User blog:Mmandator/Dystopia

Last year I read through the books 1984 and Brave New World again. Both very good books about terrible societies and the people in them.

It inspired me to ask you guys this question.

Which book's world would you rather live in?

To sum the two choices up.

1984: A totalitarian state where the people are kept under constant surveillance at all times. Even the slightest hint of discontent or disloyalty will get you sent to a labor camp or to a prison where you are mercilessly tortured until you are a broken shell of a human being that looks forward to being executed. The buildings are shoddy and drab, the food is tasteless at best and disgusting at worst. Parents are routinely denounced to the secret police by their children. The only art allowed is war propaganda and the past is constantly rewritten to serve the will of a dictator gone mad with power. The only people not under constant surveillance are the lower-class "proles" who are left alone for the most part, and even then they are monitored so the state can kill any of them deemed too intelligent.

Brave New World: A totalitarian state that passes itself off as a free paradise where nobody is born in a natural way. Everybody is born in identical batches of clones genetically engineered to fit a niche role in society. The ruling class is genetically designed to be smarter and more attractive, while the workers are intentionally made too stupid to do anything other than menial labor. There is no choice of career or lifestyle, everything about a person is decided from the start. Everybody stays young and healthy until exactlythe age of 60, where they are biologically engineered to die suddenly and their bodies are burned for fuel and they are completely forgotten by their friends in days. There is no concept of family. Instead of children going home to loving parents, they go home to state-run centers that teach them to repeat asinine slogans and brainwash them through messages repeated to them while they sleep. The entire society revolves around mindless consumerism. All art has been reduced to low-grade entertainment and people are encouraged by the state to base their lives around material possessions, drugs and promiscuous sex. The people are brainwashed into believing such a vapid life is ideal and anyone who thinks differently is exhiled to dirt and primitive settlements in isolated parts of the world.