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In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury imagined a world of media and entertainment saturation. He envisioned a place where critical thought and engagement with the world had given way to boredom and distraction. So was the guy a psychic, or just paranoid? Find out in this video.

Video Transcription:

If you want to know what Fahrenheit 451 is about, look no further than your own neighborhood …

Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1953, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say that Ray Bradbury had traveled, oh, fifty-odd years into the future, taken a look around, and went rushing back to “the good old days” to write this novel.

That’s because Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a futuristic world in which people are constantly “plugged in” to various sources of entertainment. The walls of their houses are actually enormous TVs. Newspapers are dead. And did I mention that books are now illegal?

Sounds like a pretty monstrous place to live—and it is. There’s plenty of information, just no knowledge. There’s more free time than ever, but no time to really think. There’s stuff, stuff, and more stuff, but the stuff that really feeds us—like nature, and real connections with other people—has been shut out by rampant materialism.

And the result is a society that’s blind to its own ignorance—and being destroyed by it.

Sound familiar? If not, you’re exactly the audience Ray Bradbury had in mind when he wrote his book. Stick around before it’s too late …