"Punctured, utterly deflated, he dropped into a chair and, covering his face with his hands, began to weep. A few minutes later, however, he thought better of it and took four tablets of soma" (Huxley 176).
Scientific and technological advancements are not a benefit to humanity because these advancements have made the people completely dependent on the government and its technology. Sadness is a normal human emotion that everyone expects to experience at some point in their lives. In Brave New World, however, the people refuse to deal with any emotion other than happiness. When they are upset, they simply take soma, as hypnopaedia conditioned them to do so. While the citizens think they are happy, they are simply living a bland life free of all emotions and typical life experiences. Due to their reliance on soma to take away anything that does not make them feel good, they are unable to truly appreciate the good things in life. They do not know true happiness, because one cannot truly know happiness without first experience sadness. In addition to this, they have become extremely reliant on the government. They have been conditioned to not let themselves feel negative emotion, so they do not know how to handle it when something bad happens. As a result, they totally depend on the soma provided to them by the government. These advancements did not benefit humanity because it took away most of the emotions felt by humans and made them slaves to their own government.
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