Overproduction in military equipment goes to the police?

[Tsyal Makto]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

I think we would be going with the Huxley alternative if we could afford it so to speak, because most of the recent unrest is the result of the standard of living going down, so that enough people can no longer afford bread and circus. I think the time before the whole economic crisis, society was well on its way to Brave New World. That is of course only because those who reap the benefits of our society also get to make all the rules, and the rest suffer in oblivion.

At this point, keeping the charade going is rather cheap.

Most people, even the poor, already have the means to access bread and circus. Even if people can't afford new TVs or computers, most people have access to these things that they purchased in the recent past prior to the crisis, or even earlier. Or used items. Though also electronics are at a record low in price, so affording a new "ticket to the circus" isn't that expensive anymore. And even then, there's always credit cards. We've built this infrastructure of distraction by buying their electronics and programing accounts, and they know we've become addicted to them, to the point where we'll spend our last dimes to keep them, or even go into debt to keep them. Not to mention radios, which nearly all of us have access to, either in our cars or that old transistor radio tucked in the closet somewhere.

And even if people have to cut back on their internet/television accounts, there is still good 'ol word of mouth.

Really, it's the bread that is driving the unrest, not the circus. Most people can afford electronics (or at least sustain them), but more and more people are dealing with hunger (or the new quaint term "food insecurity"). How people can put TV and computers before nutritional sustenance, I don't know, but that's the order of importance most of us have been programmed to believe.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that circus has become cheap enough that it would have been an effective tool of long-term control, even among the poor, that is, if people didn't start waking up as they are.

Orwell knew Huxley's world was unsustainable. Eventually someone would wake up, and begin to wake up others. There's no way to completely brainwash billions of minds, there will always be dissent somewhere. Which is why the next step in a dystopian society is authoritarianism. Entertainment might lost it's effectiveness against a population, but brute force usually retains it's effectiveness more...effectively. An existential threat to someones life is more apt to lead to compliance than, say, a glut of entertainment. Not to mention it makes activities such as purges more easy to accomplish, as people will begin to see death and pain as commonplace. Remember all the rocket-bombs that bombard Oceania? People stopped caring that people were dying around them. Hell, Winston ended up grabbing a severed hand after an attack, and just shrugged it off.