<p>Its a place with no war
There is no violence, anger, or sadness
All your problems can be solved by soma
Everyone has a place and a job
Everyone works for each other</p>
<p>Although there is no progress, why would anyone want to progress something that is already perfect?</p>
<p>Wouldn't you want to live in this world? How is this a dystopia??</p>
<p>I did like the idea that everyone’s body belongs to everyone else…</p>
<p>For all of the reasons that John and Helmholtz point out in the book. People are happy, but they’re far from free. Life is completely devoid of any sort of meaning for the citizens of the World State, unless leading a completely hedonistic life is attractive to anyone. Intellectual and scientific development are discouraged, not to mention that people’s lives are pretty much entirely predestined.</p>
<p>I would say it’s a dystopia.</p>
<p>Yeah the irony of a utopia is that it is too perfect. Too perfect in the sense that it is inherently a dystopia because there is an absence of progress and improvement, and of meaning.</p>
<p>After all, what good is life when you know it is at its peak and cannot get any better?</p>
<p>Double post, sorry. But that just reminded me of something I learned in AP Euro. The word “utopia” was first used in its modern sense by Thomas More in his book titled Utopia. The word, taken from Latin I believe, actually means “nowhere.” Thomas More was making a statement that there is nowhere in the world that is perfect and that perfection is impossible.</p>
<p>Considering this, it is somewhat ironic that later attempts at creating utopian societies, such as the Oneida community in the early 19th century, believed that perfection could indeed be attained, hence the founding of the communities.</p>
<p>thats silly though because you want life to be good. So what if you aren’t free? You don’t live to find meaning, you live to find happiness</p>
<p>Also, wikipedia says that utopia comes from</p>
<p>The word comes from the Greek: οὐ, “not”, and τόπος, “place”. The English homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ, “good” or “well”, and τόπος, “place”, signifies a double meaning.</p>
<p>Edit: nvmd, i read further down and then they said that its just a homophone</p>
<p>
Not necessarily always true.</p>
<p>for many people</p>
<p>So it was Greek, okay.</p>
<p>And I don’t know about you, but I tend to find happiness in a meaningful life. And I tend to find meaning in the freedom to do whatever I should choose, given that I choose to do something I think is meaningful.</p>
<p>But if you lived in the brave new world you won’t be born to want meaning. Everyone would not care about meaning and be happy.</p>
<p>I think it is certainly a better place that the real world.</p>
<p>How would this world be better than a world with everyone dead?</p>
<p>
Huh? How would this come to be? I think that the desire for meaning is something inherent to humans.</p>
<p>Also, with your scenario – if we are all just pleasure receptacles, then why don’t we just hospitalize everyone and pump them up with dopamine and endorphins until they die?</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, too much dopamine causes schizophrenia, so they would have to regulate the supply pretty well.</p>
<p>I read this last year, after my teacher promised us 1984, but gave us Brave New World instead. I was ****ed at first, but after finishing, I was so glad she picked it instead! Where as 1984 I’ve been meaning to read for the past few years, I’d never heard of Brave New World, and probably never would have.</p>
<p>Well if they just gave them dopamine then eventually the hierachry and order would fall away. People woudn’t want to do their jobs and the dopamine making process would stop. it works in BNW because people DO like their jobs.</p>
<p>^^ Because they were conditioned to be like that? Have you read the book?</p>
<p>^^^^ ???</p>
<p>
Well, this would be irrelevant, as would schizophrenia, because it would not be a long term thing. Along with pleasure stimulants, people would either be given lethal injections or would die of starvation/dehydration. So they would be so happy and then cease to exist. There would be no more reproduction, and the human race would die out. This is ethical because they are happy during their existence and there is no other purpose to life other than being happy.</p>
<p>
I haven’t read it in a while. I forget…did they have the ability to preprogram people’s wants, desires, personalities, etc. before they were born? If so… seems like an awful lot of effort…why not just stop reproduction altogether?</p>