>Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 15:37:52 -0500
>From: "Eric Boyd" <6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca>
>Subject: Re: virus: BNW
>
>Hi,
>
>Reed Konsler <konsler@ascat.harvard.edu> writes:
><<
>I'm suggesting that it doesn't have to be that way. You can change
>your mind. I was exactly where you are now, and Richard just pushed
>me a little. What he asked me was, in essense, "What's with this
>intellectual crap, what are you trying to prove?"
>>>
>
>Well, I happen to enjoy the "intellectual crap"; I do it for the
>knowledge, the esctasy of understanding. Not too many people in RL
>even know that I have these vast interests outside of engineering -- I
>simply have no reason or motivation to tell them.
I enjoy it, too! You don't see me giving up science or philosophy, do you? I might act a little erratic, but that is just sucking the marrow out of freedom. I'm not trying to hurt anybody.
I might suggest you reconsider your reticence. The world needs more voices.
>As to changing my mind (presumably on the issue of my "outcastness"),
>I guess I'll need to further explain. (thus stepping out of my
>e-character for a few moments) My outcastness exists only in my
>knowledge base -- which is to say, I fit in well enough around people
>when I choose to, it's just that I rarely do.
Is that on purpose...by choice? Or do they make you uncomfortable becaue they are so simple minded?
>As my pysch. profile
>says, I have absolutly no understanding of what makes either small
>talk or "flirting" enjoyable, little grasp of social rituals, and no
>patience for irrationality.
That's a problem I think you should work on. Just a suggestion. I'll give you an example: I know nothing about sports, but I entered our group NCAA basketball pool anyway...it was only $5. I don't know those teams from Adam, but I just guessed, smiled, and handed in my tithe. A lot of my lab-mates looked at me and said "you are so non-sport, what are you thinking?"
My reply? "I guess it isn't the basketball as much as the pool, which is important to me." You should have seen the flood of people, some from other groups, eager to play...many of them, like me, non-sports people.
That message cost me $5. Low risk, high reward.
By the way, my choices in the pool were abysmal. But I never intend to win the obvious bet.
>I have often attempted to participate in
>the usual social gatherings -- e.g. parties, bars, dances, etc -- but
>have found most of them to be rather empty of content (shallow), and
>not particulaly enjoyable.
Most people find them enjoyable becuase they are empty of content. Dancing is universal, anyone can do it. As long as you keep your clothes on, it's hard to offend people with your dancing, or make them feel uncomfortable about their own.
>Fun the first few times, maybe, but the
>novelty quickly wears off. I guess I've got a need for high levels of
>stimulation. I do enjoy a quite pub outing with close friends;
>talking about whatever fancies us.
Opposite. You require low levels of stimulaton. That's what I deduce from what you just said. Close friends know you well, tend not to challenge and when they do you trust them...that's low stress. Big social groups and media circuses are just the opposite.
>As to alienation, I guess I've never been to worried about that. My
>small and close group of friends (and I've always had one) have always
>been enough for me. The one thing I would like is a girl friend,
>although I'm not ready just yet...
???????
>Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging
>http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/psychology/alt.psychology.personal
>ity/profiles/intj
INTP...but these things are supposed to free us by letting us see ourselves. It isn't supposed to be a shackle, or to define your role in all circumstances. Personality types should be like horoscopes...you should be able to see some truth about yourself in every one.
>I am already one-among-many, but that doesn't mean I'm not an
>individual as well. Is it benefitial to merge-and-lose yourself in
>the crowd? I thought that was exactly what Brodie and you preached
>against!
Not in the sense that you stop speaking your own truth, but in the sense that you have faith that your truth is a fragment, and a significant one, of the universal truth.
>(BTW, I replied in a rhetorical way becuase I had hoped yours was
>rhetorical. Guess not)
I use rhetoric to back up my logic just as use faith to reinforce my reason. A wagon is best pulled by two horses of equal strength.
>Then why would you find it interesting to read about it if you
>know you're living it?
>
>Becuase Huxley is a good writer, and becuase I suspect that numerous
>changes would have to occur if our society was instead the
>"malcontents" of a much larger BNW. For one thing, most members of
>that island are going to have to *support* the existence of the BNW
>(agree with Mond), and yet themselves not live there.
Why wouldn't they agree? They live forever in Disney World! Any time they want to come back, they can. Any time they think they have a better way of doing things, the World Controller listens and considers their viewpoint. Sometimes they even do experiments, like on Cyprus (or Crete?) where the classical democracy was reinacted. Mond even allowed a heathen to preach to his congregation, so convinced was he of his truth.
And, in the end, the misanthrope took his own life.
Why was that, do you think? Maybe he didn't have anything to live for, anymore? He meditated and found his ideology wanting. But he found his faith in the collective wanting, also.
A wagon with no horses cannot move.
>That kind of tension will have profound psychological effects, I think
But are they GOOD effects?
>I chew pig iron and spit out nails.
I forget where I heard it. It could be John Sayles "Nebraska M80-M90" (the mile marker numbers are different) which is a really brilliant short story about mania that you can find in a lot of collections.
>Do you seriously think that one can reduce[1] humans to (current)
>computers simply by raising them in chemical/psychological tyranny?
Tyranny? Tyranny? Tyranny?
What do you mean by <tyranny>?
>Even if that *is* possible, can you feel morally comfortable doing so?
>What is the purpose of the BNW if all of it's citizens are raised as
>tools?
To shoot for the stars, grasshopper.
>I do think that there should be other purposes to a society, not the
>least of which include knowledge acquisition, population of new
>frontiers, and the personal purposes of individuals. The founders
>and controllers of BNW choose to forfeit the latter three to ensure
>happiness, which I think is horrendously short sighted.
But BNW isn't about the scientists of the culture, or it's visionaries. It is about the misanthrope in utopia. The book is almost reticent on knowledge except to say, in essence "in much learning there is much sorrow". But, Mustapha Mond was a physicist, remember? He still had the books at his disposal, he simply chose to tell a simpler story to make his people happy in their work.
He was a scientist. He didn't commit suicide. Indeed, he was the World Controller. Do you see what I mean?
Reed
Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------