Under the Influence

By Jesse Atwell

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, children are raised under the influence of hypnopedia, or learning by hearing while asleep.

In reality, sleep-learning is largely inconclusive. If you disagree, try learning French in your sleep.

But in Huxley’s walled-gardenesque vision of the future, sleep-learning is used to condition children to become frictionless members of society created largely to consume. While children are sleeping, government-approved audio is piped into their brains via a speaker under their pillow repeating phrases like “the more stitches, the less riches” and “ending is better than mending.”

These phrases are repeated until they are baked into the children’s psychological DNA.

The thing about invisible influences is that they are — by definition — invisible. Government, corporations, bosses, parents, use a more PC name for this approach — integrated. Systemize everything, eliminate waste, and leverage internal resources to achieve maximum results. The system will efficiently deal with anything that arises.

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter… they’re all building walled-gardens where users are rewarded for specific and platform-approved actions. Non-approved actions are reprimanded with account restrictions, suspensions, or largely ignored. And if you want influence, you must obey the rules.

Steve Jobs is one of the most influential closed-system enthusiasts in recent times. He is quoted, “Open systems don’t always win.” And the products he built are famous for being tightly controlled and operating only within specific constraints.

But closed systems often lack innovation. Like the children in Brave New World, they are largely under the influence of the main controller.

Innovation? WHAM!

External influence? KA-POW!

Fragmentation? BAM!!

All resisted.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean integration is better than fragmentation, or vice versa.

They’re just different.

And whoever controls the platform, controls the rules.

Of course, it may not matter anyway; some of us are already sleepwalking.