Honestly, I liked this book. It was interesting, and even more interesting because these kids were our age, and didn't use historic lingo. Funny thing, they used pure futuristic lingo by far!
What is the "feed?" It's a tiny computer chip, basically like a giant Google/ internet/ GPS/ etc. THING in the brain that basically you didn't even need a brain for anymore. It's pretty insane, if you ask me.
That seems to be exactly what the novel is about, our dependency on technology and how we just seem to be letting it happen. It seems as if humans are never satisfied! Take this for example, on page 45 Titus describes a painting of a boat in a lake on the wall of the hospital bed, "I couldn't find anything interesting about that picture at all. There was nothing that was about to happen or just happened. I couldn't figure out even the littlest reason to pain a picture like that."
This clearly portrays the future. With the feed, it seems as though you do not have to appreciate ANYTHING else. I mean, I know I'm not a HUGE art fan or anything, although that's not exactly the point. The quote just demonstrates how "null" or bored everyone is with the little things.
Furthermore, on page 47, Titus states "everyone is super smart now. You can looks things up automatic, like science and history, like if you want to know which battles of the civil war George Washington fought in and shit."
This claims that basically, schooling is unnecessary, seeing as everyone is "super smart." Although later on in the novel, schooling is NOT run by the gov't, and students learn how to use their feeds, not information on the world. So basically, you can find out information about history, or mathematics, etc., only if you WANT too. To these teenagers it just seems "null."
Ultimately, I thought this novel was mega interesting and semi-scary. Will this happen to us? These people are so dependent on their feeds, they feel lost without it. During his hospital visit, after Titus (just waking up) searched his brain for a few minutes, realizing he couldn't reach his feed, he FINALLY opened his eyes. OPENING MY EYES WOULD BE THE FIRST THING I WOULD DO! The ending sentence of the page was "so I opened my eyes." That's insane.
Aldous Huxley
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The current society that we live in today is full of problems such as world
hunger, (as mentioned by Aldous Huxley in the respect of possible shortages
in ...
14 years ago
"everyone is super smart now. You can looks things up automatic, like science and history, like if you want to know which battles of the civil war George Washington fought in and shit."
ReplyDeleteI think the beautiful irony here is that it's clear that even though the teens can look up anything they want, they still have no semblance of true "intelligence." It's pretty obvious in their speech, their lack of vocabulary, their inability to communicate with one another. They only have the facade of intelligence.
Exactly. I mean, honestly, many of us would probably still say that today as well. Which is pretty bad, but the teenagers in this novel don't even know that that would be actually considered intelligent in our time. I agree.
ReplyDelete"Will this happen to us?"
ReplyDeleteThis is a question that i am sure 99% of people ponder as they finish the book. I know i did. The ending of the book was pretty cool i thought. Some books i have read just end suddenly but FEED sufficed. I don't think that we are anywhere near having FEED chips installed in our heads or anything alike. I tend to think that it would ruin our critical thinking skills. Obviously there are many positives and negatives to having a feed chip. After all it would be pretty cool to know EVERYTHING about anything. The substitution of a FEED chip lacks real intelligence as Shannon said. I think that is 100% true. There is almost no need at all to physically learn anything. I think that physically being able to learn things is what makes us who we are. It is how we get the most creative and constructive opinions. Having our knowledge substituted by a cyborg chip is far out. I do not think that this type of technology is anywhere close to being put into our society.
I think that our access to technology and information will only grow. People will be able to always have information at there fingertips but I dont think it will come to a computer in our heads.
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