From the Berkeley Language Center – Speech Archive SA 0269: Huxley, Aldous. The Ultimate Revolution, March 20, 1962:

“We are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy… to get people actually to love their servitude… There seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution, this method of control by which people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs which by any decent standard they ought not to enjoy.”

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932. Here are a few things in fairly recent news:

FDA Panel Backs Implant To Counter Depression – washingtonpost.com

CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S. – CNN.com

Understanding individual human mobility patterns – Nature

I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think that people need to ‘conspire’. The memes of consumerism, quick fix, and the drive to power are going to have their effects irrespective of the existence of some shadowy cabal. But it’s hard not to see the parallels between Huxley’s Brave New World and the world we are all creating.

-Peter