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“Brave New World” and a return to nature

שו”תCategory: general“Brave New World” and a return to nature
asked 5 months ago

Did the rabbi read the book? Part of the book’s principle is that a solution is found for everything so that a person will have “constant comfort” against their will, and the hero of the story wants to go back to the past, get the flu, be sad (everyone who is sad there automatically takes a pill that makes them happy), and resist his urges (there is total sexual permissiveness there because why suffer? So “everyone belongs to everyone”)
If we ignore the security need to advance technologically, wouldn’t it be better to give up all the engineering of all kinds? Smart cell phones, smart homes..
In the sense of happiness, everyone agrees that our generation, with all its endless inventions and comforts, is no happier (and sadder) than any other period in history, including the hunter-gatherers, the Middle Ages, etc., so I’m not saying let’s eat straw and sleep on the street, but I no longer look favorably on all the enthusiasm for technological progress and high-tech that is happening these days, but only as a necessity because we must not lag behind technologically when we have enemies. Of course, there are also good things, finding cures for diseases, etc., but maybe the hardship is not worth the damage to the king?
In my opinion, countries like Bhutan and others (I’m not knowledgeable enough) that were technologically arrested 50 years ago, I think they did it with common sense.
So I asked – would the rabbi theoretically support freezing technological progress (again, if we ignore the security threat)?
PS: Nothing I wrote has anything to do with the actual study of science, which I cherish very much! I remember the rabbi’s lesson in theoretical Platonism: Even if there was a way to derive all the technology that is derived from studying science without studying science itself, the rabbi would still study science for its own sake, even without any benefit from it, and that’s what I’m talking about.


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מיכי Staff answered 5 months ago
I don’t understand the question. You yourself say that we don’t have the option to go back or stop. A. You are asking hypothetically whether it is worth convincing the whole world to stop? There is no way to do that and therefore there is no point in bothering with such a question. I am also not sure that you are factually correct about happiness.

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