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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

See, I'm just the opposite. With as hedonistic as human nature seems to be, it makes perfect sense that the pursuit of happiness leads to nothing but; in other words, A Brave New World.

1984 felt just too dystopian. It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into.

A Brave New World? That's simply distraction taken to the nth degree. Perfectly plausible.

I read Huxley's book when I was a teenager, and as you said, it shaped how I see things. Moderation and critical thinking are key in everything (moderation, even in moderation).

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> A Brave New World? That's simply distraction taken to the nth degree. Perfectly plausible.

Good point. Technology can help create newer, more engaging distractions. Magic Leap hopes to offer a new "magical" layer on top of reality, when their devices are "on", for instance.

> 1984 felt just too dystopian. It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into.

This is part of why there's such a push towards punishing intelligence community whistleblowers. When the public is made aware of the mass surveillance programs, they do say "No thank you."

Both books examine a different facet of human nature, and they both remain relevant to this day.

> Technology can help create newer, more engaging distractions.

Watching how people react to the Occulus, "OMG it's sooo real!" I can't help thinking how badly screwed we are as a species when it goes mainstream. FarmVille addiction, World of Warcraft will look like a walk in the park to Occulus addicts who no longer know or care what reality is. Perhaps I'm just overly pessimistic

I don't think that's going to happen.

No matter now realistic Oculus appears, it's still just a device strapped to your face - it's not that immersive.

Maybe not the Oculus Rift but that's coming out soon, one can only imagine what the next 10-20 years will bring. Here is Ray Kurzweil helping with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=660oel93vZA

Which is why people wearing corrective lenses feel so detached from the world. You are seriously underestimating the ability of the human brain to tune out irrelevant inputs.

Eventually it will just be a pair of contact lenses, or even an ocular implant.

Even then, you're aware of the contacts or the implant, unless you're living in the Matrix and were genetically engineered with a AV jack in your spinal column.

Their overall point stands, though.

If people can get this addicted and consumed to World of Warcraft or Facebook games, imagine what will happen when that's literally at eye-level.

I imagine much of the same will happen. People will live their lives like always, and sometimes escape to a fantasy world, just now using a different new technology. Also like now, some will be addicts. We've had many new entertainment technologies come and go, each one thought to be more engaging than the last, but the fundamental behaviors of human beings seem to be the same.

I think the mind makes it real, even when it's words on a page or dots on a tiny screen. So I honestly don't think it's going to make a lot of difference.

The first time I saw a 3D movie it was incredibly immersive. But after a few, the brain reconfigures its expectations, and the same inputs are interpreted as "just a movie".

>"When the public is made aware of the mass surveillance programs, they do say "No thank you"" Actually they say "I've got nothing to hide" or "there is nothing you can do anyway"

>It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into.

The current state of North Korea indicates that this statement is wrong. When the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked against you, its hard to start a rebellion.

Granted, things weren't looking very good for the U.S. when the revolutionary war began, but we had astronomically good odds when compared to the average North Korean.

Absolute dictatorships are funny things. Romania under Ceaucescu was not far short of North Korea and seemed pretty stable for decades, but then some brave soul said "Boo" during one of the Leader's speeches and it all fell apart within 24 hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution

I can fairly easily envision the same happening in North Korea, where by all accounts nearly the entire population is dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. One big protest in Pyongyang, and boom.

The US revolution was not a revolution for independence of a oppressive regim. I mean common, in many ways the americans or rather english americans where better or just as well of as the english themselfs.

I have been listening to lecture about the english empire and comparing americans with the lower class in North Korea is quite a strech.

Our revolution had much better chances because, in spite of the seemingly overwhelming odds, we still had quite a bit going for us, unlike the North Koreans.

I never suggested that we were battling an oppressive regime. Literally the entire point of my comment was to highlight the difference between us and North Korea; I didn't suggest the things you seem to think I did.

>1984 felt just too dystopian. It just tasted wrong; like someone would have stood up and said, "No thank you" well before the point the book stepped into.

Where exactly is that inflection point? So far, we've complained a lot, yet we slide more into it every day, and statistically, no one is leaving.

Intelligence services are currently setting up the ultimate tool for creating a totalitarian state that cannot be overthrown. Every little bit of dissent can be stopped cold with an all-seeing intelligence apparatus. Historically a dictator needed soldiers and police officers to enforce his power. A single human couldn't be a dictator against the will of the army and police. We are building fully automated weapons that need no human pilot. This means that a single person can command an army without depending on anybody else.

If these two developments are allowed to continue, 1984 doesn't sound unlikely at all to me. There just needs to be one point in history where somebody grabs the power, and then it will be impossible to take that power away.

That wrong taste may be a luxury we have now.

From what I've heard, 1984 was passed around as "samizdat" in the Soviet Union, and many were convinced George Orwell was actually living in the Soviet Union since his descriptions were so true to their lives.

Interesting. Maybe it's a matter of where we grew up.

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