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Comment by roel_v | Hacker News Reader

The book also explicitly describes that these castes are perfectly happy being who they are. They are happy and proud to be in their caste and have no desires to be in another caste. All inhabitants are happy and feel at place in life. So now where's the problem? Is there an inherent moral evil in social strata, when those people have no desire for class mobility?

I mean I'm all in favor of letting and encouraging people to develop themselves into who they want to be, but the society in the book is one where everybody is everything he/she wants to be! I fail to understand the moral wrong in that.

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Everyone in BNW is effectively programmed at birth. The system seems designed to suppress innovation, which many value highly. It could be argued that unhappiness drives innovation, productivity and progress, in much the same way profit motive does.

My desire to be a productive person stems from my experiences with short term happiness. No matter how many movies, video games or hobbies I enjoy in the short term, I will eventually feel a lack of deeper fulfillment if I don't accomplish something significant.

The happiness offered by the system in BNW seems to provide only this fleeting happiness without addressing the longer term "contented" style of happiness. I think this is what people react negatively to. It is hard to imagine a "cheat" to fulfillment because so many people spend their lives searching for it unsuccessfully.

The characters in BNW have apparently been modified or conditioned to lack this drive. Or their drive has been subverted to meet the goals of society. Whether you think this type of happiness can or should be provided artificially is up to you.

Everyone is happy and proud to be in their caste because their brains have been programmed to be happy and proud about their status in life.

Does slavery become alright as long as you brainwash slaves into thinking they are content?

"Does slavery become alright as long as you brainwash slaves into thinking they are content?"

Well that's my question. It stops being "slavery" at the point that the "slave" doesn't feel like a slave anymore and is happy about their situation, doesn't it? I see on television (yeah, I know...) people in SM lifestyles who go out on the internet to find somebody who they can give complete control over their lives, much like a slave I guess. Is that OK? I see no problem with it.

I know you say 'thinking they are content', which is different from what the book says (and I'm assuming the SM slave is also truly content, and not made believe to be so, or psychologically damaged to the point they can't recognize content). The book says that they were actually content, I'm reasoning from that assumption. I guess one could say 'it's impossible to make people truly content through these means"; fine, that's a valid position, and I agree. I'm just going from abstract assumptions as they were framed in the book.

I had very similar thoughts when I read the book. It seems to me that if there is no desire for class mobility then strata are not evil.

However, humans being what they are, it seems impossible to guarantee that lack of desire. This is (kind of) demonstrated by Bernard's discontent and by John the Savage's inability to cope with the society. Both were weak cases. Bernard because he was privileged, and John because he was a total outsider that was not acclimated to the culture.

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