From "Capitalist Heaven" at Soapbox, via Scripting News:
A machine, though, will never be completely compatiable with a man. For instance, the irrational hurts a machine, feelings hurt a machine, hope hurts a machine. A machine is programmed to operate in the present with known quantities only. But a man wants to be a bird, a poet, a magician.
I'm connecting this with the Defending the Right to Pleasure article earlier: corporate capitalism can't control love, so we get pleasure squeezed out of us by corporations and commercial tv, to make us subservient (and violent). Or we're subservient and violent, so we make corporations that try to control love. Either way--I don't think it's as singly causal as some of the kuro5hin comments complained.
As Moby said, My favorite book about the future is Brave New World. It was presented to me as very dystopian, but it seemed quite nice. People could choose to use mind-altering drugs, and those who chose not to could go live on an island.
The real dystopia is marked by the lack of basic human affection.
And if you're restless for an island trip, don't forget TV Turnoff Week is coming up.
