Book #3 - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Imagine a world where everyone is happy because nobody is happier than the other. Imagine a world where everyone belongs to everyone because nobody belongs to someone. This may sound confusing but this is the world that Aldous Huxley creates in this book.

The world that Huxley creates is one where technology has complete control over society. This control is shown from the beginning of the book where the story opens inside the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre. Here we are shown how technology is used to engineer human beings into different classes each with their own unique conditioning. Each class is conditioned to act, think and feel in a certain way that contributes to the overall harmony of society. Technology's control over society is very evident from the very beginning.

Although technology today is not as intrusive as the technology portrayed in the book, the question on whether technology is controling us is still very much relevant today. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed, our lives are run by machines and computers. The fact that the influence exerted on us by computers is subtle makes them more powerful. Algorithms today shape not only what we see in our screens but also influence our decisions and the social network we build around ourselves. 

In the book, the power and influence of technology was challenged by the savage. It did not start as a challenge but a sense of wonder and a longing to understand how people in the civilized world lived their lives. He wanted to learn the culture of the civilized and he wanted to be one of them. The savage slowly realized the abject reality that people in the civilized world were living in. He saw that civilized people did not know about Shakespear and his works and did not know what real beauty and art is. When he told the story of some of Shakespears works people were confused and laughed at him. He also realized that although civilized people relied so much in technology none of them really practiced real science. He realized that civilization was all about accepting what was given to them since birth. The savage slowly became repulsed by what civilization meant and represented. He wanted to liberate everyone from the bondage of technology but he failed. 

At the end of the day society and what it has become overwhelmed him and consumed him. Aldous Huxley does not paint a very kind picture of humanity and its future. I share the same fear as Huxley when it comes to the amount of influence technology has on us. I believe that technological advancements have a critical and tengible benefit to humanity. I believe that with the aid of technology we as a species can evolve faster than our biology could. The ever rapid improvement in computing power will allow us to solve ever more complex problems without necessarily evolving our brains. My biggest fear is that technological advancement may out pace our social and moral ability to cope with the challenges it brings with it. The spirit of innovation driving the tech industry today is amazing and should never be supressed but it has to be guided by conscience. 

I know this is easier said than done but it is very important that we do it. We as a species need to find the right balance between technological innovation and the preservation of the human spirit. We need to make sure that as we develop more advanced technology we keep in mind the reason why we created them in the first place - to liberate us. We should never allow ourselves to be ubiquitously dependent on technology to the point where our lives would not have any meaning without them. 

If you want to get a copy of this book, check out this offer from Amazon.ca





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Justice is blind but the scale is rigged when it comes to whistleblowers.

Image
General David Petraeus was sentenced to two years probation and a $100K fine for leaking classified information (link to  plea deal ). This sentence is nothing short of an insult to the justice system in the United States. It is a clear example of how the justice system in the United States is rigged.  Let us recall what got Petraeus into this mess by looking at two things - i. What did he leak? ii. What was intention for leaking the information?  What did he leak? Petraeus leaked names of covert operatives, war plans for US forces, and detailed discussion with senior officials including the US President. This information was contained in notebooks that Petraeus kept for himself. He then gave Paula Broadwell access to these notebooks to help her write his biography. The information contained in those notebooks are highly classified by any standard and had the potential of endangering US covert operatives.  When Chelsea Manning leaked the Afghan war-logs to WikiLeaks th
Read more

Tim Cook on Privacy.

Apple is leading the way in promoting user privacy in the digital age and recently Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered a speech during an event in Washington where he made some very important and controversial points about privacy in the digital age.  "Like many of you, we at Apple reject the idea that our customers should have to make tradeoffs between privacy and security...We can, and we must provide both in equal measure. We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy. The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it.” This statement is supported by Apple's action being the first major phone manufacturer to make encryption as a default in its Operating System. It goes to show how serious Apple is in protecting customer privacy and in not making money out of customer information. There are hundreds of millions of iOS devices all over the world and each one is connected to the internet. Whenever these devices connect to the internet
Read more

How a robbery in 1976 robbed US citizens of their privacy in the digital age.

B altimore - Shortly after midnight on March 5, 1976 Mrs. Patricia Mcdonough was robbed just outside her home. She was able to take a good look at the robber and his 1975 Monte Carlo automobile. A few days after the robbery, Mrs. McDonough started receiving threatening phone calls from the man claiming to be the robber. Mrs. McDonough started recording some of these threatening phone calls and notified the police. On March 13, the police asked the telephone company to install a terminating accounting equipment on Mrs. Donough's telephone line to determine the origin of the calls she was receiving. The police found out that most of the calls were made from pay-phones near McDonough's residence.  On March 16, in the general vicinity of Mrs. McDonough's home, someone asked a police officer for help in opening the locked door of his 1975 Monte Carlo. The officer helped the man, took down his plate# and notified the investigating officer.  The police ran the plate # and tra
Read more