Edit: Sigh… I got the dystopia wrong. Apparently everyone is apathetic in 1984 of their own free will and just drink, smoke and do morphine.

Brave New World is apathy through euphoria through soma.
Which yeah, drugged euphoria is not happiness.

    • OmegaMouse@pawb.social
      17·
      2 days ago

      Yes this. And is a drug that makes you happy really science fiction? There are plenty that work on dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin receptors. Though I suppose happiness is something more nebulous and complex than a handful of chemicals.

    • defunct_punk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      Thought this too. Soma. No idea why ive remembered that so long, I never even finished BNW and put it down almost a decade ago

    • Krauerking@lemy.lolOP
      5·
      2 days ago

      Yeah sorry, the drug in 1984 is apparently just morphine and drinking yourself to death.

      Wild how they both are so dystopian but 1984 is just straight up political fiction with like no SciFi and my brain was trying to add more

    • Codilingus@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      2 days ago

      I’m about to finish reading 1984 for the first time.

      Spoiler:

      !Maybe they mean the drugs Winston is given after he is taken by the thought police?!<

      • Krauerking@lemy.lolOP
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yeah, i rembered him going to the prole neighborhood and for some reason always put that into brave new world context from the apathy and squalor.

        Plus definitely not a lack of drugs in 1984 just far more mundane.