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You might appreciate this quote that was slapped on one of my stories today:

'Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over­population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manip­ulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitari­anism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slo­gans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial -- but democracy and free­dom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of sol­diers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.'

Brave New World Revisited ~ Aldous Huxley

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It’s definitely a book that should be quoted as much as Nineteen Eighty Four inevitably is.

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Gabor Maté is a worthwhile interviewee / speaker but Lebedev wouldn't be the host of choice.

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Precisely. I am interested in what Maté has to say but not what Lebedev has to ask.

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Guys like Lebedev and Musk remind me of Bill Hicks’s old rant about “fevered egos” and the price they extract from us

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Bingo.

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Super piece, Mic; will share on X

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Thanks, Liz.

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Hippo bathday!!

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Stephen Fry continues to slide down in my estimation.

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