The butterfly effect rests on the notion that the world is deeply interconnected, such that one small occurrence can influence a much larger complex system. The effect is named after an allegory for chaos theory; it evokes the idea that a small butterfly flapping its wings could, hypothetically, cause a typhoon.

What Is Exactly The Butterfly Effect 

Imagine you bumped into someone at a coffee shop that happens to work at your dream company and eventually got you an interview there. What if you had chosen a different coffee shop, or been there five minutes later? You may not have met the person that got you into your dream job. The idea that something small, like getting coffee, can have much larger effects, such as altering your career is called the butterfly effect.

Example

“You could not remove a single grain of sand from its place without thereby … changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole.”

Of course, a single act like the butterfly flapping its wings cannot cause a typhoon. Small events can, however, serve as catalysts that act on starting conditions.

However 

"Some systems … are very sensitive to their starting conditions, so that a tiny difference in the initial ‘push’ you give them causes a big difference in where they end up, and there is feedback, so that what a system does affects its own behavior.”

In an experiment to model a weather prediction, Edward Lorenz ( a meteorologist and a mathematician) entered the initial condition as 0.506, instead of 0.506127. The result was surprising: a somewhat different prediction. From this, he deduced that the weather must turn on a dime. A tiny change in the initial conditions had enormous long-term implications.

Edward Lorenz and the Discovery of the Butterfly Effect  

He theorized that weather prediction models are inaccurate because knowing the precise starting conditions is impossible, and a tiny change can throw off the result. To make the concept understandable to non-scientific audiences, Lorenz began to use the butterfly analogy.

Tiny Changes Can Throw Off Results 

A butterfly has the potential to create tiny changes which, while not creating a typhoon, could alter its trajectory. A flapping wing represents the minuscule changes in atmospheric pressure, and these changes compound as a model progresses. Given that small, nearly imperceptible changes can have massive implications in complex systems, Lorenz concluded that attempts to predict the weather were impossible.

A butterfly has the potential to create tiny changes 

he butterfly effect is somewhat humbling—a model that exposes the flaws in other models. It shows science to be less accurate than we assume, as we have no means of making accurate predictions due to the exponential growth of errors.

It is symbolic representation of an unknowable quantity

The butterfly effect is an often misunderstood phenomenon wherein a small change in starting conditions can lead to vastly different outcomes. Understanding the butterfly effect can give us a new lens through which to view business, markets, and more.

The butterfly effect rests on the notion that the world is deeply interconnected, such that one small occurrence can influence a much larger complex system.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

strategy

Strategy

books

Books

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

The Butterfly Effect.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21.A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything">A Short History Of Nearly Everything </a>explains everything we’ve learned about our world and the universe so far, including how they formed, how we learned to make sense of time, space and gravity, why it’s such a miracle that we’re alive and how much of our planet is still a complete mystery to us.

A Short History Of Everything - Book Summary 

"If you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you."-Bill Bryson

Author Quot

What’s the most fascinating thing about our world to you? Is it space, other planets, <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-world-according-to-star-wars-summary/">galaxies far far away </a>? The depth of the ocean and the mysterious, alien-like creatures that live down there? The <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/a-brief-history-of-everyone-who-ever-lived-summary/">genetic makeup </a>of all of the species around us? I’m baffled by all of those things, but I find that even people who don’t show a particular interest in science and history have one or two things they’re absolutely smitten by – and it’s not surprising. There’s so much incredible stuff going on around us, it’s hard to not be starstruck, if you think about it.

Book Overview 

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21.A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything">A Short History Of Nearly Everything </a> tries to explain (almost) all of it. At least as much as we know. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson">Bill Bryson </a>has done a tremendous job at it.

<ol><li>Most of the universe was created in a single, 3-minute moment. </li><li>Given the odds of a planet being livable, it’s a miracle we’re here at all. </li><li>Every day that the world keeps turning is a gift, because there are many things that could potentially end it. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Book Lessons

A singularity is defined as <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-singularity-is-near-summary/">a moment in which nothing is defined and everything is unpredictable </a>. It’s a massive inflection point. When scientists talk about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity">the “initial” singularity </a>, they refer to the moment the universe was created. It’s hard to imagine, but think of a little, compact point, that is infinitely dense – it contains everything that’s in the universe now, but is compressed into a tiny, tiny dot.

Lesson 1: All it took to create most of the universe 

All of a sudden, it explodes , splattering all of its contents into the void. This moment is known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang">the big bang </a>. When it happened, the entire universe was created in the time it takes you to prepare a sandwich . Immediately after the blow, the universe doubled in size every 10-34  seconds – that’s FAST. Within three minutes , 98% of all matter in the universe we know today was created.

With all this expanding, how wide is the universe today? About 100 billion light years – that’s the distance light can travel in a year times 100 BILLION. And <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/einstein-his-life-and-universe-summary/">light is fast </a>. It travels 300,000 km (or 186,000 miles) per second . That’s this much in a year: 9,460,800,000,000 or about 9.5 trillion.

So 9.5 trillion times 100 billion, that’s the diameter of the universe. In numbers (whatever that means), that’s the span in kilometers: 946,800,000,000,000,000,000,000.

If you think about how easy it is to die, it becomes clear how frail human life actually is. I mean, you fall down a couple stairs, hit your head, and that’s it. You dive too deep in the sea, climb too high on a mountain or get stung by the wrong plant or insect, and you’re done. But an even bigger surprise than us managing to maneuver the dangerous world we live in every day is the fact that we’re here at all .

Lesson 2: The odds of a planet supporting life are low

99.5% of earth’s habitable space is not suited for humans – because it’s either water or doesn’t have enough oxygen . We need land to move and live and even on land we’re limited: only 12% of the total land mass of our planet can host humans.

It’s pretty rare for a planet to be livable on in general, because several things have to come together: <ol><li>The distance to a star must be perfect. If it’s too close, the surface burns, if it’s too far away, the planet will be iced over. </li><li>The planet has to keep out cosmic radiation by building the right atmosphere. </li><li>A moon has to keep the planet’s gravity in check, so that it can spin at the right speed and angle. </li><li>All of these events have to line up in the right order and timeline. </li> </ol>

Talk about once-in-a-lifetime chances! And this gets even more impressive, considering the next lesson.

Let’s reconsider the point above. Humans not falling prey to all the dangers in the world pales in comparison to all the dangers that threaten earth’s existence from the outside. There are around 1,000,000,000 asteroids flying around space close to the earth, and about 10% of them that regularly intersect with earth’s orbit are larger than 10 meters in diameter. That’s 100 million 10m-sized rocks potentially hitting earth at tremendous speeds!

Lesson 3: There’s a lot that could go wrong for our planet

In fact, 2,000 of those are so large that upon collision, we might get wiped out completely . According to scientists calculations, those deadly asteroids could fly by and nearly miss around 2-3 times a week – without us even noticing. As if that wasn’t enough, there are earthquakes, tornados and volcano eruptions, all of which can have devastating consequences. So no, it’s totally not normal that the sun rises every morning. Every single day is yet another miracle, waiting for you to appreciate it and take advantage of it. Live like it!

What a brilliant book to learn a little about all the core pillars that make up our existence and the universe we live in. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21.A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything">A Short History Of Nearly Everything </a> should be obligatory reading in all schools!

A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Book Review

The 18 year old, who thought science classes in high school were boring, the 29 year old engineer, who knows a lot about his particular field, but could use an update on science in general, and anyone who doesn’t think life is awesome at least once a week.

Who would I recommend the A Short History Of Nearly Everything?

In this A Short History Of Nearly Everything summary, you'll learn how fast the universe was built & why it's almost a miracle we're here.

philosophy

Philosophy

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

education

Learning & Education

A Short History Of Nearly Everything Summary

Dune is a saga of books written by Frank Herbert, considered one of the founders of Science Fiction as we know it today. The Story revolves around Atreides family and their fight for Arraskis (or Dune), the only planet where the spice can be found - a substance that allows interestellar travel. Besides deep characters and intense conflicts, Dune provide us interesting lessons.

4 Things I learned Reading Dune

One of the most important lessons is how fear is seen in this saga: not as a weakness, but as an enemy that you can face. To overcome fear, the Bene Gesserit, a political and mystic group, created the litany against it:"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Fear Is The Mind-Killer

The combat is a constant element in Herbert's saga, both in physical and mental ways. One of the many lessons of Ducan Idaho, a great warrior and instructor of the young Paul Atreides, is about observation and how crucial it is in the first moments you face a problem. The eagerness to win may lead us to take rash actions, but deep diving into problems will lead us to the consistency of success:"Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be sure."

Observe First

One of the first things that Leto Atreides, leader of house Atreides, does when he gets to Dune is to see how the spice was collected. During the visit to the desert, a great sand worm attacks a large shipment of spice, but instead of running away or saving the cargo, Leto Atreides face the danger to save the people working there, showing to all of them that the life of his followers worth more than the most valued substance in the universe:
"He risked his life and his son's life to save these men [...]. Such a leader could inspire fanatical loyalty. It would be hard to defeat him."

People Worth More Than Things

Paul Atreides (Muad`Dib), protagonist of Dune, learned the way of the desert during his time in Arrakis, from how to save water to how to ride the greate sand worms. However, this didn't happen only because of the circunstances of his birth, but because he knew how to learn:"Muad'Did learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson."

You Can Learn Anything

Dune is a deep and inspiring read, and here I present you 4 things that I learned from it.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Frank Herbert’s epic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. This deluxe hardcover edition of Dune includes: · An iconic new cover · A stamped and foiled case featuring a quote from the Litany Against Fear · Stained edges and fully illustrated endpapers · A beautifully designed poster on the interior of the jacket · A redesigned world map of Dune · An updated Introduction by Brian Herbert Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for... When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. DUNE is directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem

movies

Movies & Shows

business

Business

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem. Frank Herbert’s classic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for.... When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.  A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

People note Dune (1965) of American science fiction novelist Frank Patrick Herbert for its intricate plot and its broad intellectual scope. Frank Herbert authored five critically acclaimed and commercially successful sequels to this best-known work. Widely considered among the classics in the field of science fiction, the Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, dealt with themes, such as human survival, human evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, and power. He was the father of fellow author Brian Herbert.

Frank Herbert

Dune

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World">Brave New World </a>presents a futuristic society engineered perfectly around capitalism and scientific efficiency, in which everyone is happy, conform, and content — but only at first glance.

Brace New World - Book Summary 

"Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly - they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced "-Aldous Huxl

Author Quote 

“You can’t consume much if you sit still and read books,” World Controller Mustapha Mond tells a group of children as they tour the “Hatchery and Conditioning Center” in London in the year 2540 AD. He has a point — and if you read books like <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World">Brave New World </a>, you’ll want to consume even less afterwards. Published in 1932, Brave New World was decades ahead of its time, and of its sibling, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/1984-summary/">1984 </a>, the other of two defining works outlining what a modern dystopia could look like. Unlike 1984 , however, the people in Brave New World are slaves to pleasure, not pain.

Book - Overv

Living in the extremely shaky political time that is the period between World War I and World War II, author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley">Aldous Huxley </a>was both drawn to the idea of stability (even to the point of sacrificing democracy) and terrified by what domination of any kind might bring. He went to the US in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties">the Roaring 20’s </a>, and the culture of consumerism, drugs, promiscuity, and partying scared him.

As a result, Brave New World is an ambivalent book, open to many interpretations, and after selling millions of copies over nearly 100 years of being in print, the book is still being interpreted in new ways every day. Just in 2020, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9814116/">a new TV show </a>was made, and every year, young adults read the book as part of their high school education.

<ol><li>If the world were perfect and everything was easy, nothing would have any meaning. </li><li>We hate not fitting in more than anything else, and yet, we’ll never all be the same. </li><li>True happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin — we can’t have one without the other. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Book Less

In the foreword to the 2007 edition of the book, Margaret Atwood wrote: “In a world in which everything is available, nothing has any meaning.” The London described in the book is such a world. Humans are grown in bottles as needed to perform certain tasks, ranging from smart Alphas to “semi-moron” Epsilons. From birth, people are sleep-conditioned to stay in their caste, to prioritize easy pleasures, like “soma,” the perfect drug, and sex, and to consume as much as they can. As a result, everyone is easygoing, compliant, and constantly on a drug- or orgasm-high — and no one is ever alone.

Lesson 1: A perfect world in which you can have everything

Two of the book’s protagonists, the psychologist Bernard Marx and writer Helmholtz Watson, see through this veil of cheap satisfaction. Bernard wants a traditional, monogamous relationship — a big no-no in his promiscuous society — preferably with the beautiful but all-too-well-conditioned hatchery worker Lenina Crowne. Helmholtz feels a higher calling in his writing, but he can’t access his “latent power” while writing the drivel his job requires:

“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly–they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced. […] But what on earth’s the good of being pierced by an article about a Community Sing, or the latest improvement in scent organs?”

When you can have everything at the snap of your fingers, there’s nothing to strive for in life. No goals. Nowhere to go . And, sooner or later, not having a destination in life will make us restless. Humans are meant to move — and not just physically. Our brains need to <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/smart-people-should-build-things-summary/">exercise their wits </a>. Our souls lust for creativity and beauty, and not just to see them, but to make them.

A constant state of satisfaction is its own kind of prison, and it is this prison Bernard and Helmholtz hope to escape from, one by taking the woman of his dreams on an adventurous trip, the other by <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/on-writing-well-summary/">penning some daring lines </a>and reading them to his students. Of course, both of them get into trouble for breaking the mold, which brings us to the second lesson…

Unlike Helmholtz, who’s too smart for his own good but otherwise a perfect example of an Alpha, Bernard is slightly shorter than intended — some mishap during his “hatching” — and, as a result, often gets mocked by women, peers, and even his subordinates. Add to that his monogamous tendencies, and you have yourself a man whom others wish “weren’t so odd,” including Lenina.

Lesson 2: There is nothing we hate more than not fitting in

No matter how hard he tries to make up for it, however, Bernard can’t find any <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-art-of-non-conformity-summary/">conformity </a>. His drug-induced “soma holidays” never last, and even attending “Solidarity Service,” basically a synthetic-music-backed sex orgy, provides no lasting relief.

Thankfully, Lenina agrees to accompany Bernard on what’s supposed to be a romantic trip to a natural reservation in New Mexico. There, they not only see people living traditionally — giving birth, drinking alcohol, practicing religious rituals, hunting for food, aging, mourning their dead — but also encounter John, “the Savage.”

As it turns out, John is the illegitimate son of the director of the hatchery and Linda, a woman he brought to the reservation years ago and who still lives there, hating every minute of it. Like Bernard, John has been ostracized by the Native American tribe for his different looks (and later, his ability to read, which he uses to devour the works of Shakespeare). Naturally, Bernard is thrilled to meet someone who, like him, doesn’t fit in.

“You see,” he tells John, “I’m rather different from most people, I suppose.” “Yes, that’s just it,” John confirms. “If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.” While John and Bernard are the most prominent examples, the further you read in the book, the more you’ll realize: Every one of the main characters is somehow different from the group they’re supposed to fit into, and this is their worst source of suffering.

Helmholtz wants to write real poetry, but he’s not allowed to. Lenina secretly craves some monogamy too, much to the dismay of her friend Fanny. The director of the hatchery loses his post once everyone realizes that he fathered a child. Even Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, was originally a man of science who asked too many questions — and that’s how he ended up being a Controller in the first place, choosing misery over exile.

Few pains sit deeper than the suffering of not fitting in and feeling rejected by our fellow humans, and yet, no matter how much we try to be alike, humans will always be different from one another. Actually, our differences are our greatest strength as a species — but only if we accept, appreciate, and utilize them.

The next time you feel isolated or alone, remember that <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-power-of-starting-something-stupid-summary/">uniformity is a myth </a>. We can’t, and should never be , all the same. It’s important to have friends, family, and professional peers you can connect with, but our equality lies in the fact that we’re all human, not any particular set of traits, behaviors, or abilities.

Since the director of the hatchery threatened to send him into exile in Iceland over his odd behavior, Bernard comes up with a brilliant plan: He’ll take the Savage and Linda back to London, using them to embarrass the director out of his threat. The plan initially works and even makes Bernard famous, for he is now the custodian of the mysterious Savage everyone wants to see.

Lesson 3: In order for true happiness to exist

At first, John is also excited, not least because he likes Lenina, and it is before his departure from the reservation that he utters the Shakespeare line that gives the book its title: “O brave new world that has such people in it. Let’s start at once.” The fun and wonder quickly wears off, however, and when John’s disillusion drives him to lock himself in his room, Bernard falls out of favor with his guests.

“Nothing costs enough here,” John concludes, longing to be the dramatic hero of a Shakespearean play more so than a zoned-out but lifeless individual. “I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/long-walk-to-freedom-summary/">I want freedom </a>, I want goodness. I want sin,” he will later tell Mustapha Mond in the novel’s pivotal conversation. Before that, however, he attacks Lenina who, feeling the attraction to be mutual, seems to be all too willing to have sex with him.

When he finds out his mother Linda is dying from perpetually taking soma ever since having arrived, John rushes to the hospital, causing a scene (for saying goodbye to the dying is not something people usually do). Eventually, he and Helmholtz end up fighting a horde of Epsilons, trying to take away their soma rations, thus “liberating” them. Bernard tries to break up the fight, but eventually, all three are hauled before Mustapha Mond.

Bernard and Helmholtz are sentenced to exile, which Bernard loathes but Helmholtz looks forward to. Even Mond calls it a reward, for on islands, all the intelligent, individualistic people gather, far away from conditioned society. “You’ve got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can’t think of the really good, penetrating, X-rayish phrases,” Helmholtz explains, choosing the Falkland Islands for his exile, thinking their bad weather will inspire his writing.

The Savage, meanwhile, is made to stay, though, in a long argument, the World Controller admits he has a point when he says: “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.” The government chose to sacrifice art, science, and religion in favor of the shallow but stable happiness he now sees around him, Mond admits:

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

The happiness in Brave New World is fake, for it is neither a side effect of true living, nor a reward for suffering. It’s just a baseline level of artificial contentment, and that’s why, to us as to the main characters, it is not truly satisfying. Helmholtz wants to be sad so he can write better. John wants to struggle for Lenina’s love. Even the World Controller wishes he could explore science instead of abolishing it: “What fun it would be,” he thinks at one point, “if one didn’t have to think about happiness!”

Ultimately, John gets what he asks for. For a while, he lives peacefully by himself in a lighthouse, even atoning for his sins by whipping himself on occasion. When the people of London catch wind, however, they beleaguer him at his home, and the ensuing outrage culminates in an orgy. Realizing what he has allowed himself to become the next day, he hangs himself, unable to further cope with the fact that everyone around him is constantly coping.

Happiness is not something we can manufacture, no matter how hard we try. It is often a side-effect and sometimes a hard-won reward, but true happiness can never be something we get on tap or by swallowing a pill. If we reject the potential for suffering, we also reject the potential for <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-courage-to-be-happy-summary/">true, deeply fulfilling happiness </a>— and that’s perhaps the most powerful lesson the book can teach us.

While the story isn’t as straightforward, nor the characters as deep, as in <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/1984-summary/">1984 </a>, that’s exactly what makes <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World">Brave New World </a>compelling — and perhaps the better read of the two. The characters are flat because so is everyone in the book, and the story is complex because dystopia lies not in one clear enemy, like oppression.

Brave New World - Book Review

It is the convoluted mix of meddling with biology, keeping people sedated in various ways, and conditioning them to love their enslavement that provides countless points of discussion for this book, nearly 100 years after it was published.

If you sometimes have doubts about our shiny, Instagram-happy world, you’ll get a lot out of this book. For more about the book’s context and the author’s inspiration, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World">check out Wikipedia </a>. The book is also <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/jordan-peterson-books/#6_Brave_New_World_by_Aldous_Huxley_1932">one of Jordan Peterson’s favorites </a>and comes with <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/?page_id=9911&preview=true">plenty of great quotes </a>.

The 23-year-old college student, who knows she is using her smartphone too much but can’t seem to stop, the 43-year-old worker who hasn’t changed his job in years, and anyone who sometimes shakes their head at our relentless consumer culture.

Who would I recommend our Brave New World  to?

Looking for a summary of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? Get the plot, some analysis, and 3 valuable lessons here.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

history

History

Brave New World Summary

1984 By George Orwell - 30 Quotes

1. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

2. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

3. “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

4. “The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.”

5. “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

6. “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

7. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”

8. “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”

9. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

10. “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

11 . “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

12. “It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.”

13. “It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones.”

14. “Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”

15. “But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith.”

16. “If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones.”

17. “When you make love you’re using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don’t give a damn for anything. They can’t bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you’re happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?”

18. “To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one’s lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available.”

19. “Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. (Continues next slide)

By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”

19. (Continued

20 . “The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.”

21. “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

22. “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

23. “Sanity is not statistical.”

24. “Where there is equality, there can be sanity.”

25. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

26. “What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?”

27. “Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever… And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon.”

28. “Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was completely satisfying.”

29. “‘If he THINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him do it, then the thing happens. … It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.’ … What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.”

30. “To die hating them, that was freedom.”

1984 by George Orwell - 30 Important Lines

Looking for the best quotes from 1984 by George Orwell? Here's our list of the 30 most popular & important lines from this classic.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

1984 Quotes: The 30 Best & Most Important Lines From George Orwell's Masterpiece

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984">1984 </a>is the story of a man questioning the system that keeps his futuristic but dystopian society afloat and the chaos that quickly ensues once he gives in to his natural curiosity and desire to be free.

1984 - Book Summary 

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."-George Orwell

Author Quote

“The best books are those that tell you what you know already,” Winston Smith concludes as he finally leafs through the pages of a forbidden book he’d been dying to get his hands on. In that sense, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984">1984 </a>  by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell">George Orwell </a>is indeed a great book: Most of us know the word “totalitarian” indicates something bad, but only after reading a dystopian classic like this will we truly understand what an absolute government might look like in practice.

Orwell had been an Imperial policeman in Burma (modern-day Myanmar) and fought in the Spanish Civil War. He later worked as a journalist during World War II. As such, he had seen the terrifying impact of <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-authoritarian-moment-summary/">governments with complete control </a>both first- and second-hand in Spain, Russia, and Germany.

Published in 1949, 1984 was his warning to Western nations not to succumb to then-popular communist ideas. Despite leaning more left than right himself, Orwell feared <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-road-to-serfdom-summary/">unquestioned socialism </a>would, ultimately, escalate into a government practicing systematic oppression — and could do so within the next 35 years.

The book has since become an often-quoted literary classic, taught in classrooms around the world. It is routinely praised for its important themes, strong symbolism, and, in some cases, accurate vision.

<ol><li>The most powerful way to either control or empower humans is language. </li><li>Freedom is the ability to say what’s true, to say what you think, and to make your own choices. </li><li>Totalitarian governments succeed when they turn off our individuality via gaslighting. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Book Lessons 

The book is structured into three parts, and in the first, we get to know the protagonist Winston Smith. At nearly 40 years old and in bad physical shape, Winston is somewhat of an anti-hero. He works in the Ministry of Truth in London, which is part of Oceania, one of three large <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstate">superstates </a>, who are constantly at war with one another.

Lesson 1: Language is the defining

Winston’s job at the record department is to, ironically, falsify historic records. The goal is to erase everything that contradicts or makes “the Party,” the governing political power, look bad. Originals are burned in giant furnaces, and every newspaper article gets rewritten every time the Party decides a new reality is in order.

One of Winston’s colleagues works on the Party’s latest edition of the “Newspeak” dictionary. Newspeak is a language devised specifically to eliminate rebellious thinking at the root. Think about it: If you didn’t have the vocabulary to express an idea, wouldn’t that also make you less likely to think of that idea in the first place?

For example, if the word “freedom” was erased from the English language, would Americans still understand it <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/on-liberty-summary/">the way it was meant in the Constitution? </a>In the book, the word “free” still exists, but by means of deleting many other words associated with it, future “Newspeakers” would only be able to use it “in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice.'” Political or intellectual freedom “no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.”

The <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/through-the-language-glass-summary/">form of language </a>shapes how we can express ourselves, and how we can express ourselves shapes how and what we think. Therefore, language may be the single-most important way to either empower or enslave humans. This concept is called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity">linguistic relativity </a>. It’s a little overstated, but in a way, “if you have no means of saying it, you can’t think it.”

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” Winston notes at one point. Cherish your words, and be mindful of them.

Besides altering language and falsifying history, the Party also controls its citizens via more direct means. For one, everyone could be a spy, and children regularly report their parents to “the Thought Police,” a sort of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo">Gestapo </a>which makes inconvenient people vanish at a moment’s notice. Another theme in the book is <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/permanent-record-summary/">using technology to practice mass surveillance </a>. Every home has a “telescreen,” a monitor that’s both recording and broadcasting at all times, and there are cameras and microphones everywhere.

Lesson 2: Freedom means being able to say what’s true

In a society like that, rebellion starts with little acts, such as Winston writing into a diary in a corner of his apartment that’s hidden from the screen. In the second part of the book, however, he takes his disobedience to the next level by starting an affair with Julia, a coworker.

At first, Winston thinks Julia is a spy, but when she gives him a love note, the two begin meeting in secret, sleeping together, and commiserating about how much they hate the Party. There is, however, one key difference between them: Julia has no interest in overthrowing the Party. “If you keep the small rules you can break the big ones,” she observes, and as long as she can do what she wants right under the Party’s nose, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-courage-to-be-happy-summary/">she is happy </a>.

Winston, however, more desperately wishes for a better future — not that he could do much to bring one about. Julia’s definition of freedom begins and ends with her choices, whereas Winston thinks freedom also means being able to think and say what is true and what you truly believe. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows,” he writes into his diary. “To die hating them,” the Party, that is, “that was freedom.”

If a government allows its citizens limited means to form an identity and actualize themselves, its people still isn’t free. Freedom includes permission to speak both facts and lies, to say what you think irrespective of whether it is right or wrong, and without these freedoms, all the others mean significantly less.

In 2020, just as the pandemic came into full force, Julio Vincent Gambuto told us to “<a href="https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0">prepare for the ultimate gaslighting </a>.” “Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we ‘open back up’ and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal.” Of course, normal had disappeared, Gambuto warned. The future would — and probably should — look very different, but if we let greedy, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/brandwashed-summary/">marketing-savvy corporations </a> steamroll us yet again, we’d gain nothing from the great pause we had been given.

Lesson 3: A totalitarian state wins when it can gaslight

In this case, the evil Gambuto referred to was consumerism, but gaslighting, <a href="https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/255554">defined as </a>“manipulating someone using psychological methods into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning,” is also what totalitarian governments use to bend citizens to their will.

Just before, in the last part of the book, the inevitable happens — Winston and Julia get caught by the Thought Police — Winston concludes that “sanity is not statistical.” What he means is that “there is truth and there is untruth, and if you cling to the truth even against the whole world, you are not mad.” If your government can make you think you’re mad, however, it just might get you to give up the truth in favor of a lie that’s more convenient for them. This is how totalitarian governments win: They get you to reject not just the truth but any kind of <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/think-again-summary/">individual thinking </a>whatsoever.

After their capture, Winston and Julia are separated, and both are tortured into not just compliance but becoming mindless Party drones like everyone else. As it turns out, Winston’s coworker O’Brien, whom he thought to be a fellow secret rebel, is actually a high-level Inner Party member, eager to brainwash him into loyalty to the Party.

Having had little individuality to begin with due to the short material leash the state kept him on, Winston is now forced to give up his last shred of self thanks to months of physical and psychological abuse. O’Brien doesn’t just get him to lie about basic reality, such as claiming he holds up five fingers when he’s only holding up four, but also to pretend Oceania has always been at war with the same enemy when, in fact, telescreens frequently announce differing warring factions.

The ultimate gaslighting, however, happens when he makes Winston doubt reality altogether and, as such, the importance of thinking for himself: “If he THINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him do it, then the thing happens,” Winston muses. “It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination. What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.”

Here's our summary of 1984, the dystopian novel and literary classic by George Orwell. Discover the plot and 3 valuable lessons.

1984 Summary

Find 100+ Science Fiction Facts - Curated by others from trusted sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!

The Butterfly Effect.

A Short History Of Nearly Everything Summary

Dune

Brave New World Summary

1984 Quotes: The 30 Best & Most Important Lines From George Orwell's Masterpiece

1984 Summary

21 Lessons For The 21st Century Summary

2030 Summary

How Smart Was Einstein?

An Intelligent Global Brain

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

The Butterfly Effect.

A Short History Of Nearly Everything Summary

Dune

Brave New World Summary

1984 Quotes: The 30 Best & Most Important Lines From George Orwell's Masterpiece

1984 Summary

21 Lessons For The 21st Century Summary

2030 Summary

How Smart Was Einstein?

An Intelligent Global Brain

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.