological problems that turn out to be nearly impossible to solve. and the technology you describe is actually really multiple parts, there's phonetic anlysis, converting audio to phonemes, and then there's the linguistic processing to parse it into words and sentences and
then there's the problem of converting that to a machine-processable representation of a piece of knowledge.
it's a huge problem, none of these components are really making much useful progress, and if you try to chain them together, the inaccuracies just stack and multiply.
anyway, enough about AI specifics.
the point is that the 1984/panopticon scenario relies on technology and it really needs to jump quite a few very non-trivial technological hurdles.
while on the other hand, the BNW scenario pretty much just "hacked" the human behavioural component of the equation, controlling the population using a piece of hardware/software/wetware that is already there, has been there for 100,000 years, and isn't bound to change or go away any time soon either.
It's a bit hard to read because it gets a little preachy, but Ben Elton wrote a very very interesting work in the style of 1984/BNW, called Blind Faith which touches on the kind of contemporary FB culture/use of information etc.
This thread also reminds me of a scathing review of V for Vendetta describing it as juvenile, because when fascism hits it WONT LOOK LIKE FASCISM. While the aesthetic of BNW is still pretty socially acceptable because by it's very nature it's the essence of mass appeal, like Cain kinda said, 84 LOOKED like fascism. Post 84 (post WW2 maybe) you can't package total control in that wrapper and have it accepted.
I just wanna say I am enjoying the hell out of the back and forth between Trip and Cain here. Threads like this are one of the biggest reasons why I love PD.
Funnily enough I never saw BB's surveillance apparatus as being something that detected dissidents. Even in my early teens, when I first read the book, the whole notion struck me as impractical and unrealistic in an otherwise realistic context. To me the main purpose of surveillance was as a deterrent. If you know you can be watched at any time then, as illustrated in Winston's story, you'll have to go out of your way to do anything ____-crimey. The primary purpose of such a mechanism would be to breed paranoia, to back it up with the risk of being caught. When the exercise chick pulls Winston up during the morning workout, I figured that was more likely to be someone just channel hopping, looking for anything out of place and then jumping down their throats. Driving the point home, rather than trying to detect any deviation.
Once you have a suitably paranoid populace, who are equally concerned about being found complicit in a crime, you have a nation of grasses, ready to shop anyone over the slightest little - out of the ordinary - behaviour. The surveillance would therefore react to reports by the citizenry, rather than instigate proceedings of it's own accord. Kinda like how it works now, with the detectives mainly investigating reported crimes, just a fucking sight more effectively since no warrant or legwork is required and the suspect given no warning they are under suspicion and, therefore, no opportunity to cover their tracks.
One thiing that I didn't like about 1984 ----
the villains were villains - when it came time to show their hand, they explained to Winston that they really were in it for control, crushing freedom, doing evil .. it was a self aware power trip.
And in my mind, the people who are currently pushing us into a dark and claustrophobic future - in the real world - are doing it with the best possible intentions. The guys performing these sketchy black site interrogations, the people tapping our phone lines, really believe they are protecting us.
And if they're not in it for altruism, they're in it for self interest. Pharmaceutical companies aren't intentionally trying to make a zombie state, they're just trying to make a buck. If they want everybody hooked on drugs, it's not to make the country more docile, it's just so they can make mega profits.
So I think that's where Orwell missed it - he envisions the worst possible government, one that does evil and is aware of it. But in the real world, nobody thinks like that. Well certainly there are some awful people in power who see the underclasses as a resource to be capitalized on, but it's hard for me to think of Bush or Obama in those terms.
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on July 15, 2011, 02:43:47 PM
I just wanna say I am enjoying the hell out of the back and forth between Trip and Cain here. Threads like this are one of the biggest reasons why I love PD.
Thanks. I didn't really come to the conclusion as I did until I started writing that reply. The conclusion, just to sum it up again cause I don't want this thread to become about my projections on AI-wanking:
- the 1984-scenario requires a certain level of technology to work, not just for the surveillance itself but also automation, to deal with the inevitable information overload (that Orwell did not envision, did he?)
- the BNW-scenario takes place in a future world (2540 AD) with all sorts of examples of future technology (baby factories, "feelies", soma, and all sorts of little details), but in order to create The World State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_State) it doesn't really
need all of this future technology. all it
needs to come to existence is the weaknesses of humanity itself, and once it's locked in place like that, people will perpetuate it because of human nature, technology or not. Okay maybe you need Soma, but that's hardly technology, Hassan-i Sabbah did similar :)
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 15, 2011, 02:49:17 PMI never saw BB's surveillance apparatus as being something that detected dissidents. Even in my early teens, when I first read the book, the whole notion struck me as impractical and unrealistic in an otherwise realistic context. To me the main purpose of surveillance was as a deterrent. If you know you can be watched at any time then, as illustrated in Winston's story, you'll have to go out of your way to do anything ____-crimey. The primary purpose of such a mechanism would be to breed paranoia, to back it up with the risk of being caught. When the exercise chick pulls Winston up during the morning workout, I figured that was more likely to be someone just channel hopping, looking for anything out of place and then jumping down their throats. Driving the point home, rather than trying to detect any deviation.
Once you have a suitably paranoid populace, who are equally concerned about being found complicit in a crime, you have a nation of grasses, ready to shop anyone over the slightest little - out of the ordinary - behaviour. The surveillance would therefore react to reports by the citizenry, rather than instigate proceedings of it's own accord. Kinda like how it works now, with the detectives mainly investigating reported crimes, just a fucking sight more effectively since no warrant or legwork is required and the suspect given no warning they are under suspicion and, therefore, no opportunity to cover their tracks.
That's an interesting point. One example of such paranoia in myself is that I have been a littlebit hesitant to actually download and torrent any of the more sensitive releases by LulzSec and Anonymous. I dunno, I don't want my IP address in that torrent-swarm, and I rather wait until another website writes about what's in it. So they do control me, in that manner. (of course I could go through all sorts of trouble to get that torrent in a more anonymous fashion, but I don't really need or want that data that badly)
And maybe Cain (or someone) has an idea how less-than-perfect surveillance can still be used to build a surveillance state of complete control.
After all, censoring dictatorships such as China and North Korea are doing it. But again, they're not
really doing it through technology (well, there's China's Great Firewall, of course), but rather through culture and "programming" the human population in some way or another, with propaganda and fear.
Cram's also got a good point. IRL, evil never really does evil for the sake of being evil. That's only in stories. Evil happens either because people have the best intentions, or because they ruthlessly want to make money or gain power. I never really realized the 1984 villains were in it simply to crush freedom, and how illogical that actually is, I guess I must have been a littlebit too young when I read it to notice that part.
Quote from: Cramulus on July 15, 2011, 03:18:37 PM
One thiing that I didn't like about 1984 ----
the villains were villains - when it came time to show their hand, they explained to Winston that they really were in it for control, crushing freedom, doing evil .. it was a self aware power trip.
And in my mind, the people who are currently pushing us into a dark and claustrophobic future - in the real world - are doing it with the best possible intentions. The guys performing these sketchy black site interrogations, the people tapping our phone lines, really believe they are protecting us.
And if they're not in it for altruism, they're in it for self interest. Pharmaceutical companies aren't intentionally trying to make a zombie state, they're just trying to make a buck. If they want everybody hooked on drugs, it's not to make the country more docile, it's just so they can make mega profits.
So I think that's where Orwell missed it - he envisions the worst possible government, one that does evil and is aware of it. But in the real world, nobody thinks like that. Well certainly there are some awful people in power who see the underclasses as a resource to be capitalized on, but it's hard for me to think of Bush or Obama in those terms.
Maybe it's hard for you to think of Bush and Obama that way, but my parents definitely think of Alfredo Stroessner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner) that way. Sure, he said he was forced to declare a state of siege in the entire country for the sake of peace and progress or some other bullshit, but in the end, his collaborators just wanted to be in the winner's side.
But then again, maybe my parents are just biased.
Quote from: Cramulus on July 15, 2011, 03:18:37 PM
One thiing that I didn't like about 1984 ----
the villains were villains - when it came time to show their hand, they explained to Winston that they really were in it for control, crushing freedom, doing evil .. it was a self aware power trip.
And in my mind, the people who are currently pushing us into a dark and claustrophobic future - in the real world - are doing it with the best possible intentions. The guys performing these sketchy black site interrogations, the people tapping our phone lines, really believe they are protecting us.
And if they're not in it for altruism, they're in it for self interest. Pharmaceutical companies aren't intentionally trying to make a zombie state, they're just trying to make a buck. If they want everybody hooked on drugs, it's not to make the country more docile, it's just so they can make mega profits.
So I think that's where Orwell missed it - he envisions the worst possible government, one that does evil and is aware of it. But in the real world, nobody thinks like that. Well certainly there are some awful people in power who see the underclasses as a resource to be capitalized on, but it's hard for me to think of Bush or Obama in those terms.
That was my main quarrel with BNW too actually, there's a reveal moment where the controller explains that there is indeed a conspiracy running the world. It felt to me like the sort of environment that could evolve naturally, it doesn't need mysterious masterminds at the switches.
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on July 15, 2011, 05:34:27 PM
That was my main quarrel with BNW too actually, there's a reveal moment where the controller explains that there is indeed a conspiracy running the world. It felt to me like the sort of environment that could evolve naturally, it doesn't need mysterious masterminds at the switches.
when the controller gave his reveal speech, he admitted that he liked reading the forbidden materials etc., and that he thought it was good, but that he was forced by circumstance to perpetuate the system...
...if i recall correctly.
also, for a lighter and more humorous dystopia novel, 'Jennifer Government' is pretty slick, and it shows a future that unfolds without an evil mastermind...
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 06:05:03 PM
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on July 15, 2011, 05:34:27 PM
That was my main quarrel with BNW too actually, there's a reveal moment where the controller explains that there is indeed a conspiracy running the world. It felt to me like the sort of environment that could evolve naturally, it doesn't need mysterious masterminds at the switches.
when the controller gave his reveal speech, he admitted that he liked reading the forbidden materials etc., and that he thought it was good, but that he was forced by circumstance to perpetuate the system...
...if i recall correctly.
I agree. The way I took O'Brien's position was that he'd bought into the "necessary-evil" bill of goods that he himself had been sold. The totalitarianism was an ideology rather than evil for the sake of cackling manically. Part of that ideology insisted that freedom was in fact a great evil. IMO Obrien really believed he was doing the right thing, some of it even regretfully so. The all encompassing propaganda machine that was The Party affected the inner circle as much as anyone else. Ironically the only ones who were afforded any degree of freedom were the Proles.
okay so either way we all agree that if we're growing towards a dystopia of either sort, it will come as a natural "progression" of things, and not because there's a bunch of shady evil dudes outgrowing their puppy-kicking phase and moving on to bigger things.
see also, pretty much any discussion about The Machine we had a couple of years ago.
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 15, 2011, 06:40:54 PM
okay so either way we all agree that if we're growing towards a dystopia of either sort, it will come as a natural "progression" of things, and not because there's a bunch of shady evil dudes outgrowing their puppy-kicking phase and moving on to bigger things.
see also, pretty much any discussion about The Machine we had a couple of years ago.
Yup, no question in my mind. I'm just curious to which flavour of dystopia we're going to end up with. I'm pretty sure I can game both systems but if I can work out which is more likely it means I can start making arrangements right now.
Better to be proactive than reactive :evil:
Further, Pent, I don't know that the book really disagrees with O'Brien in the end.
is there a passage that preaches about how he is wrong, or does that leave it up to the reader?
I always thought that BNW receives the dystopia label as somewhat of a misnomer.
everyone is happy. (well, almost)
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 06:48:08 PM
Further, Pent, I don't know that the book really disagrees with O'Brien in the end.
is there a passage that preaches about how he is wrong, or does that leave it up to the reader?
I always thought that BNW receives the dystopia label as somewhat of a misnomer.
everyone is happy. (well, almost)
That's the real saving grace of BNW for me - the devil is irresistible. 1984 is overtly terrifying but BNW gives me the heebie jebbies.
BNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 08:26:04 PM
BNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
My head can't argue but, still the notion makes me wanna puke my guts up. It's why I fell out with utopia in the first place. It's the reason I maintain that the status quo with all it's war and famine and injustice and suffering and pain is the perfect place to live. Without it I would be a hollow fucking shell of a creature. My hate, my rage, my suffering is as much a part of me as my happiness and contentment. I need both goddamnit :argh!:
Don't get me wrong - at times I swallow soma like it's going out of fashion but only to temporarily calm my rage, not to replace it.
I certainly hear you. it tweaks me to think about it, too.
i think i'm having thoughts about this, but i must ruminate...
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 08:26:04 PM
BNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
The way I argue this is that the BNW doesn't really work towards the happiness of everyone, it works towards
satiation. In reality, we've pretty well seen that people's appetites for everything are pretty much insatiable in the long term.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 15, 2011, 08:14:20 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 06:48:08 PM
Further, Pent, I don't know that the book really disagrees with O'Brien in the end.
is there a passage that preaches about how he is wrong, or does that leave it up to the reader?
I always thought that BNW receives the dystopia label as somewhat of a misnomer.
everyone is happy. (well, almost)
That's the real saving grace of BNW for me - the devil is irresistible. 1984 is overtly terrifying but BNW gives me the heebie jebbies.
Huxley himself disliked the world of BNW, but admitted it was technically a utopian world. Thing is, were all a bit more like the protaonists; this world wouldn't make us very happy.
I'm pretty confident BNW represents a conspiracy that really is made in the best interests of the people. 1984 is just a dictatorship that became bold enough to stop lying to itself.
I see both as different solutions to a problem that I don't really have a problem with. I'm a fucking nutter, tho, most people think it needs solving. Sooner or later it's going to happen. The cure is worse than the disease but, by the time anyone figures that out it'll be too far gone. Cool beans. If I'm still around I'll be hating and loving it in equal measure. I love change. Violent and cataclysmic being my favourite flavour but I'll settle for a planet full of doped up rubes if that's how it ends up going down.
Quote from: Cainad on July 15, 2011, 11:15:54 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 08:26:04 PM
BNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
The way I argue this is that the BNW doesn't really work towards the happiness of everyone, it works towards satiation. In reality, we've pretty well seen that people's appetites for everything are pretty much insatiable in the long term.
I think this really narrows it down with precision.
In that way, I think the "conspiracy" or whatever are very similar to the theme of the Spiders. The difference is that the BNW are working with more advanced technology and have tried to eliminate things like stress and anxiety from the equation by providing for our appetites.
The Spiders, on the other hand, rely on our stress and anxiety to help fan the flames of our appetites, to make us work harder towards very base desires (the need to feel safe, secure, and fed, etc).
AW FUCK. Now I need to RE-read BOTH of these to be up on a minutiae discussion of this calibre. I graduated from high school in 1990, so the required reading for AP English was some fucking time ago. BUT (b-u-t-t!), I thank you all for that reminder. Because although I think I identify more with Huxley's overall message, I think Orwell more or less just scarred me for life.
Quote from: Cainad on July 16, 2011, 04:02:33 AM
In that way, I think the "conspiracy" or whatever are very similar to the theme of the Spiders. The difference is that the BNW are working with more advanced technology and have tried to eliminate things like stress and anxiety from the equation by providing for our appetites.
The Spiders, on the other hand, rely on our stress and anxiety to help fan the flames of our appetites, to make us work harder towards very base desires (the need to feel safe, secure, and fed, etc).
Methinks HUXLEY would've understood the concept of these ol' Spiders...
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 08:26:04 PMBNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
In philosophy of ethics class, we learned that "norms" [aka decision procedure to determine whether something is "good"] usually are based on "values" [things that are intrinsically good, and therefore to be sought to attain].
Then we learned that the two most basic values that most [if not all] people agree upon are "happiness"
and "freedom". Not just one or the other, but
both.
Okay, so far this is just me saying that's what I was taught. One philosophical argument that tries to show why just happiness (hedonism) is not sufficient is the thought experiment of the Experience Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine), which you probably heard about [it's kinda matrix-y], but it still pays to carefully read through the reasoning and try to understand it [even if you don't agree].
Personally, I do not believe that just happiness is sufficient as the single value to strive for. It's a good one, but the hedonistic solution where everybody is drugged up just doesn't feel right. I think perhaps the Experience Machine is a slightly too extreme example to demonstrate it, though. It comes across somewhat far-fetched and therefore not entirely convincing, some simpler example might be better. And the corresponding value to complete the system might not exactly be "freedom" [but still something very much like it--creativity/originality/innovation perhaps], and I'm not sure, it'd require a lot of reasoning to test out hypotheses, and I'm not a philosopher.
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 18, 2011, 09:42:24 AM
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 08:26:04 PMBNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
In philosophy of ethics class, we learned that "norms" [aka decision procedure to determine whether something is "good"] usually are based on "values" [things that are intrinsically good, and therefore to be sought to attain].
Then we learned that the two most basic values that most [if not all] people agree upon are "happiness" and "freedom". Not just one or the other, but both.
Okay, so far this is just me saying that's what I was taught. One philosophical argument that tries to show why just happiness (hedonism) is not sufficient is the thought experiment of the Experience Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine), which you probably heard about [it's kinda matrix-y], but it still pays to carefully read through the reasoning and try to understand it [even if you don't agree].
Personally, I do not believe that just happiness is sufficient as the single value to strive for. It's a good one, but the hedonistic solution where everybody is drugged up just doesn't feel right. I think perhaps the Experience Machine is a slightly too extreme example to demonstrate it, though. It comes across somewhat far-fetched and therefore not entirely convincing, some simpler example might be better. And the corresponding value to complete the system might not exactly be "freedom" [but still something very much like it--creativity/originality/innovation perhaps], and I'm not sure, it'd require a lot of reasoning to test out hypotheses, and I'm not a philosopher.
I'm fairly sure I'd be completely fucking miserable in that world, or that machine. I saw a 'win the lotto add just half an hour ago, with people skiing through trees and I can't imagine anything more tedious than a carefree and joyful life. I like experience, and sensation and music and art; and in none of those fields do I want exclusive pleasantness. I value a piece of music like Zappas 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh' BECAUSE its a grating horrible drawn out shrieking sound, and I... 'enjoy' isn't right, but I value the experience of a break up, an injury, a car accident for the same reason I value falling in love, an adrenalin kick, a night out drinking; because they are real and are experiences which widen my world, which add depth to my narrative, which define the world I live in as not just pleasing, but harsh and sharp and scary and exciting.
Those beans in Harry Potter are a great example. Any number of shops would sell beans that taste nice, but the mix of horrible and delicious flavours lends value to the experience of eating; that thrill of uncertainty and risk that a hedonistic 'utopia' can't offer.
the counter argument given on the wiki page for the experience machine seems cogent to me.
have you heard a refutation to this counterargument?
given the three reasons that are presented as to why we would not want to be plugged into the machine:
Quote1. We want to do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them
* "It is only because we first want to do the actions that we want the experiences of doing them." (Nozick, 43)
2. We want to be a certain sort of person
* "Someone floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob." (Nozick, 43)
3. Plugging into an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality (it limits us to what we can make)
* "There is no actual contact with any deeper reality, though the experience of it can be simulated." (Nozick, 43)
We are only shown the shortcomings of the thought experiment.
if the machine were able to convince us that we were actually doing the actions, being some sort of person, and hide the synthetic nature of it, then those reasons would vanish. the initial choice of whether to engage would
not be an obvious yes for the reasons given by Elliot Sober, but once inserted the subject would be satisfied. (which leads to an interesting question of whether an altruistic hedonist would be justified in forcing or tricking others into the machine...) If the machine could not convince us of these points, then it would not be able to present the unlimited pleasure that it purports to.
Bringing it back to the real world, then, why would the argument have any weight against an 'authentic' system that can provide the pleasure that motivates us? (such as in BNW)
I don't really think that BNW is "authentic" enough. That's kind of why the protagonist is doing what he's doing. Also the people in the reservations.
But that's okay, let's assume a BNW-style utopia that is "authentic" enough.
Obviously, if the machine would be able to convince people that, in addition to happiness, they'll also have whatever they feel would be lacking (freedom), if it would 100% convince them, then yes.
But how would that work?
What would the machine need to be, to show, to be able to convince people?
I know I'd be skeptic. I'd still have to step in. And I just don't know about that. I bet there's people who wouldn't mind, though. And they'd love it (after all, the machine does exactly what is promised).
But what about the others? If the machine, or perhaps your altruistic hedonist trickster operator, were able to convince them regardless, it means that they'd in fact be controlled already before they would make the choice. Which means they were already deprived of the freedom they would have wanted to choose. And um, in that scenario, paradoxically would mean that freedom of choice is one thing the machine cannot provide, breaking its promise.
Or something. That's the best I can do :)
well the savage in BNW was unhappy because he wasn't properly conditioned to the system in the way that all the others were. he was thereby not truly in it. if he was, then he would be happy too, no? Bernard, also, was considered to be an outlier, and not properly conditioned.
regarding freedom as a means to happiness, if asked why you want freedom, you say 'because it makes me happier being able to do what i want'. if asked why you want happiness, you just give a blank stare.
we willingly give up freedoms in order to achieve greater happiness, but i think it is arguable whether we do the inverse.
if you were given the choice of giving up some degree of happiness for the sake of freedom, and assured that you would not derive any other satisfaction to lend a greater amount of happiness, would you do it?
Quote from: Iptuous on July 15, 2011, 08:26:04 PM
BNW gives me warm fuzzies.
what's to fear in a setup like that if everyone is happy and the system is sustainable and works?
I mean, we're steeped in the fiercely individualistic society, but the freedom is only a means to an end, namely, happiness, right? and iff that end can be reached without freedom, then why not?
I had this reaction to BNW too. Most of the people in BNW seem comfortable with their level of freedom. If we were viewing BNW as another culture here on earth, instead of an alternate universe, I wouldn't be so quick to judge. After all, I'm evaluating their culture based on a value which isn't present in it.
If you wrote up a description of 2011 and showed it to some Puritans a few hundred years ago, they'd certainly think they were reading a dystopian novel .... from their cultural POV, they'd view us as heathens who have lost touch with god's natural order.
But from where I'm sitting, religious tolerance and diversity is a
good thing. Women and blacks having the same right as white dudes is a
good thing. But it might not appear that way if you don't share our values.
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 07:47:15 PM
regarding freedom as a means to happiness, if asked why you want freedom, you say 'because it makes me happier being able to do what i want'. if asked why you want happiness, you just give a blank stare.
well that's the thing, freedom doesn't always make me happier. but I still want it.
it would make me very uncomfortable having to give it up, even if that's what stands in the way of True Happiness. so uncomfortable, I might (
might) rather settle for Lesser Happiness if it includes freedom. plus I'd be
free to find out if I could find Happiness all by myself. well, unless
everybody is hooked up to that machine, then it'd be kind of boring on the outside, and I'd probably jump in anyway.
Quotewe willingly give up freedoms in order to achieve greater happiness, but i think it is arguable whether we do the inverse.
if you were given the choice of giving up some degree of happiness for the sake of freedom, and assured that you would not derive any other satisfaction to lend a greater amount of happiness, would you do it?
I'd say that freedom with that condition isn't really freedom.
But I think we're going in circles a littlebit now. I'd just say that when I heard in class of how both Freedom and Happiness together make up the axes of what is Good, that really rhymed true to me. Because just Happiness would inevitably lead to hedonism, and that doesn't ring right. It's a hunch, of sorts, but I liked the way they both sort of balance each other's shortcoming. Even if Happiness's shortcoming is of the awfully sweet kind.
having been brewed in a Freedom loving society, i tend to have the same leaning as you, Trip. but, rationally it seems that it is worth giving up freedom if it guarantees happiness.
So, as another ridiculous thought experiment, if you had a little slider that would magically set, by inverse proportionality, your happiness and your freedom... it seems to me that it would not be possible, after having bumped it all the way to the happy end, to slide it back.
if there is some inverse proportionality in any sense, then it would appear that freedom is only the freedom to be unhappy. which we naturally have an aversion to.
I think the terms are unable to be pinned down, is why we're talking in circles, no?
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 09:39:11 PM
having been brewed in a Freedom loving society, i tend to have the same leaning as you, Trip. but, rationally it seems that it is worth giving up freedom if it guarantees happiness.
I maintain that you can't be happy without being free. Complacent, maybe, but that's not the same thing.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 18, 2011, 09:55:26 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 09:39:11 PM
having been brewed in a Freedom loving society, i tend to have the same leaning as you, Trip. but, rationally it seems that it is worth giving up freedom if it guarantees happiness.
I maintain that you can't be happy without being free. Complacent, maybe, but that's not the same thing.
Agreed. I just came back to my shitty life, from a week in the wilderness where I was, to all intents and purposes, 100% free. I felt the shackles of this fucking stinking society snap shut around me as I drove back into town. I won't be happy until I'm either back there or western civilisation is a smouldering pile of ashes. The booze and hash will take the edge off, some teevee and similar mindless distraction just enough to prevent me taking a match to this town myself. But this aint the land of the fucking free. It's a nation of fucking zombie slaves.
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 09:39:11 PMSo, as another ridiculous thought experiment, if you had a little slider that would magically set, by inverse proportionality, your happiness and your freedom... it seems to me that it would not be possible, after having bumped it all the way to the happy end, to slide it back.
That's a really, really, really weird thingy device you just thought up, man.
I'm not really sure if it's logically possible, either. Or even imaginable.
The part where you slide up and down your happiness is relatively easy to imagine. Just that it's gotta be more than a stimulus to your brain's pleasure center or a boost in serotonine, cause those two aren't Happiness.
But what about the other part where you slide up and down your freedom? What's that even mean?
And yeah, to answer your question, if you'd slide it all the way to the happy end, you'd be at zero freedom, so whether it stays there or not,
you won't have any say in it. You can't slide it back anyhow, cause you don't have the freedom to do so. Someone else could, OR MAYBE THEY WOULDNT JUST TO FUCK WITH YOU--OR NOT! Or the wind could blow it. Or maybe the universe would just take the entire thingy away from you because it's so ridiculous and it won't be having any of that malarkey?
Trip, yeah i guess it is broken in that sense. (i hadn't really taken it that far in my head)
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 18, 2011, 09:55:26 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 09:39:11 PM
having been brewed in a Freedom loving society, i tend to have the same leaning as you, Trip. but, rationally it seems that it is worth giving up freedom if it guarantees happiness.
I maintain that you can't be happy without being free. Complacent, maybe, but that's not the same thing.
If you are given the option to live in a world where anything
you would want to do is allowable, and anything that you would elect not to do is verboten, would you be 'free'?
I said it had been some time since we had the free will discussion! Totally called it. :D
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 11:15:10 PM
Trip, yeah i guess it is broken in that sense. (i hadn't really taken it that far in my head)
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 18, 2011, 09:55:26 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on July 18, 2011, 09:39:11 PM
having been brewed in a Freedom loving society, i tend to have the same leaning as you, Trip. but, rationally it seems that it is worth giving up freedom if it guarantees happiness.
I maintain that you can't be happy without being free. Complacent, maybe, but that's not the same thing.
If you are given the option to live in a world where anything you would want to do is allowable, and anything that you would elect not to do is verboten, would you be 'free'?
If I was allowed to change my preferences periodically... sure, I'll go with that.
I believe that in the case of the Experience Machine, this was allowed. You were allowed to ask for, say, picking a new "scenario" to live every five years or so. You'd still have to decide that beforehand, though.