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In his 1948 novel '1984', George Orwell imagined 'telescreens' - devices that enabled two-way surveillance while broadcasting content. In the story, 'The Party'
by Kim_Bruning 2y ago
In his 1948 novel '1984', George Orwell imagined 'telescreens' - devices that enabled two-way surveillance while broadcasting content. In the story, 'The Party' had to mandate their installation, because of course no one would install such an Orwellian device voluntarily!
Today, we voluntarily install smart TVs, always-listening assistants, and IoT cameras in our homes. Unlike telescreens, which were limited by human monitoring capacity, modern devices can automatically process, store, and analyze surveillance data at scale [1].
The dystopian technology wasn't just recreated - it was improved upon, then marketed as a convenience.
(See also: Torment Nexus)
[1] At the very least the theoretical capability is already there.
- toofy 2y agoi’ll never understand people who put surveillance cameras _in_ their houses. like everything there are of course exceptions, but a normal ass everyday person… i can’t imagine living with this kind of paranoia.
- mlrtime 2y agoBecause they aren't connected to the "cloud", they are completely isolated. Ever hear of a baby cam, definitely useful! It's not paranoia, it's convenience.
- gambiting 2y agoObviously, but people are also perfectly happy having a cloud connected camera directly in their living room so they can watch the dog or whatever when they aren't home. That's mad to me.
- poincaredisk 2y agoDo you have a dog? One of my pets died because he locked himself in a bad position, and nobody was home for a few hours to help him. And we like to travel, so we're often away from home for days (someone comes over once daily to feed the animals in that case). It's not that different from having a baby cam.
- akimbostrawman 2y ago>aren't connected to the "cloud" Yeah they just need an an app.....which is connected to the cloud lol
- Lio 2y agoIt’s more in the line of Robocop but I could imagine a dystopian reality TV show where the show clips from people’s unguarded cameras. I know hackers already do this but this would be the TV companies doing it without any shame.