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You just need to watch the old black and white movies;

You can even go further back, and note that even animals had a job.

Horses used to have a rather common job of pulling carriages, until the internal combustion engine allowed horseless carriages.

Mules and/or oxes used to provide assistance plowing farmland. Now handled by machines

Sometimes, the job performed by the animal isn't obsolete, but simply ran out of fashion. Regardless, technology still had an impact on more than just humans.

elevator operators in high rise office blocks

There's a potential for them to return. Just check out the speculative documentary "Brave New World", where that task is given to an Epsilon, despite the trivial ability to automate it.

Allow me two literary examples, that will surely illustrate the quandry better than can I, myself.

First, I propose Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. Anybody embarking on a discussion of technophillic, purely-rational society without having read this book, speaks from a deficit. That supposedly well-educated men like De Grasse Tyson make shallow, straw-man proposals are a strong argument that Huxley's literary presentation is as valid today, as it was in 1931.
Wikipaedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
The full text of the novel: Brave New World

A second point is made metaphorically, by Gothe, in his "Sorcerer's Apprentice". It is a poem, and suffers in English. For the purpose of our argumentation, it is sufficient to be familiar with the presentation of this material in Disney's "Fantasia" - provided that an audience is equipped with an ability to understand allusions, and to make practical intuitions.

In the end, I suppose Dr. De Grasse Tyson - a delightful fellow - is adept at understanding and representing the powerful creative and intellectual efforts of others, while exhibiting little individual insight or power for deep thought.

It's been a while since I read BNW but the point of a speculative novel is to investigate a potential outcome of a scenario, not the only outcome.

BNW shows that it's possible for a "rationally" run society to still be run badly. Big friggin' surprise. It's possible to do anything badly!

Tyson's proposal was fairly simple, policy should be backed up by evidence. The idea is to discourage stupid policies where you say "we want to reduce pregnancy so we're going to teach abstinence only", or "we want to protect the environment and combat climate change by shutting down Nuclear plants".

Presumably those policies could still happen, but there would be an expectation that you're proposing law X so we can do Y you have to show your work that X will really achieve Y without other negative consequences.

You only end up doing something stupid and inhumane like eugenics if you combine scientific policy making with a complete disregard for human rights, and in case you missed in Eugenics were hardly the only inhumane set of policies from the early 20th century.

Allow me two literary examples, that will surely illustrate the quandry better than can I, myself.

First, I propose Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. Anybody embarking on a discussion of technophillic, purely-rational society without having read this book, speaks from a deficit. That supposedly well-educated men like De Grasse Tyson make shallow, straw-man proposals are a strong argument that Huxley's literary presentation is as valid today, as it was in 1931.
Wikipaedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
The full text of the novel: Brave New World

A second point is made metaphorically, by Gothe, in his "Sorcerer's Apprentice". It is a poem, and suffers in English. For the purpose of our argumentation, it is sufficient to be familiar with the presentation of this material in Disney's "Fantasia" - provided that an audience is equipped with an ability to understand allusions, and to make practical intuitions.

In the end, I suppose Dr. De Grasse Tyson - a delightful fellow - is adept at understanding and representing the powerful creative and intellectual efforts of others, while exhibiting little individual insight or power for deep thought.

It's actually a lot closer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

A fact i am very happy with...

...because I'm so glad I'm a Beta

I appreciate how simple it is to use a iPhone, and what I learned 5 years ago is still largely applicable to using one today, but with some incremental additions... There are a gazillion "Android" phones out there... how do I know if I want 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.0?, what do the different processor names mean?, can I actually compare "GHz" to get a reasonable idea of what is best (no)?, what apps will or won't run on this?

Short summary: "I'm so glad I'm a Beta"

Well, perhaps other techniques can be used to make sure we have enough people to do the tasks we insist other people do.

In case somebody misinterprets my perhaps-overly-snarky response, I'm not advocating deliberately inducing Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to ensure there are enough people who are OK with doing menial tasks, I'm questioning whether, if deliberately inducing FAS would be morally wrong (which I think it would be, just as I presume Huxley did), deliberately refusing to enhance people's intelligence because that wouldn't leave people to empty the trash cans would be morally OK.

Our society is already full of smart people that are bored doing menial tasks, or worse, think that the menial tasks are beneath them. I'm supposedly an intelligent person, but I was bored out of my mind when I did inside sales. What about the service industry or factory work? Isolating the factors of intelligence is all good and well, but beyond that we need to leave it alone. No gene therapy to make average intelligence people smarter. No Flowers for Algernon.

Well, perhaps other techniques can be used to make sure we have enough people to do the tasks we insist other people do.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is also available on-line for free ... unless, that is, you have to go through a censoring web proxy. I recommend it. It is not that long. It is interesting how much in sci-fi movies and literature that has been influenced by it.

I love how "promote the general welfare" is interpreted as a free pass for the federal government to expand its powers for anything that provides any benefit to a significant number of people.

Not to "expand its powers", no, but to spend its money. If Congress decides it is in the general welfare to buy us all ponies, it is within it Constitutional authority "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" to do so. But if Congress decides it is in the general welfare to make us all take riding lessons upon pain of imprisonment, it does not have that power.

It could, however, probably figure out a way to use its power of taxation or interstate commerce regulation to encourage people to take riding lessons, by offering tax breaks to riding teachers, say, or by requiring cargo to be taken across state lines only on pony-back.

an analysis should be done as to whether the federal government's providing of a non-essential given service/product...contributes more to the general welfare than if it just let its citizens keep their money and choose the product/service for themselves.

That's why we pick our Congress democratically (at least, in theory, corruption and the two-party stranglehold not withstanding); if you think Congress buying us ponies is a waste of money, or if you think it's ridiculous that interstate commerce must go by pony, you get to try to vote them out.

It seems that Aldous Huxley's world (or John Galt's) can be achieved through a continuous series of efforts to "promote the general welfare".

Hey, I wish our system of government could get us to something like Huxley's Island , but I don't think so. (Huxley did write more than one book, you know.)

"Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?" enquired the Assistant Predestinator. "I hear the new one at the Alhambra is first-rate. There's a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it's marvellous. Every hair of the bear reproduced. The most amazing tactual effects."

Strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It's madness. Nowadays the Controllers won't approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.

Thank goodness.

Every indication is the America is still chugging along just fine.

Such as fighting a war on two fronts? That worked well for the Germans. Or how about this?

Nah. Nothing to worry about.

America is still the richest, mightiest, most influential country in the history of the world.

One down, 62399 to go. Keep at it!

The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov

The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon has spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory.

It uses the law of mass action to predict the future on a large scale, such as of planets or empires.

Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way. He also predicts that there will be a thirty-thousand-year dark age before the next great empire rises.

To prevent this, he decides to create a small secluded haven of technology in a corner of the galaxy (on the planet Terminus) called the Foundation, whose job it will be to preserve knowledge after the collapse, thus reducing the time required for the next Empire to rebuild. If done properly, it will take only a thousand years before the next empire rises.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Series

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

"I'd like to show you some very interesting conditioning for Alpha Plus Intellectuals. We have a big batch of them on Rack 5. First Gallery level."

http://www.huxley.net/bnw/

1984 by George Orwell

WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/

Source page where quotes came from is OFF TOPIC from discussion and has nothing with this thread. It is presented as 'source reference only', no need to visit:

http://www.flyingsnail.com/Scrapbook/page001.html

Please read before moderation. This post is an attempt to provoke imagination and humor in this thread and (imo) is on topic. Thank You ... A.C.

- No, I do not speak languages other than English but that doesn't mean that I am as you implied American.
I did not imply: I presumed you were, given your arguments.
I am sorry if you only speak one language... that makes it probably harder to understand multi-cultural issues.
And you are likely from either some former British colony or from the UK (i.e. one of those who did not like to go metric) ?
.
.
.
- Cultures aren't terribly important---and making it seem like they are is another way of trying to divide people against each other.
Until reading this statement of yours I thought I had a point, and was going to keep replying to it all, but with that you convinced me... the only important thing is to be happy.
Au revoir, anonymous coward. Auf wiedersehen. Addio. Ba beneen yoon. Sayonara. Dovidjenja. Hasta la vista, baby.

• Feel inadequate and scared when someone cuts you off in traffic?
• Experience diminished self-esteem when you try to compile some code, and the compiler yells at you?
• Need a new emotion management system to help you navigate social experience choices?

For all of the references to H.G.Wells, it seems to me that something more like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is much more likely. In Huxley's pre-Watson-and-Crick world, the creation of the sub-classes was done by environmental rather than genetic manipulation, something that seems fairly common today in the form of in utero damage to embryos by drugs and alcohol. We also have post partum physical and mental damage by many environmental factors such as lead paint, radiation, pesticides, chemical wastes, television, and Wayne Newton's "music." If you want to find today's Deltas and Epsilons, you need look no farther than the bad neighborhoods of the nearest medium to large city.

I'll bet you do- it would take a Delta-minus to find that joke funny.

"Roof!" called a creaking voice.

The liftman was a small simian creature, dressed in the black tunic of an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron.

"Roof!"

He flung open the gates. The warm glory of afternoon sunlight made him start and blink his eyes. "Oh, roof!" he repeated in a voice of rapture. He was as though suddenly and joyfully awakened from a dark annihilating stupor. "Roof!"

He smiled up with a kind of doggily expectant adoration into the faces of his passengers. Talking and laughing together, they stepped out into the light. The liftman looked after them.

"Roof?" he said once more, questioningly.

Then a bell rang, and from the ceiling of the lift a loud speaker began, very softly and yet very imperiously, to issue its commands. (Aldous Huxley: Brave New World)

George Orwell called it "soma."

No, Aldous Huxley called it "soma."

Hey man, ;), maybe capitalism is just a transitory stepping stone along how we go about doing things... A future where we don't have to eat soma would be nice too... Now, if this dang IntarWEb would just work all the time...

Soma

100 million out of 1,306,313,812 is not a majority. Actually, it's nowhere close.

So even if the complete 100 million online Chinese had everything they could want, a much larger chunk of the population is really unhappy with the state of their existence. Report on the subject. Basically, the American people are given all the Soma they want. By the time we need to stand up for ourselves, we won't know how.

This was the original draft of their plan

I wish he'd post his real name so I could mark him an enemy.

"Depression, of course, is the failure of society to admit that with our 'up' moods must come 'down' stages. If we're never down how can we truly enjoy being upbeat and happy?"

Are you really that stupid? Depression is a known medical illness. I'm not talking about "man today sucks" depression, I'm talking about Clinical Depression. Again, slashdot readers, if you're not a doctor, perhaps you shouldn't be commenting on things you have no clue about.

As for your Brave New World reference, some would say its a complete sham. After all, you don't see anyone complaining about taking medication to defeat illness or aging - only when it comes to mental health do people start saying "suck it up"!

> Time to patent my own stuff:
> Description: generic device that makes people happy, feel good, have a good sex life,
> be smarter, stronger and have any benefit anyone could ever have hoped for.
> Prior art: none

Correction:

Prior art: Aldos Huxley's Brave New World

Nice try anyway.

... finally.

Now let us just hope that we ourselves do not conflict with any (coming) patent so that we can take full advantage.

More seriously (?):

Sony hasn't yet built a device that works based on the ideas presented in the patent, so this is all theoretical. In fact, according to the New Scientist, Sony hasn't even conducted any experiments to see if this works. Nonetheless, most of the reporting on this patent (see the Times Online and the original New Scientist peice) claim that some independent experts have said that the idea is plausible. There's no word yet on whether or not tinfoil will stop the ultrasonic brain rays.

Strange. I bet there are some among the crowd here who have "theoretical ideas" that level up with SONY. IIRC, in ancient times it was necessary to present a working model (at least here in .de).

CC.

• 'Sonoma: The chip that puts you to sleep'
  
• 'Sonoma: The chip thats always sleeping'

Adolphus B. Huxley

I think you're supposed to think of Aldous Huxley

Probably just another hoax, particularly given the icon the story has.

...

"But in Epsilons," said Mr. Foster very justly, "we don't need human intelligence.""

I want my Brave New World!

Dammit, now give me my Soma!

Or one might simply peruse a copy of Huxley's prophetic Brave New World...

And wonder how are the themes of Brave New World any different than the themes of the US government (or any government) of today?

The Themes of Brave New World

1. COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY- VERSUS INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM

Community, Identity, Stability is the motto of the World State. It lists the Utopia's prime goals. Community is in part a result of identity and stability. It is also achieved through a religion that satirizes Christianity- a religion that encourages people to reach solidarity through sexual orgy. And it is achieved by organizing life so that a person is almost never alone.

Identity is in large part the result of genetic engineering. Society is divided into five classes or castes, hereditary social groups. In the lower three classes, people are cloned in order to produce up to 96 identical "twins." Identity is also achieved by teaching everyone to conform, so that someone who has or feels more than a minimum of individuality is made to feel different, odd, almost an outcast.

Stability is the third of the three goals, but it is the one the characters mention most often- the reason for designing society this way. The desire for stability, for instance, requires the production of large numbers of genetically identical "individuals," because people who are exactly the same are less likely to come into conflict. Stability means minimizing conflict, risk, and change.

2. SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF CONTROL

Brave New World is not only a Utopian book, it is also a science-fiction novel. But it does not predict much about science in general. Its theme "is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals," Huxley said in the Foreword he wrote in 1946, 15 years after he wrote the book. He did not focus on physical sciences like nuclear physics, though even in 1931 he knew that the production of nuclear energy (and weapons) was probable. He was more worried about dangers that appeared more obvious at that time- the possible misuse of biology, physiology, and psychology to achieve community, identity, and stability. Ironically, it becomes clear at the end of the book that the World State's complete control over human activity destroys even the scientific progress that gained it such control.

3. THE THREAT OF GENETIC ENGINEERING Genetic engineering is a term that has come into use in recent years as scientists have learned to manipulate RNA and DNA, the proteins in every cell that determine the basic inherited characteristics of life. Huxley didn't use the phrase but he describes genetic engineering when he explains how his new world breeds prescribed numbers of humans artificially for specified qualities.

4. THE MISUSE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING Every human being in the new world is conditioned to fit society's needs- to like the work he will have to do. Human embryos do not grow inside their mothers' wombs but in bottles. Biological or physiological conditioning consists of adding chemicals or spinning the bottles to prepare the embryos for the levels of strength, intelligence, and aptitude required for given jobs. After they are "decanted" from the bottles, people are psychologically conditioned, mainly by hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching. You might say that at every stage the society brainwashes its citizens.

5. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS CARRIED TO AN EXTREME A society can achieve stability only when everyone is happy, and the brave new world tries hard to ensure that every person is happy. It does its best to eliminate any painful emotion, which means every deep feeling, every passion. It uses genetic engineering and conditioning to ensure that everyone is happy with his or her work.

6. THE CHEAPENING OF

Just what we need; a sexophone.

Brave New World. An excellent book, I might add.

Someone needs to read Brave New World

Did anyone else spot this one?

"I think the Buffalo experiment is getting children ready for the brave new world (emphasis mine)"
--Gary Stillman, Director, Enterprise Charter School

Huxley, anyone?

This quickly wanders OFF-TOPIC and then drives the highway metaphor into a ditch, but that is because the topic at hand (moronic metaphors) does influence said OFF topic; which is in fact, in a ditch anyway. So mod this thing sKiz0phr3niK (if it ever gets read at all) because I don't know where such a tautological polemic belongs, but the fact that that is precisely what this entry is, helps me to believe that it belongs with the rest of its ilk(see brief excerpt) somewhere on /.. So if your socio-technological imagination rides around in a vintage four-wheel drive vehicle , it's time to get out and lock the wheel hubs for this rocky off-road rant, or if you're used to existential off-roading PKD-style, then take off the seat belt and enjoy banging your head against the roof with every ill-advised turn, ahead.

I'm glad that this issue of broken highway metaphors is finally helping some people realize the flaccidy ... er, fallacy of the driving metaphor to desribe the Internet; although my skeptical side wagers that many of the people now saying the highway metaphor is retarded for access are the same people who defended the metaphor with regards to transit (bandwidth). My point is, let's link this line of thinking back to the Ethernet First Mile bandwidth issue, because the two are not unrelated.

Capacity, capability, culpability, and community are all interdependent with respect to building the rest of the Internet. Contrary to popular mass delusion, as of the end of 2003, the Internet is less than 50% built. It will not be complete until there is free and unfettered Ethernet Everywhere.

As the current stupid "driver license" idea clearly reveals with respect to access, so transit (bandwidth) is not like a highway, either. The Internet doesn't take you somewhere, that was a FICTION work, but many still seem mindfscked into believing that, at least on a subconscious level. (Also mindfsked was the hype about the movie, apparently.)

The Internet is communication, not transportation. The Information Superhighway is perhaps one of the most malevolent memes unleashed on the world since "the most bewitching and insidious work of literature ever written," namely, Brave New World (and I even voted for the True President, Al Gore!). The highway metaphor is the underlying lie that is giving government the idea that it should own our communication infrastructure! Ummm ... didn't we just topple the evil Soviet Empire for doing things like running all state-controlled communications channels? For all his own misplaced highwayisms, our True President Gore did NOT envision a government owned and controlled Internet; but don't tell that to local government control freaks. If a municipality suggested that it own all of the phone, radio, and TV transmission facilities, can you imagine the uproar? But somehow it's a daydream for government to build and own the communications medium that transcends the Old Comms Trinity.

I propose that we get our analogies consistent and make a concerted effort to destroy this Highway to Hell internet metaphor. I'm amazed on a daily basis at the lengths supposedly smart people will go to defe

Have none of you read Brave New World? Cheap mass produced disposable items keeps people buying and employed.

To mend old consumables is just uncivilized.

Do your part... Buy shitty products and toss them BEFORE they expire.

Another novel that was prescient in its time is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Though in the present we hear a lot of moralizing against society, the norms of our culture are much as Aldous Huxley describes. Encouraged to be promiscuous, to worship youth and vanity, and to use mind-altering substances (i.e., caffeine, prozac, alcohol...) the city-dwellers are very much the young adults of our present age. Even a would-be messiah in the person of a "primitive" is just another quaint distraction in the eyes of these poor humans spoon-fed on the distractions of pop-culture, which is why the Social Engineers aren't concerned about him.

The Entire Text is Here

An interesting critique of Brave New World from a smart drugs advocate. A very well documented site WRT psychoactive drugs, and a very informational source -- it's not your usual "ecstasy is soo cool" kind of stuff, but rather a very documented analysis of current research on psychopharmacology and their application to what the author calls "paradise engineering".

Or perhaps Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World" from which this quote was blatantly plagiarized?

So when do I get my damn soma?

Woz

If you could write well and thought of that about 75 years ago, you could've come out with a classic sci-fi anti-utopian book!

Great, all we need now is the Bokanovsky's Process and we have reached the Brave New World. Exactly why are they doing this?

"A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.

The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables.

"And this," said the Director opening the door, "is the Fertilizing Room."[...]

"Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you are. For the first time in history." He quoted the planetary motto. "Community, Identity, Stability." Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved."

Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.

for more: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Lest this newsbyte starts another great flame-war of evilution vs. theo-crap, I'll avoid giving an opinion.

We are now evolving our species (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) by using pre-birth DNA screening and genetic reengineering. Ova can be frozen, analyzed and modified before implantation (assuming in-vitro fertilization). Sounds like a Brave New World don't it?

I suggest everyone, of whatever viewpoint, read this fine Cal Berkeley site.

Btw, I suggest you read the book Ever Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould.

It isn't hard to read. It is available online for free reading. Have a look. I took the time out to read it - and now I know what the parent to this post is on about.

Wrong book; try Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Arthur Klebanoff, CEO of RosettaBooks, said, "We are delighted to take our marketing relationship with Adobe and our distribution services relationship with Reciprocal to the next level. RosettaBooks prides itself on being ePublishing leader for quality content, innovative marketing, and critically-acclaimed titles. This first of its kind offering of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is just the beginning of a brave new world of literature and technology."

Arthur Klebanoff, CEO of RosettaBooks, said, "We are delighted to take our marketing relationship with Adobe and our distribution services relationship with Reciprocal to the next level. RosettaBooks prides itself on being ePublishing leader for quality content, innovative marketing, and critically-acclaimed titles. This first of its kind offering of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is just the beginning of a brave new world of literature and technology."

Engineering social division and control with more and more mechanical means: just think about very basic stuff like vaccine, contraception or basic hygienic facilities that poorer countries do not have access to...

Just is just an terrible extension of the big guys desire to stay in control.

--