ALL SCI-FI

[Gord Green]

Today our news media has indeed proven that two plus two is five!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Pow]

Saw this interesting article contrasting the differences between George Orwell's 1984 book, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. There are some folks who feel that the respective books promote the same message.

Orwell feared those who would ban books.
Huxley feared there would be no reason to ban any books, for there would be no one who wanted to read at all.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information.
Huxley feared those who would give so much info that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed.
Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture.
Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with a shallow existence in pursuit of only pleasures.

Huxley remarked in Brave New World revisited that, "civil libertarians and practitioners who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny fail to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure."

In short, Orwell feared that which we hate would ruin us. Huxley's premise was that which we love would destroy us.

As I look at our world today I can see that both authors were correct in their dire projections.

We exist in a world where government transparency has become less and less, even in so called free nations. The media is owned and operated by a handful of ginormous corporations who decide what we'll get to see, and what they want to bury. Oppressive regimes are still with us as depicted in 1984 in the 21st century. We only have to look at China, Russia, and North Korea, and the Middle East. Some South & Central American countries also operate as totalitarian dictatorships.

On Brave New World's side we see a world seeking deadly drugs in order to feel good and escape one's existence. We have other distractions galore from television channels that seem endless, computer games, cell phones. Virtual Reality games are right rearing their heads.

1984 and Brave New World have morphed together. Tragically we have the worst of both Orwell's & Huxley's dire warnings for humankind. As Pogo put is so well, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

[Bud Brewster]

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Well said, sir!

It occurred to me earlier today — while I was doing absolutely nothing productive except relaxing on my sofa, drinking beer, watching TV, playing with my computer, and posting whimsical missives on my own delightfully self-indulgent message board — that America has been invaded.

And we don't even know it.

We've been invaded by electronic devices which flood us with so much entertainment, we no longer have to entertain ourselves.

We've been invaded by so much prosperity that we don't have to struggle to survive — unless you're a member of the lower economic class whose jobs are being replaced by overseas manufacturers.

We've been invaded by so many foreign-made goods that now we don't have to work in factories and make these things ourselves. Our primary function in the world is simply to buy what other nations manufacture.

We've been invaded by impoverished people from other nations who are so desperate to earn a living in America that now WE don't have to work at the undesirable jobs which we considered beneath us.

We've been invaded by politicians who have so little regard for truth and honesty that they can get elected merely be spouting clever lies which are repeated on all the electronic devices which entertain us . . . without educating us.

I hate to say it, but it's as if the United States of America is a defeated nation. Americans have become, in effect, a conquered people.

It may well be possible that a democratic government doesn't work when an affluent population is constantly distracted by their entertaining devices and their recreational drugs and their pleasurable pursuits.

They're no longer committed to the responsibilities of citizenship.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)