Fahrenheit 451 sits top 5 for me in books. I reflect on the book quite often as of late, and I realize that maybe we live in the society Bradbury wished for us to avoid.

In the book, the main message is not about burning books. The main message is about society numbing itself with mindless entertainment. Characters in the book would look at the walls, yell at the walls, and watch moving images to where they felt part of the program.

Any sort of medium that causes individuals to care about the world was sought to be destroyed. Even scenes existed where characters went bezerk if another character made them actually see reality.

This whole situation reminds me of today.

How come we’re so numb as a species to soo many injustices?

There is a balance of work and play, but the general apathy disgusts me.

Anyone have any thoughts?

edit: Not sure how much that applied. I think it does but can understand why others might not make the connection.

The short version is it's easier to get caught up in short-term gratification (think highly addictive activities and substances) than it is complicated topics that don't immediately affect us.

Yep I wonder how we can agree on some things and disagree so much on other things.

I think that's normal.

I also think that even after years of sharing webspace, we only know a tiny sliver of each other. Tailgate time in Muni/Burke help, but are still superficial.

As such, I think that on many subjects that don't regularly come up, many of us would probably see eye-to-eye. Or at least see general commonality.

.02

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953...

The level of awareness we have in 2019 is miles apart what was 1953 world.

Yes we make look numb and the world unjust, but just look back and see how much we have evolved.

The book 1984 by George Orwell was published in 1949. Sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same.

It's not my problem.

If you believe that we evolved in some survival of the fittest type way to arrive at the top of the food chain... then the question isn't, why don't we care more, the question is, why do we care at all.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree with almost every single thought you have about the book.

First, I read it before you were born.

I felt the problem was an over-arching authoritarian government trying to keep it's subjects ignorant and stupid, as such governments invariably try to do. It is the leftist's primary defense mechanism.

I felt the main message was one of hope and rebellion and a triumph of the human spirit exemplified by individuals each memorizing a single book to keep them in existence. A demonstration that each citizen can effectively fight back against the tyranny of ignorance.

As for "soooo many injustices" there are far fewer of them now then there were when I read it. But then, when your own self-importance is so dramatically inflated that the only possible reason someone might not like a bad movie you thought was good is that they are an alt-right, Nazi, racist/misogynist/homophobe, that really clarifies a distorted, inaccurate, and frankly disturbed world-view.

I didn't know Isolationist idealogues had "world views".

You really shouldn't say things like that about Rocket. He's quite sensitive.

I am impressed you could use those words in a coherent sentence, however.

Then you haven't been paying attention. No surprise there.

It's quiet. The crops are lush.

Then suddenly, like the locusts, you rise!