Is porn our Soma?

It's something to be curious of how Huxley was so spot on, also worthy of notice is how Orwell almost predicted the internet. This is all circumstantial of course but curious indeed.
Huxley I believe was part of the back then well connected theosophical society (I would say it's an interesting logo!), he also worked for Hollywood and MGM. Something that you need more than talent to get into.

I haven't gone over his letters, but from what you say it wasn't just that his accent that was "bourgeoisie"
Whenever you get more into those influential people from that period, eugenics seem to play a part.
For example, I read "The Phenomenon of Man" by Pierre Teilhard Chardin (A jesuit), which I heard Alan Watts mention (I think Alan also knew Huxley) and to my dismay it seemed to espouse eugenics ideas!

 

You make good points. I'm not totally convinced but I remain cautious.

When I determine who is in charge I ask two questions. Who interprets history? Who do the women imitate? Lots of women straighten their hair but none of them afro their hair, and lots of women lighten their skin but none of them darken it - tanning is not blackening. Women go to Europe then come back with European accents, but none go to China then return sounding Chinese, nor do they return sounding Russian if they go to Russia. And on and on.

I don't think there is a Jewish conspiracy. In my interpretation, from looking at American history, what they have is cultural cohesion. Whereas, when other people came to America they were relatively on their own, but when a Jewish person came to America they imigrated into a cultural network that helped them financially. The history of Jews and banking looks more like a combination of good fortune - banking was one of the few trades open to them- and wise planning and strategy, rather than a conspiracy for world domination.

 

When I read the book a couple weeks ago, porn is the first thing that came to mind when I learned of Soma. Easily accessible, promoted by elites to sedate the population, makes them emotionally numb etc.

 

No it's not porn, it's the entire Internet that is our soma.

Being 30 years old I might have not the biggest amount of life experience here, but the vast majority of my addictions were only made possible because of easy access to high speed Internet.

PMO, online news, gambling, social media, video games.

I wasted 50% of my life time on that. I wasted my -entire- youth on it. I used to spend 8-16 hours a day on the Internet when I was 16-21 years old.

I successfully quit gambling, news, social media and video games now after several painful years, but still heavily deal with PMO. I also suffer from alcohol addiction now, but all my life was primarily dominated by Internet-induced non-substance addictions.

Easy access to high speed Internet is like your family doctor handing out morphine prescriptions 24/7 to heroin addicts without any questions. It's always available. Technically it's top-notch pure. 1080p or even 4K video quality - top notch. It never ever ends. You want to see porn it never ends. You want to read political news it never ends. You want to play Call of Duty or World of Warcraft online it never ends. You want to gamble 10.000+ $ on online casinos, it never ever ends.

The fucked up thing about this Internet-soma constellation is that it's actually extremely helpful. I found so much useful information online that I'd have otherwise found only by great (timely and expensive) obstacles, if at all.

This soma is a double-edged sword. On one hand it provided me with tons of resources (Wikipedia, music, series, films, Google, forums, Kindle ebooks) on the other hand it stole 50% of my life time (porn, video games, senseless Google results, social media, online news). Also this very forum would be impossible without the Internet.

I fuckin hate and love the Internet.

I think one cannot avoid the Internet at all. But you must learn to resist the pitfalls of it. And that is all of porn, all of social media including twitter, without exception all online news, online video games and gambling).

We must learn to use our soma for the good purposes. It's almost impossible to avoid it entirely. Only use it for very specific information that you want to read about.

 

Damn, I was hoping you meant "Soma" the video game from 2015.