It is clear that the techno-dystopia that Huxley feared is already here: people love their servitude, their suburban isolation from each other, their internet silos, their “to be is to buy” consumerism, their endless and mindless TV entertainment, their addictions, whether to pharmaceuticals or cell phones and doom-scrolling. And politics has become a blood sport, where all that ever matters is whether your side wins and “the enemy” (the other party) is demonized and humiliated…actual policy questions and the actual public interest don’t matter at all, since all politicians are bankrolled by huge corporate interests whose only concern is their own bottom line.

What can we do? Collectively, nothing. The global market economy is disintegrating and its biological support system, the Earth, has gone into runaway overheating. Tyrants and masters of delusion like Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, and Xi are ascendant while democracy is in retreat.

But individually, we can choose to grow gardens, grow community, and grow awareness.