Maximillian Kaizen's Profile

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.



What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared 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 some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed 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, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.



This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."

Online or off, all of this congregating is really just a product of biological necessity. Research indicates that engaging with friends helps us live longer and better lives, with those with strong friendship bonds having lower incidents of heart disease. They even get fewer colds and flu.

A decade-long Australian study found that for the duration of the study, subjects with a sizable network of friends were 22% less likely to pass away than those with a small circle of friends, and the distance separating two friends and the amount of contact made no difference. It didn't matter if the friends stayed in contact via phone, by letter or email. Just the fact they had a social network of friends acted as a protective barrier.

A research project by Paul Zak, a professor of economics and the founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate University, found that when a test subject learns that another person trusts him or her, the level of oxytocin, a hormone that circulates in his brain, rises.

"The stronger the signal of trust, the more oxytocin increases," wrote Zak, whose primary interest is neuroeconomics -- a discipline that attempts to gauge how the brain's neurologic functions process decisions involving money. Trust, Zak learned, fosters more trust. The more oxytocin swimming around your brain, the more other people trust you.

Notably, the test subjects had no direct contact with one another. All of their interactions took place by computer and with people whose identity they didn't know. "Trust works as an 'economic lubricant' that affects everything from personal relationships to global economic development,