/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10936318]

>reading brave new world in english class
>first chapter, all the test tube babies/eugenics/pavlovian conditioning/etc
>dude goes "ok but isn't this all really good for society"
>mfw

[Anonymous No.10936330]

>>10936318

[Anonymous No.10936336]

>>10936318
He's getting at the scariest aspect of BNW, even if he doesn't realize it. What if midnless pleasure and contentedness are superior to strife and struggle and (often) failure? The truth is most of us would take the former if given the opportunity.

[Anonymous No.10936375]

>>10936336
>What if midnless pleasure and contentedness are superior to strife and struggle


except there are a thousand ways to feel pain and only one way to be happy. the human fitness function developed to deal with overcoming adversity and surviving, not being a plankton sunning itself peacefully.

[Anonymous No.10936388]

>>10936375
Have you read the book?

[Anonymous No.10936391]

>>10936318
literally a key aspect you brainlet

[Anonymous No.10936396]

Wheres that picture anons share comparing BNW sand 1984?

[Anonymous No.10936409]

>>10936318
BNW fans explain this to me:

I read the book years ago but something stuck with me. Mainly it's the choice between:

A. You can use eugenics to create a society of 100% alphas but then it will burn to the ground because nobody wants to be a janitor.
B. You can use eugenics to create a caste system, making retarded epsilons on purpose. This will create a stable society.
C. You can let nature take its course, in which case the caste system (including "natural" epsilons) will emerge on its own. This society will also be stable, albeit less than B.

Given the above, why is B portrayed as SO sinister? Why is the government making you a brainlet and putting you into a lower stratum evil, but if nature does it it's okay?

[Anonymous No.10936420]

>>10936409
This.
But we'll create B through robotics and AI.

[Anonymous No.10936425]

>>10936409
because human beings are inherently unstable and trying to build some monolithic structure that lasts forever stands against everything it means to be a human being (overcoming limitations, invention, infinite growth).

thats what differentiates man from animal, we stop nature and make it our bitch.

[Anonymous No.10936433]

>a filthy frank fan being an edgelord
shocking

[Anonymous No.10936456]

>>10936425
I'd argue humans are inherently stable, relatively speaking. We're not that much more intelligent than the other species, but we're extremely cooperative. Haidt says we're chimp-bee hybrids.

I'm confused as to your point. Which situation (A, B, C) would you actually prefer?

[Anonymous No.10936458]

>>10936433
Filthy Frank is a modern day Diogenes. OP is assuredly a patrician

[Anonymous No.10936502]

>>10936409
B, the society portrayed in the book, was essentially a society in stasis. Just enough people were brought into society at the exact rate in the exact caste so as to keep things running exactly as they were in perpetuity. The government purposefully avoided discovery, exploration, creation, research, thought and anything and everything else that could impose any sort of change on the system. It's as if humanity reached a certain point and said "we'll stop here" without fear of ever going backwards or forwards, up or down, side to side, or any other direction at all. There was really nothing human about it. Nature doesn't "put you into a lower stratum", nature doesn't decide anything because it's not sapient. There are no guarantees in nature, it's in perpetual flux, which is really the opposite of the society portrayed in the book.

[Anonymous No.10936537]

>>10936458
OP is assuredly a retarded reddit influx, and so are you.

[Anonymous No.10936539]

>>10936456
>Not that much more intelligent than other species

We are vastly more intelligent than the majority of other species and significantly more intelligent than Dolphins, Bonobos, Chimps, Elephants etc.

[Anonymous No.10936541]

>>10936318
he's a gamma, leave him alone

[Anonymous No.10936542]

>>10936456
We have natural language which allows us to create infinite sets and discover mathematics (this differentiates us from animals as much as 0 and 1 are infinitely far apart). humans are neither innately cooperative or competitive, they are self-interested and adapt to whatever situation would benefit the immediate survival and chance to reproduce (they aren't bees or crocodiles). no animal species is stable, the best adapted plants and animals live in an uneasy equilibrium as part of a giant food ecosystem network. humans are very poorly adapted physically to live in wild environments. the best adapted human civilisations are the ones which emerged in colder climates with limited access to food and developed novel ways to long term plan and survive inclement conditions. the best adapted physical humans are the ones which emerged in warmer climates with thicker skin, immunity to malaria and other blood and parasite diseases, darker skin pigmentation for protection against solar radiation, no need for clothes, can be hunter gatherers for much longer.

the history of the past 13,000 years is a clash between the north and south, and eventual human admixture (globalisation, multiculturalism, one global system). if you track the ancient civilisations you will find them appearing on the terminator line (equator) between north and south, in semi-temperate regions where both physical adaptations and social adaptations are taken into consideration to build small villages and then later cities and roads and empires, in part to defend themselves against animals and other humans moving from the hemispheres towards the center, in part to exploit the fertile crescent and major rivers in asia. china is hemmed in by ocean desert and mountain, india is surrounded by mountains, the middle east and egypt therefore became the origin point of new expansion and the italian peninsula was the closest next point for them going north (sumerians, babylonians, egyptians, phonecians, akkadians, persians, mycenaeans etc).


why is all this relevant? well it contradicts your position that humans are stable, if humans were stable we would've remained in the stone age happily evolving ever so slowly like we had been for millions of years prior. some strange mutation or intervention occurred over 150,000 years ago and then a worldwide catastrophe 13,000 years ago almost killed our species off. ever since you start getting exponential explosion.

A and B imply worldwide communism, C implies you know what 'nature' will do- you don't know how we got here let alone where we are going. All three are false choices. We are in constant revolution against C, and any attempts at setting up A or B will lead to disaster, which is why all those dystopian novels were written at the turn of the last century to try and warn planners and politicians that they should not attempt at building new pyramids.

I'm guessing we will continue to grow in number up to 50-60 billion by 2100.

[Anonymous No.10936550]

>>10936537
No i hate reddit or should i say PLEBBIT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH XDDDDDD

[Anonymous No.10936554]

>>10936456
>Humans are inherently stable

The last 4000 years of human history indicate otherwise.

[Anonymous No.10936565]

>>10936542
>I'm guessing we will continue to grow in number up to 50-60 billion by 2100.

What is your reasoning for this?

[Anonymous No.10936572]

>>10936542
>evolving ever so slowly like we had been for millions of years prior

The time between Australopithecus and erectus is massive.

>worldwide catastrophe 13,000 years ago

Don't you mean ~70,000?

[Anonymous No.10936589]

>>10936565
it's hard to get africans and asians to stop fucking. energy will be almost free and food will be grown artificially to meet any demand (as long as human labour, physical or intellectual can be leveraged against the cost of growing it + some profit margin). i suspect the meaning of life is to leave some kind of legacy, and this is easier done when you become the matriarch or patriarch of a 10-15 child family. and the earth is REALLY REALLY empty. we could fit a trillion people and still have wild spaces left behind.

new ideas are needed with respect to having 100-200 million population cities, i imagine they will go underground as deep as they go above ground and have some kind of logic to them (above ground are the poor people exposed to increasing solar radiation and pollution, below ground are the rich people who can protect themselves from natural and man made disasters on the surface). i also think we are under 2 decades away from another world war which will see a death toll of 1 billion, possibly precipitated by a manufactured pandemic and economic crisis.

since i have no evidence that any of this is likely, it's purely empty speculation based on assuming the next 100 years wont be too dissimilar from the previous 100, people being people. as an aside AI and smart computers are a marketing scam and there wont be artificial human like consciousness this century.

>>10936572
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis

it's controversial.

[Anonymous No.10936601]

>>10936589
>it's controversial.

I've read some fiction about the period, People of the Nightland.

[Anonymous No.10936627]

Huxley's worst book. Go read Devils of Loudon you plebs.

[Anonymous No.10936645]

>>10936589
I think you fail to account for the birth rate reduction that occurs as countries become more developed.

Africa will stabilise it's population and most of the developed world is well on it's way to achieving one child per person or less.

The earth may be relatively empty, but this does not imply that we will fill it quicker. More and more so the spaces which remain unsettled are the most inhospitable which will take the most effort to colonise.

I think a lot of these things will happen eventually. Underground cities will become prevalent, cities will massively increase in population and there will be a world war again at some point, for better or for worse. However, will all this happen in the next 80 years? Almost certainly not. The rate of population growth is declining and will continue to decline, thus the population will reach equilibrium at some point in the next 80 years. Current predictions suggest that 11 billion will be breached before 2100 but population will not increase much more after this.

A note on the war: We live in the most peaceful time in human history. Despite globalisation, international relationships have never been more stable. MAD has effectively cucked the world so that the great powers have to fight each other through pseudo-wars in the middle east or through economic sanctions and trade wars.

[Anonymous No.10936679]

>>10936645
>birth rate reduction that occurs as countries become more developed

a 40 year trend based on a massive propaganda schedule (pro-abortion, pro-sexual liberation, anti-monogamy, anti-gender differences) and the assumption you can turn women into men for the purposes of economic growth and taxation, did not factor in feedback effects (like women changing that it means to work when they start working). this model is about to be upended by the rapid automation of most current jobs, freeing up of peoples time to fuck and have kids.

if your point had validity then the population would've been declining for thousands of years as we got more and more developed. in fact, technological development leads to rampant population growth, always, at every point in history.


>a note on the war

i think pinker is dubious at best and you should be careful into any reading of history that tries to compare things like violence or disease. way more people die a violent death today, proportions don't really matter since we have a step ladder not a smooth curve (without fertilizer we would not be over 2-3 billion, many other examples). the real reason we have less war is superficial, it took 2 generations to regenerate europe, war makers are farmers, they plant, tend and watch. harvest only occurs when the fruit is ripening.

[Anonymous No.10936691]

I never understood the principal of BNW. How can there be only pleasure if there is no pain involved.
Bulgakov said it best
>What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.

[Anonymous No.10936698]

>>10936679
So you think automation will completely change the current trends? As you pointed out the sexual revolution has separated the sex act from reproduction... surely people will continue to 'fuck' but not have kids?

Ngl don't know what or who 'Pinker' is.

Sorry but most of the rest is incomprehensible nonsense.

[Anonymous No.10936704]

>>10936698
this is lit, i assumed you knew your sources when you started citing propaganda.
>The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined Book by Steven Pinker

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/steven-pinker-this-is-historys-most-peaceful-time-new-study-not-so-fast/

i think current trends are manufactured and don't tell you much, expect who is trying to rule the world (international banking families). fucking without having kids is meaningless (spiritually, emotionally) for most people. it's like eating without shitting. sounds good in theory, in practice it would lead to giant cultural malaise, death, and rebirth. this is why the far-right lunatic fringe is in the public eye again, they see an opportunity to lead the blind and revolt against the established order. you have to factor in india and china and africa now, where family is still a very important glue for social cohesion and stability. it will be difficult to convince them to stop having children.

eg. the one child policy in china was often ignored at great personal risk to the parents.

[Anonymous No.10936789]

>>10936375
it's super estranged. Don't forget drug use is encouraged.

[Anonymous No.10936790]

>>10936704
Not sure what propaganda I have cited. It is just a fact that we live in the most peaceful time in world history. It doesn't take a genius to work that out.

This is /lit/ so maybe try using capital letters and making actual points you massive fucking pseud.

[Anonymous No.10936796]

>>10936790
ladies and gentlemen, nulit.

[Anonymous No.10936809]

>>10936336
>What if midnless pleasure and contentedness are superior to strife and struggle and (often) failure?
One can only answer this question through an act of choice, exercising one's free will. There's no other way to earnestly tell which is superior, no external criteria.