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Ok, so I'm a little freaked out. I just read Animal Farm, by George Orwell, and now I'm half way through A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. The next book I plan to read is 1984.

All of these books are about creepy totalitarian governments, made in the sense of a perfect civilization, but some things went off the deep end.

In A Brave New World, scientists discovered a drug, like marijuana, that makes you go all loopy for a while, and has all the effects of illegal drugs without any damage to your body. As soon as anyone gets mad or sad, they immediately take a few grams of SOMA (that's what it's called), and go to happy land.

Now I believe that growth in a person comes from overcoming trials, and as soon as someone gives you a free way out, life really isn't worth living.

Does anyone else have any comments about future-scary-type things?

edit by StrongRad: fixed spelling of Government

There's actually a word to describe these types of worlds: Dystopia.

All I can say is, "SUPPORT THE MUNICIPALITY! WE'RE ONTO YOU!"

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Yeah, that's the word. I've been reading dystopian satires. I knew that.

I can sometimes get concerned about such things happening, like here in the USA...but I think we have too many intelligent, free-thinking individuals that would stand up against anything like that before it became finalized in any sort of way.

If you wanna see more dystopias, go watch some old Twilight Zone episodes. They made plenty that showed totalitarianistic governments (which isn't too surprising, considering the show was made in the post-WWII "Red Scare" era).

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I don't know if it's been mentioned in R&P yet, but a good example of this is how yesterday the constitutional amendment against flag-burning was shot down. By a margin of one vote, however, but it was still shot down. As long as there are small victories like these, I think the USA is somewhat safe from bigger things. (I'm not advocating flag-burning in any way, besides you have a million better things to do.)

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Intellgegnt free thinking individuals, what were you thinking.We're dumb and lazy animals who just want an easy way out and are succeptible to mob mentality and you knows it.

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Wow, It's been like three or 4 years since I've last been here

I know that there are plenty of people of the herd mentality...but I was saying that there are still ENOUGH people who DON'T follow that mentality--even people who deliberately go against EVERY herd mentality (sometimes just for the sake of playing Devil's Advocate *coughLisaSimpsoncough*)--that a dystopian government would never arise.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

There's a book like that called Jennifer Government. It's sort of the opposite of 1984, instead of an extremely socialist society, it's about an extremely libetaian society, where the government has almost no power, and corporations control everything.

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There's another book I'd highly recommend: "The Autumn of the Patriarch" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's the story of a dystopian society, like 1984, but the quality of writing and storytelling is even better.

all i can say is it's spelled "governments."

sorry, it was annoying me...

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Anytime I meet someone online who says their favorite books are 1984 and Farenheit 451 I always roll my eyes and prepare for intense paranoia.

Like PianoMan said, I do not see the United States moving in that direction, no matter what people post about how we're basically already Nazi Germany.

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Well, Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books; it's very well written.

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Yep, everyoen who likes those books thinks that they're going to become a reality.

Ever think that they might just like the books?

Not only that, but think about it: what exactly was the Soviet Union before it fell in the 1980's?

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yeah im no conspiracy theorist but i likes me my literature and i gobbled up a great deal of this type of thing. e.m. forster wrote a short story titles something like The Machine I think. brilliant. I don't see us living in the Brave New World, but what an excellent book and what a poignant warning sign about the possibility of a government excercising total control with pleasure instead of threats and harsh rules. by giving the people everything, they have utter control over them, except those like "the Savage" who posess archaic moral codes that involve absitenence and esceticism, not to mention atonement and punishment for wrongdoing.