someoddstuff
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2019–2025
28:13 · 2.9M views · Sep 28, 2011
Mike Wallace interviews Aldous Huxley in 1958 about the warnings in Brave New World, including mass persuasion, overpopulation and voluntary totalitarianism.
Recommended as more thought-provoking than the usual pill-popping take on Huxley.
3 comments from Hacker News
Vonnegut is good but I think (Aldous) Huxley had more to say, at least that resonated more with me. I recently discovered this 1958 interview of Huxley[1]: > This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources. …This, of course, is an extraordinary thing; something is happening which has never happened in the world's history before. I mean, let's just take a simple fact that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the Mayflower, the population of the earth doubled. It rose from two hundred and fifty million to probably five hundred million. Today, the population of the earth is rising at such a rate that it will double in half a century. [1]: this video
Aldous's pill popping from Brave New World isn't as interesting as what he said in his interview with Mike Wallace, this video
Not just Facebook but Twitter and social media as whole. We are are all voluntarily choosing to support technology that beams us deception, mistruths, and lies of omission at all times. Worse, we like it because of our own vanity. Aldous Huxley warned about a society where people voluntarily enter into a totalitarian society because they are both easily deceived and receive cheap instant gratification from those in control. Seems like we are about here. Aldous Huxley: this video