More on BNW

I've been ruminating on Brave New World a lot over the last few days, in part while driving. It turns out that Aldous Huxley wrote a ton of stuff, much of it with similar themes, and I'm curious to read some of those. The book has a gigantic multi-part preamble that talks about the book and also Huxley himself critiques his own book and talks about what he wished he had done differently. 

Smart people seem to be divided on whether BNW is a blueprint or a warning. Huxley was pro-Eugenics, believed that parliamentary democracy was absolutely hopeless (he lived through the UK government flailing around uselessly, in hs view, trying to deal with the great depression), and that a highly structured caste system, with smart people in charge, was the way forward. He also hated the US, in ways and for reasons that most of us would probably understand, and thought that the greatest tragedy of the WW's is that it gave the US a clear path forward to dominate the world, and expected them to ruin it.

For possibly the first time, BNW has got me thinking how fun it would be to be in a book club or class or something, debating its themes. ChatGPT is super useful for questions like "in BNW why was perfume such a big thing". ChatGPT is so amazingly helpful and useful for some things, and ironically, might be the pivotal invention in actually realizing a Brave New World type future, where work is optional and the government invents jobs to keep people busy.

BNW reminded me of many Black Mirrors but most of all "20 Million Merits" where people spend all day riding stationary bikes. I think some interpret this to mean that their world was powered by these people and the bikes were hooked up to generators, but I think the more likely explanation is that the bike riding was invented to keep people busy (just like in BNW, although in that world, the work was more varied). Much as we have sports, Netflix, and learning Spanish, in today's world.