11 ms·

What beggars believe is that in the novel, 1984, you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. But people put an always on spy device

What beggars believe is that in the novel, 1984, you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. But people put an always on spy device connected to Amazon (or Google, or Facebook [honest, we won't spy on you, maybe]) into their homes. To each his own, I guess, but is the exchange of a little bit convenience to a potential privacy nuclear device really worth it?

arethuza 8y ago
Wasn't it just party members who had telescreens? Most people (i.e the proles) posed no threat to the Inner Party and therefore weren't monitored that closely.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  You may be right. It's over 30 years since I read it. Seems to be a good idea to reread it, though.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    Read Brave New World too.
    - zodPod 8y ago
      I liked Brave New World better. I read it a few years ago and honestly it felt like it was just talking about present times.
- fidndifj 8y ago
  The proles were less monitored, but there were telescreens hidden everywhere in the city just in case. Besides why have telescreens, when children ratting out their parents are the most effective soln.? That’s what scares me the most of the next twenty years.
  - Loughla 8y ago
    >That’s what scares me the most of the next twenty years. Explain, please.
    - fidndifj 8y ago
      Kids speak the truth. Sometimes the truth they say can get ppl in trouble.
      - Loughla 8y ago
        That still doesn't make sense. Why is that the thing that scares you the most in the next 20 years?
        quantum_magpie 8y ago
        Because such tactics were already successfully used in the past -- WW2 Germany, and post-WW2 Soviet Union. And they were quite effective, too. Seeing as the world is moving into another dystopian era, the same mechanisms can be employed again, this time enhanced by the electronic surveilance too. Even just a single fraction of it -- a mandatory (at least where I live) cellphone, with permanent location tracking by the service providers is scary enough right now.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  It's been a few years since I read it but I remember them going to the woods where they hoped they would be out of the reach of microphones, so I assume monitoring devices were fairly ubiquitous.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    Or they're looking for telescreen-free areas in places where they're supposed to be: party members slumming it in prole areas would not be normal and proper (at least beyond basic black market stuff)
- masklinn 8y ago
  Yes, the "proles" mostly live in poverty, and while they can purchase telescreens they're not explicitly kept down, being mostly kept in poverty and entertained. The party keeps an eye on the behaviour of the masses (and will take out possible leaders arising) but there is no individual oversight.
village-idiot 8y ago
Facebook is starting to advertise a dedicated video chat device to put into your home. That is the last thing I would ever want, the revulsion I felt at the idea was visceral.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  Me too. And Facebook from all companies. There's probably yet another of Zuck's apology tours coming in 2019.
  - genofon 8y ago
    I'm confident there are people at FB already preparing it.
- rvense 8y ago
  I wonder if it will become socially acceptable to ask people to unplug such devices when you are in their home.
  - 908087 8y ago
    I regularly do this. Nobody has had an issue with it, and most have voiced their own concerns about the devices they own after I brought it up. Some of them have taken to unplugging them in advance when they know I'm coming by, and others have decided to ditch them entirely out of concern for their own privacy. That said, my friends and family all know my stance on privacy-invasive tech, so none of them were surprised by my requests.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    It's already acceptable to ask people to put their cell phones away in social situations. "Please turn off the monitoring device in the house" is not a large leap.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
> But people put an always on spy device connected to Amazon (or Google, or Facebook [honest, we won't spy on you, maybe]) into their homes. Do you not walk around with one in your pocket most of the time? (I don't have one of these devices either, just playing devil's advocate)
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Your iPhone is not listening to you right now, but your Echo is. That's a big difference.
  - menacingly 8y ago
    A software control prevents your iphone from spying on you, and a software control prevents your echo from spying on you. In both cases you aren't really sure it's the case, you wouldn't know if it were suddenly disregarded or circumvented, and you're just trusting in the good behavior of your chosen provider.
    - _jal 8y ago
      You also don't know that you're not being tailed by a PI, that your neighbors are not focusing a mic on your home, or that your dentist isn't on the lizard-peoples' payroll. However, we all make certain risk tradeoffs based on numerous things, including proxy signals. For instance, I would be intensely surprised to find out my downstairs neighbor was recoding me, based on multiple years of interactions. Likewise, I find the signal Apple sends ("We need a US-based GDPR") about privacy rather more compelling than the signal Amazon sends ("scour the mic for hints about product we can shift"). I mean, sure, while both $huge_bank and your hypothetical deadbeat relative might both steal your money, I bet I know which one you choose to to leave your money with.
      - menacingly 8y ago
        I'm just saying it boils down to trust either way, not weighing in on which way that trust should lean.
zodPod 8y ago
> in the novel, 1984 you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. This makes a lot of sense I recently heard a comparison between Orwell and Huxley that stated that they differed mostly on how they believed control would be taken. In the case of Orwell, he believed that control could be punished into the population and that they'd comply for fear of being punished again. Though, Skinner had evidence that this wasn't really feasible. In the case of Huxley, he believed that it could be rewarded into the population to the point where the population would crave it and seek it out. Feels like Huxley had the right idea. People are paying really good money to buy these spy devices to put into their homes.
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  To be fair, I don't think it's worth discussing which of these paths we will take. What's worth discussing, although - is the fact that these two (opposing and heavily developed) points of view both will degenerate the society towards the same authoritarian state. Imagine a world where the government uses terrorism as a justification for it's surveillance programs and the companies are pushing the surveillance devices for customer satisfaction? Wait a minute... The solution space is much wider and is thus more probable.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
It "beggars belief", but "beggars believe" is an amusing eggcorn.
gumby 8y ago
> What beggars believe is that in the novel, 1984, you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. Actually that was true of government workers and perhaps all of the middle classes but not the workers (“proles”). A key plot element of the story is Winston and Julia heading into the parole areas to (in vain) evade the oversight of Big Brother. The implication is that under such regimes the workers supposedly believe in the regime (and in the idea that they control it, rather than the other way around) so strongly that oversight is unnecessary. It’s related to why trade unions are illegal in China (and were in the Soviet Union): they are “unnecessary” as the whole government is supposedly the worker’s party. Orwell was a committed socialist (despite/because of) his colonial service and some of his sneers at “sandal-wearing vegetarians in bad suits” in Wigan Pier. But by the end of WWII he had realized that the socialist regimes were in many ways quite similar to the fascist ones and so his last two novels were reactions to that. But all his writing was from a Fabian socialist-idealist perspective.

arethuza 8y ago

Wasn't it just party members who had telescreens? Most people (i.e the proles) posed no threat to the Inner Party and therefore weren't monitored that closely.

CaptainZapp 8y ago
You may be right. It's over 30 years since I read it. Seems to be a good idea to reread it, though.
- dwighttk 8y ago
  Read Brave New World too.
  - zodPod 8y ago
    I liked Brave New World better. I read it a few years ago and honestly it felt like it was just talking about present times.
fidndifj 8y ago
The proles were less monitored, but there were telescreens hidden everywhere in the city just in case. Besides why have telescreens, when children ratting out their parents are the most effective soln.? That’s what scares me the most of the next twenty years.
- Loughla 8y ago
  >That’s what scares me the most of the next twenty years. Explain, please.
  - fidndifj 8y ago
    Kids speak the truth. Sometimes the truth they say can get ppl in trouble.
    - Loughla 8y ago
      That still doesn't make sense. Why is that the thing that scares you the most in the next 20 years?
      - quantum_magpie 8y ago
        Because such tactics were already successfully used in the past -- WW2 Germany, and post-WW2 Soviet Union. And they were quite effective, too. Seeing as the world is moving into another dystopian era, the same mechanisms can be employed again, this time enhanced by the electronic surveilance too. Even just a single fraction of it -- a mandatory (at least where I live) cellphone, with permanent location tracking by the service providers is scary enough right now.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
It's been a few years since I read it but I remember them going to the woods where they hoped they would be out of the reach of microphones, so I assume monitoring devices were fairly ubiquitous.
- masklinn 8y ago
  Or they're looking for telescreen-free areas in places where they're supposed to be: party members slumming it in prole areas would not be normal and proper (at least beyond basic black market stuff)
masklinn 8y ago
Yes, the "proles" mostly live in poverty, and while they can purchase telescreens they're not explicitly kept down, being mostly kept in poverty and entertained. The party keeps an eye on the behaviour of the masses (and will take out possible leaders arising) but there is no individual oversight.

village-idiot 8y ago

Facebook is starting to advertise a dedicated video chat device to put into your home. That is the last thing I would ever want, the revulsion I felt at the idea was visceral.

CaptainZapp 8y ago
Me too. And Facebook from all companies. There's probably yet another of Zuck's apology tours coming in 2019.
- genofon 8y ago
  I'm confident there are people at FB already preparing it.
rvense 8y ago
I wonder if it will become socially acceptable to ask people to unplug such devices when you are in their home.
- 908087 8y ago
  I regularly do this. Nobody has had an issue with it, and most have voiced their own concerns about the devices they own after I brought it up. Some of them have taken to unplugging them in advance when they know I'm coming by, and others have decided to ditch them entirely out of concern for their own privacy. That said, my friends and family all know my stance on privacy-invasive tech, so none of them were surprised by my requests.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  It's already acceptable to ask people to put their cell phones away in social situations. "Please turn off the monitoring device in the house" is not a large leap.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

> But people put an always on spy device connected to Amazon (or Google, or Facebook [honest, we won't spy on you, maybe]) into their homes. Do you not walk around with one in your pocket most of the time? (I don't have one of these devices either, just playing devil's advocate)

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Your iPhone is not listening to you right now, but your Echo is. That's a big difference.
- menacingly 8y ago
  A software control prevents your iphone from spying on you, and a software control prevents your echo from spying on you. In both cases you aren't really sure it's the case, you wouldn't know if it were suddenly disregarded or circumvented, and you're just trusting in the good behavior of your chosen provider.
  - _jal 8y ago
    You also don't know that you're not being tailed by a PI, that your neighbors are not focusing a mic on your home, or that your dentist isn't on the lizard-peoples' payroll. However, we all make certain risk tradeoffs based on numerous things, including proxy signals. For instance, I would be intensely surprised to find out my downstairs neighbor was recoding me, based on multiple years of interactions. Likewise, I find the signal Apple sends ("We need a US-based GDPR") about privacy rather more compelling than the signal Amazon sends ("scour the mic for hints about product we can shift"). I mean, sure, while both $huge_bank and your hypothetical deadbeat relative might both steal your money, I bet I know which one you choose to to leave your money with.
    - menacingly 8y ago
      I'm just saying it boils down to trust either way, not weighing in on which way that trust should lean.

zodPod 8y ago

> in the novel, 1984 you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. This makes a lot of sense I recently heard a comparison between Orwell and Huxley that stated that they differed mostly on how they believed control would be taken. In the case of Orwell, he believed that control could be punished into the population and that they'd comply for fear of being punished again. Though, Skinner had evidence that this wasn't really feasible. In the case of Huxley, he believed that it could be rewarded into the population to the point where the population would crave it and seek it out. Feels like Huxley had the right idea. People are paying really good money to buy these spy devices to put into their homes.

heavenlyblue 8y ago
To be fair, I don't think it's worth discussing which of these paths we will take. What's worth discussing, although - is the fact that these two (opposing and heavily developed) points of view both will degenerate the society towards the same authoritarian state. Imagine a world where the government uses terrorism as a justification for it's surveillance programs and the companies are pushing the surveillance devices for customer satisfaction? Wait a minute... The solution space is much wider and is thus more probable.

fjsolwmv 8y ago

It "beggars belief", but "beggars believe" is an amusing eggcorn.

gumby 8y ago

> What beggars believe is that in the novel, 1984, you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. Actually that was true of government workers and perhaps all of the middle classes but not the workers (“proles”). A key plot element of the story is Winston and Julia heading into the parole areas to (in vain) evade the oversight of Big Brother. The implication is that under such regimes the workers supposedly believe in the regime (and in the idea that they control it, rather than the other way around) so strongly that oversight is unnecessary. It’s related to why trade unions are illegal in China (and were in the Soviet Union): they are “unnecessary” as the whole government is supposedly the worker’s party. Orwell was a committed socialist (despite/because of) his colonial service and some of his sneers at “sandal-wearing vegetarians in bad suits” in Wigan Pier. But by the end of WWII he had realized that the socialist regimes were in many ways quite similar to the fascist ones and so his last two novels were reactions to that. But all his writing was from a Fabian socialist-idealist perspective.