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I think he means we have the capabilities to be in a world surpassing 1984.

by opnitro 11y ago

varjag 11y ago
Doesn't mean much if the capabilities aren't being exploited. 1984 wasn't a book about technology. It did feature mass surveillance exceeding anything we have today, even if described in 1940s state of art terms.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  Not to mention the political oppression and violence enabled by that surveillance. Even most lynchings by a Twitter mob aren't actual executions where someone is really killed (although sometimes someone might be pushed to suicide by the psychological pressure; that is still a far cry from an actual political purge with murder.)
- cryoshon 11y ago
  The actual surveillance of 1984 was facile compared to today; today we are infinitely more surveilled than was described in the book. We carry cell phones which are fountains of data regarding our communications and movement, and we use the internet, which is a very large window into the content and often intent of our minds, not to mention ANOTHER fountain of information about our location and communications. On top of that, there are probably more CCTV cameras, dashcams, airborne cameras (with ARGOS), and body cameras today. Hell, they even have microphones and cameras in public buses / bus stops / metro trains. These cameras are all infinitely more utile than in 1984 once they are linked to facial recognition and gait recognition technology. In 1984, you could be an unnoticed face in a crowd if you weren't under investigation-- not so in our reality. You step outside, and the fact that you did so is tied to your identity and dossier and noted for later. Like I said before, Ingsoc of 1984 was a primitive surveillance society which still relied on humans to manually collect data on each other's conversations and movement patterns. It just doesn't scale as cleanly as an automatic computer system does. There wasn't any ability to create dossiers on 100% of people passively, nor was there any ability to sort people based off of various patterns, nor was there any ability to build sentiment maps, etc. As far as exploitation goes, I'm not going to say that our society is blatantly coercive using surveillance in the way that Ingsoc was. Wild abuses of the surveillance apparatus is utterly undeniable, however. Consider that whistleblower Russ Tice has said that Obama was being surveilled before his presidential term. Consider the terms "LOVEINT/SEXINT" and the JTRIG group. These are serious, democracy-eradicating abuses whose purpose is blackmail, not finding terrorists. I will also say that the current trend of politicians trying to outlaw cryptography and the sentiment there there should be nothing beyond the government's reach is taking us even further into totalitarian territory. Then there's the whole "we never voted or asked for this and now it won't go away" thing. As far as I can tell, the government doesn't have the consent of the governed to pursue these programs.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    > We carry cell phones which are fountains of data But only because we choose to. We don't have to.
    - rdancer 11y ago
      There is a perfectly plausible way to implement all the things we want, without all the surveillance. The surveillance is not necessary, and by and large isn't even incidental, to the good parts we want. And even if you forgo your own personal spy device, all of the other mobile, stationary, and airborne devices will make up for the hole, mostly. Choice doesn't really come into it.
      - varjag 11y ago
        My mom still says "not over the phone" when discussing any sensitive subject, in 2015. She learned this trait from my grandmother. Now grandma wasn't an anti-communist or dissident: she was a Party member and a WW2 vet. She was for world peace and for victory of Communism worldwide. This was just basic communication hygiene routine, one of the many, you had to do in USSR to stay alive and well. People doing it didn't even think it was wrong, it was as natural as washing your hands after taking a dump. You guys thinking that the West outdid 1984 just because there are DPI switches around are making me cringe.

I think he means we have the capabilities to be in a world surpassing 1984.

by opnitro 11y ago

I think he means we have the capabilities to be in a world surpassing 1984.

Doesn't mean much if the capabilities aren't being exploited. 1984 wasn't a book about technology. It did feature mass surveillance exceeding anything we have today, even if described in 1940s state of art terms.

ptaipale 11y ago
Not to mention the political oppression and violence enabled by that surveillance. Even most lynchings by a Twitter mob aren't actual executions where someone is really killed (although sometimes someone might be pushed to suicide by the psychological pressure; that is still a far cry from an actual political purge with murder.)
cryoshon 11y ago
The actual surveillance of 1984 was facile compared to today; today we are infinitely more surveilled than was described in the book. We carry cell phones which are fountains of data regarding our communications and movement, and we use the internet, which is a very large window into the content and often intent of our minds, not to mention ANOTHER fountain of information about our location and communications. On top of that, there are probably more CCTV cameras, dashcams, airborne cameras (with ARGOS), and body cameras today. Hell, they even have microphones and cameras in public buses / bus stops / metro trains. These cameras are all infinitely more utile than in 1984 once they are linked to facial recognition and gait recognition technology. In 1984, you could be an unnoticed face in a crowd if you weren't under investigation-- not so in our reality. You step outside, and the fact that you did so is tied to your identity and dossier and noted for later. Like I said before, Ingsoc of 1984 was a primitive surveillance society which still relied on humans to manually collect data on each other's conversations and movement patterns. It just doesn't scale as cleanly as an automatic computer system does. There wasn't any ability to create dossiers on 100% of people passively, nor was there any ability to sort people based off of various patterns, nor was there any ability to build sentiment maps, etc. As far as exploitation goes, I'm not going to say that our society is blatantly coercive using surveillance in the way that Ingsoc was. Wild abuses of the surveillance apparatus is utterly undeniable, however. Consider that whistleblower Russ Tice has said that Obama was being surveilled before his presidential term. Consider the terms "LOVEINT/SEXINT" and the JTRIG group. These are serious, democracy-eradicating abuses whose purpose is blackmail, not finding terrorists. I will also say that the current trend of politicians trying to outlaw cryptography and the sentiment there there should be nothing beyond the government's reach is taking us even further into totalitarian territory. Then there's the whole "we never voted or asked for this and now it won't go away" thing. As far as I can tell, the government doesn't have the consent of the governed to pursue these programs.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  > We carry cell phones which are fountains of data But only because we choose to. We don't have to.
  - rdancer 11y ago
    There is a perfectly plausible way to implement all the things we want, without all the surveillance. The surveillance is not necessary, and by and large isn't even incidental, to the good parts we want. And even if you forgo your own personal spy device, all of the other mobile, stationary, and airborne devices will make up for the hole, mostly. Choice doesn't really come into it.
    - varjag 11y ago
      My mom still says "not over the phone" when discussing any sensitive subject, in 2015. She learned this trait from my grandmother. Now grandma wasn't an anti-communist or dissident: she was a Party member and a WW2 vet. She was for world peace and for victory of Communism worldwide. This was just basic communication hygiene routine, one of the many, you had to do in USSR to stay alive and well. People doing it didn't even think it was wrong, it was as natural as washing your hands after taking a dump. You guys thinking that the West outdid 1984 just because there are DPI switches around are making me cringe.