The Orwellian-Huxleyan Present and Future

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(Edited)

Freedom is on the downturn. All the work over the centuries is steadily being reversed as we tumble down towards an authoritarian control grid of increasing size.


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Many may look at China and see the posterchild of the dystopian future. But they can't see what's right in front of their own in their own society. This is why we're beyond 1984 with it's overt expression of dominance, with the boot stepping on our throats. But that's where we are headed as the snowball grows.

China has a social credit system that is going to encompass the whole nation and control the 1.4 billion people there. SOme see it as desirable. Get people in line with doing "good" and get rewarded for it. Do "bad" things, and you get punished.

This ranges from being able to apply for better jobs, education, housing, and even travel. If you do what the government wants you to do, then you get to live in "heaven". If you don't then you get put into "hell" until you get back in line with how the authorities want you to act.

There is no legal framework to apply to people. There is no legal recourse to get yourself out of unfair authoritarian decisions. Speak out against the government? Boom, now your a deviant and can't get access to what everyone else can.

This is what's coming around the world. We're just seeing develop in China, and already in some US cities moving ahead with similar models. It's all gradual and will end up with a boot on our throats like in 1984.

Big tech is how it's happening. Government isn't able to do this without technology. They alone are molding our futures without our knowledge. Google and Facebook rank information that you see and search for based on what they want you to see. They might still be there, but lower in the rankings for you to eventually get to. Or they may even blacklist certain sites or topics.

You will see things as they want you to see them, slowly but surely. Social engineering is moving more and more into the big tech corporate world. Corporations will mold the future. Even review sites are being used to block or ban access for life, like Uber and AirBnB have done. People can spoof reviews and easily get people blocked from a service.

Everything is being concentrated into certain centralized hub markets that everyone flocks to. If you can't get your product or business in there, you are locked out of the market. Governments and companies are eroding our freedoms. We let them have power, and now they are taking more of it.

People want many of the governmental authority to increase, and the centralized markets under control of corporations. Scoring everything is the present and future. If you do act the way they want you to act, you are going to get a lower score, and locked out or degraded in status so that you can't access what others can. Welcome to post 1984-Brave New World.




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Links to the two books mentioned.
http://www.idph.com.br/conteudos/ebooks/BraveNewWorld.pdf
http://mondopolitico.com/library/1984/1984.htm
In case they might like to catch up with the class.

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What about this fantastical social commentary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_Proxy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_Hunter_Robin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain

Basically all are great anime, with nice music, maybe they are 20 years too old for today's time, but then again, most of the popular anime are having a world government, because we need to protect the environment with big heroes :D and nice storylines :)

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Blame!
Blame! (Japanese: ブラム!, Hepburn: Buramu!), pronounced "blam", is a ten-volume Japanese science fiction manga by Tsutomu Nihei published by Kodansha from 1996 to 2003. A six-part original net animation was produced in 2003, with a seventh episode included on the DVD release. An anime film adaptation by Polygon Pictures was released as a Netflix original in May 2017.

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So what's the answer? Hope for AI to go ahead and do its thing in replacing humans and picking up the mantle of conscious activity? Maybe that's better than a global prison system?

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We are way beyond 1984, further than most think. The original title for Orwell's (Eric Arthur Blair) 1984 was 1948 it was changed just prior to publishing due to pressure from the publisher.
I've always thought they were using a combination of 1984 and Brave New World myself.

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Freedom is a species in extinction leading to ecocide.
People are in denial of the whole essence of our existence because the conditions of life in the last decades have been drastically reduced but people are doing nothing to stop it.
Today's education is contaminated by the doctrinal illiteracy promoted by the ruling classes elite that have assaulted and kidnaped political power and the State, that belong to all of us.

Movies, Press and Social Media are inducing diseases like "zombie personalities" and others that inspire suicide, collective violence, self-mutilation, and destruction.
It's time for the citizens to get united and start the dismantling of centralized structures and representative democracy, to be replaced with a direct participative system, where the people can vote in the laws, and create groups to supervise the wrong-doings of politicians.

We have to stop giving them rope to hang us by the neck because the alternative is to accept total submission and the death of our self-sovereignty.

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Technically life conditions should have been improved, thanks to the nice systems in place... It's a interesting topic to deliberate, I'm young(ish) but where I live there are all kinds of people, I kind of remember the "feudal" system we used to live in, at least the remnants, I can almost hear the same story from the people that lived through the socialism/communism days, basically everyone was treated equally, if you don't appreciate the "state virtues" you are against the system, so you're bad and it's ok to steal from you... that was marginal, but not pretty, so most people were in line and working for life :|

Nowadays it's more opt-in, but we are over-reliant on "allies" since we have to be kept back and stupid, basically we have lived in a corrupt system for a few generations again, so we are still corrupting our system... although on a outside level, we are getting investments, developing industry and blah blah... basically future debt...

Also, we are losing the advantages from the internet, which was decentralisation and freedom of information, but hey, we have to keep children safe, and we are just working on AI to improve the life of seniors and so on ...

Luckily there is always the "underground" :D, ie. listening to "free" people, picking what you want rather than what is being feeded to you, even if it's next to impossible when you factor in predictions and profiles ...

And in the end of the day, talk is cheap, we are responsible for our freedom, even if I, like most people, am scared to own up and be responsible to my own life... it's always better to delegate and blame others and the system..

But yeah, evil never sleeps :D and I'm constantly chattering away ...

Here is a nice quote, from a nice life, basically when you do something great with the opportunity and the freedom you are given, at least it looks that way from a distance.
https://www.quora.com/Ben-Franklin-said-most-men-die-at-25-but-just-aren%E2%80%99t-buried-until-they%E2%80%99re-75-Hopes-and-dreams-often-die-by-35-so-assuming-no-major-life-changes-is-there-really-a-difference-between-dying-at-35-or-dying-at-75

From what I gather, we can't go back, even if we want it.

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I read both of these books in high school for one of my English classes. They don't seem to be as commonly used in school anymore though. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

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