Are we living in a DYSTOPIA (and what can YOU do about it?)

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Shais Taub’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Orwell feared, the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Hi, I'm Rabbi Shais Taub. This channel, Soul Words, is about spiritual ideas and application to personal growth. I'm not a political scientist, I'm not a social critic, but I think this is an important idea to discuss that can help us understand the way that the Jewish prophets foresaw the ultimate phase of history. So, first of all, do we live in Orwell's 1984? It's a question a lot of people ask. The answer, according to some, is no, but we live in a different dystopia that was envisioned by another English intellectual author, Aldous Huxley, namely in his work, A Brave New World. This contrast of Orwell's dystopia and Huxley's dystopia was originally pointed out by a social critic by the name of Neil Postman, or Reb Naftali Mayer ben Reb Moshe. I don't know if he was ever referred to that in his lifetime, but that's what his uh gravestone says, and we'll mention his name for a blessing. Back in the '80s, Postman was already warning about the dangers of technology. This is way before the internet era. This is way before social media. This is way before the search engine bubble and the algorithms, and Postman was already warning that technology was ruining us. He gave an example. He said that in the

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1. 0:00Orwell feared, the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned…
2. 1:03critic by the name of Neil Postman, or Reb Naftali Mayer ben Reb Moshe. I don't…
3. 2:08the beef?" which was a big advertising slogan of Wendy's at the time. So, cute little…
4. 3:10truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea…
5. 4:50windows of the heaven, meaning to say the flood from above and the flood from below,…
6. 5:57Messianic era, there's going to be a time when information just becomes available at an unprecedented…
7. 7:02tons of information available is not intrinsically a bad thing. Maimonides, the great philosopher and legal…
8. 8:07describes the world in that time, invoking the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Ki mala ha'aretz…
9. 9:10believe that putting out messages like this and raising awareness and giving us the opportunity to…
10. 10:11and helpful and can make the world a better place, put it out. Do me a…

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