[i]Fear of Islam now isn't the same as fear of communism was then. [/i]
You don't think that "fear of the other" is a tactic being used by propagandist govts and mainstream media to control and direct perceptions?
And I can say ALMOST anything I like without fear of repercussion.
You're probably not a 'person of interest'. If you were, the police might try to get into you pants:
http://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/
Just because nothing is happening to YOU, a conformist with 'nothing to hide', doesn't mean that all OUR civil liberties and human rights aren't being slowly eroded.
Watching the UK from the outside it's quite scary just how much of your freedoms are being eroded, bit by bit - the right to silence, radars and anpr everywhere, massive amounts of CCTV, government monitoring of communications, the anti-terrorism legislation, etc. The UK is [b]much[/b] more of a police state than where I live in Spain.
And I can say ALMOST anything I like without fear of repercussion. Let me demonstrate:
some guys said that on twitter, and got nicked.
radars
Speed cameras are an erosion of freedom? Give me a break!
The UK is much more of a police state than where I live in Spain.
But still nothing like a police state.
Just because nothing is happening to YOU, a conformist with 'nothing to hide', doesn't mean that all OUR civil liberties and human rights aren't being slowly eroded.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what we are experiencing now is trivial compared to what Soviet Russia went through, and what Orwell was writing about. In the book EVERYONE was under extreme threat, for the purposes of controlling the population. Currently they are being somewhat heavy handed in an attempt to catch people who would threaten the safety of the majority. In some ways the opposite of the book - the authorities are working to preserve the liberty of the [i]majority[/i] whereas in the book they are suppressing it.
The issue we currently have is that in attempting to catch people who are a genuine threat they are causing problems for others.
The intentions of the authorities now are completely different to the book. And that's the point.
Speed cameras are an erosion of freedom? Give me a break!
Constant surveillance an erosion of freedom? What an idea!
Some people above are rather confused on what 1984 was about. Facebook or blacklisting of workers by companies as described above are nothing to do with what 1984 was about.
Molgrips is right 1984 was concerned with the rise of Communism (the Stalin kind), as Orwell realised more and more that Communism wasn't the answer.
Constant surveillance an erosion of freedom?
Do you think they are watching you through speed cameras?! Do you think someone is making notes on you as you drive past?
Some people above are rather confused on what 1984 was about. Facebook or blacklisting of workers by companies as described above are nothing to do with what 1984 was about.
The operative bit being "was" about. How we interpret 1984 in 2014 is quite different to how Orwell originally intended it. You and molgrips are right in saying the UK is nothing like as bad as Stalinist Russia, but to argue that 1984 should only be interpreted in that light is IMO unreasonable.
Do you think they are watching you through speed cameras?! Do you think someone is making notes on you as you drive past?
No, it's far worse - they get a computer to do it. Far more pervasive.
You're saying that your whereabouts are actively being monitored through speed cameras? So someone, somewhere could tell me where mogrim has been the last few weeks due to speed camera footage?
to argue that 1984 should only be interpreted in that light is IMO unreasonable.
I don't think so at all. He wrote it to make a point. You can't just pin whatever current concern you have on a book about something else, just to add a bit of weight to your point. That's absolutely ridiculous.
Seeing as you probably have little idea what 'Soviet Russia went through', like most of us, you have nothing to really compare with the current situation, which, in some ways, is actually a lot more similar to Orwell's dystopia than a SU with hardly any ofthe methods of surveillance available to agencies now.
Molgrips; seems to me that you're talking with very little knowledge indeed of the real lengths that the state and various other 'security' and even commercial agencies now go to to obtain information on groups and individuals. You really do need to read up on the subjects I linked to, and many others, to get a fuller picture.
'what we are experiencing now is trivial'
No, what YOU are experiencing may be trivial, but you aren't a 'person of interest'. Clearly. Or you'd have a different perspective.
http://www.markthomasinfo.co.uk/section_writing/default.asp?id=30
You're saying that your whereabouts are actively being monitored through speed cameras? So someone, somewhere could tell me where mogrim has been the last few weeks due to speed camera footage?
Sorry, should have been more clear: the anpr cameras. And thankfully there aren't many (not sure if there are in fact any) here in Madrid.
Ok, so you're syaing that the apnr cameras are tracking all of us and logging where we've been? So the government actually knows where I've been in my car?
Molgrips; seems to me that you're talking with very little knowledge indeed of the real lengths that the state and various other 'security' and even commercial agencies now go to to obtain information on groups and individuals.
No no no - you miss my point. The point is that in the book (and in Stalinist Russia) a 'person of interest' is anyone who says anything negative.
In the UK, a person of interest is generally suspected of a crime, terrorist offence or something dangerous.
Or is this not true? Are people being disappeared for being anti-regime?
You're saying that your whereabouts are actively being monitored.......?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4800490.stm
Ok, so you're syaing that the apnr cameras are tracking all of us and logging where we've been? So the government actually knows where I've been in my car?
Basically, yes, they know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4800490.stm
Facepalm.
"In January, police requested journey information 61 times"
So EXACTLY like 1984 then! OMG!
Basically, yes, they know.
Ok so what are they going to use that information for? Remember, we are talking about the novel 1984 here, and whether or not the UK is like the state in the book.
Do you really think that the Stasi at the height of their powers were actively monitoring the whereabouts of everyone in GDR?
Not sure if anyone has done this yet, but thought it worth a laugh:
[img] 
[/img]
No I think the Staszi were prosecuting people who spoke out against the regime. Something that I do not think happens here.
If you can point to ONE incidence of someone being disappeared by the authorities for being anti regime, I'll concede a point.
I'm interested though in a Goldstien/Bin Ladin comparison conspiracy theory I found on the internet the other day
Yep we need our bogey men to help keep us in line
I always enjoyed this Adam Curtis documentary
If you can point to ONE incidence of someone being disappeared by the authorities for being anti regime, I'll concede a point.
Ooh can I play 😀
Dr David Kelly
Facepalm."In January, police requested journey information 61 times"
So EXACTLY like 1984 then! OMG!
What about 22,000 times in 4 years then?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/10/metropolitan_police_asks_for_tfl_data/
But you're missing the point. Which is that governments and various other agencies are incresingly using surveillance, infiltration and other information-gathering methods to gain information on individuals, groups and organisations, legaly and illegaly, for all sorts of reasons, not all of which are benign. As I have shown. Which you apear to ignore. And/or be in denial about.
Information in itself is of little consequence; it's what is done with that information, how it is gathered, collated, interpreted, presented and manipulated, and by whom, that is. Which is the basic premise of Orwell's book.
[i]Quo custodiet ipsos custodes?[/i]
I read it this year, and was surprised/shocked by the content. Had been put off for years by the rat mask idea (highlighted by the film, which I haven't seen), but seemingly the 'ppl management' was the worst part of the book for me. Thought it worth a read and it was & I'd recommend it to others, but I won't be rushing to re-read it.
"In January, police requested journey information 61 times"So EXACTLY like 1984 then! OMG!
a - how much access to information d they have that they don't need to ask for so there's no records of requests?
b - and I know this will stretch you little bit - the fact that the information is there means it CAN be used. As such 1984 is a warning about the abuse of the kind of technology the authorities have at their disposal and are using. It's not exactly like 1984, of course not, but I'd have thought that even someone as unimaginative as you would see that the state is using tools like islamophobia and paedofear to push us further down that path.
As I have shown. Which you apear to ignore. And/or be in denial about.
Well no, I'm not denying it happens.
What I'm saying, once again, is that the reasons for doing it in the west, now, are not the same as the reasons they did it behind the iron curtain, or in Orwell's book.
Dr David Kelly
Oooh, good one!
Which is the basic premise of Orwell's book.
I don't think so, not at all.
His book is about what could have happened to the world had Stalinist Russia continued to become more and more powerful.
Your interpretation is what happens when you read it purely from a contemporary point of view - which is not the author's original aim. You can't hijack his book just because there are SOME similarities.
I'd have thought that even someone as unimaginative as you
Oh piss off, there's nothing wrong with my imagination. I just know when to separate it from real life.
His book is about what could have happened to the world had Stalinist Russia continued to become more and more powerful.
Exactly where in the book does it say that - not page numbers please, I'm using a amazon purchased hence government monitored kindle.
His book is about what could have happened to the world had Stalinist Russia continued to become more and more powerful.Your interpretation is what happens when you read it purely from a contemporary point of view - which is not the author's original aim. You can't hijack his book just because there are SOME similarities.
Why not? The author's long dead, we can interpret his work how we see fit. We do it all the time with Shakespeare and Dickens, why not Orwell?
Exactly where in the book does it say that
🙄 Just after the bit where it says it's about misuse of technology.
The author's long dead, we can interpret his work how we see fit.
Interpreting it isn't the same as hijacking it.
Interpreting it would be say, treating it as a love story as someone did earlier. You can't treat it as a story about something that didn't exist when it was written.
[i]What I'm saying, once again, is that the reasons for doing it in the west, now, are not the same as the reasons they did it behind the iron curtain, or in Orwell's book.[/i]
That's the point, the agenda of the Stalinist govts are Identical to the ones more "liberal" govts have
That's the point, the agenda of the Stalinist govts are Identical to the ones more "liberal" govts have
I disagree with that.
I think the point that's being made (and IMO the right one) is that even if the book was written from a view of progression from Stalinist Russia, that's largely irrelevant. What it's about is the use of technology, etc to subjugate and manipulate a population. That could develop from Stalinist Russia or from a Western Democracy.
Despite some doom mongers claiming otherwise, we're not even close to that right now. Could it develop from this point even in a Western Democracy? Yes, I reckon feasibly it could. Will it? Well that's the question, isn't it?
I'll say the same thing to you that I said to Raceface then;
Now you've read Orwell, go read Chomsky
Could it develop from this point even in a Western Democracy?
Well.. Yes, but the technology is just the tool - the motive has to be there.
When you have a functioning ballot box, governments are bound to appease the population, and as long as the government isn't able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes at the same time and bully the rest, they won't be able to do what Hitler did in the 30s.
Technology could actually help prevent that as it allows more people's voices to be heard. As long as it's not strictly controlled...
Despite some doom mongers claiming otherwise, we're not even close to that right now. Could it develop from this point even in a Western Democracy? Yes, I reckon feasibly it could. Will it? Well that's the question, isn't it?
No idea, and I do basically agree we're still a fair way off. But the tools are there, and I genuinely do believe that the UK is a lot closer than it was 20 years ago.
Well.. Yes, but the technology is just the tool - the motive has to be there.
The motive is there: security. Fear of terrorists, immigrants, crime, paedophiles...
Yes, the tools are there. The issue is that they cannot be used in the 1984 way unless you redirect a huge amount of resources to doing that. Or maybe AI...
Of course as molgrips says, technology may be the counter to that - it's becoming hard for news to be buried these days with twitter, etc though as molgrips alludes to, if that were to be controlled...
[i]Well.. Yes, but the technology is just the tool - the motive has to be there.[/i]
And we're back as Mogrim points out to "fear of the other"
Still sure that there's no link at all between the Red Dread and the muslamic ray guns?
Of course as molgrips says, technology may be the counter to that - it's becoming hard for news to be buried these days with twitter, etc though as molgrips alludes to, if that were to be controlled...
Yeah, just imagine if the government mandated all the ISPs to stick in a great big filter to stop nasty things being shown on the internet. That could never happen, could it? Or if they started monitoring twitter just in case you said something that might be terroristy. That couldn't happen either, could it?
The tools are there, all over the place. Fortunately for the moment we still have democracy, more or less, and the two main parties limit themselves to nibbling around the edges of it when the Mail asks them to. I'm not sure a UKIP-style party with a majority would be so scrupulous, however.
The motive is there: security. Fear of terrorists, immigrants, crime, paedophiles...
Hmm. Do you think fear of those things could be extrapolated to Stalinist policies? I think that's a bit of a stretch tbh.
The overriding aim of the state in 1984 seems to be to fight the other states, at enormous cost - now does that require such totalitarian control of the population? Or is it just a pretext?
Why did Stalinist Russia end up like it did? I suspect a combination of Stalin's fundamental insanity, and the fact that state-wide communism requires everyone to toe the line whether they like it or not.
Could that situation be replicated in the West? Hitler did a fair old job of it, but that was 80 years ago now and the world was pretty different. I believe the novel is saying that in order to respond to Soviet Russia the West had to do something similar to even respond. Fortunately, as it turned out, they/we chose a different path and eventually won the ideological battle. That in itself is rather interesting.
Fortunately for the moment we still have democracy
Democracy, but also capitalism. Money talks more than governments in many circumstances. These two things both make it hard to force people to do what they don't want. Soviet Russia had neither of these things.
Yeah, just imagine if the government mandated all the ISPs to stick in a great big filter to stop nasty things being shown on the internet.
Because that's worked really well at blocking the P!rate bay and similar hasn't it - my point being that the internet is so big now, without making it largely useless (which would kill business), it's almost impossible to actually regulate it effectively.
Hmm. Do you think fear of those things could be extrapolated to Stalinist policies? I think that's a bit of a stretch tbh.
I never said we would get to Stalinist policies, I don't see that happening at all. What I can imagine is a society that is increasingly intolerant of dissent and non-conformance, and uses the tools available to stop it.
Because that's worked really well at blocking the P!rate bay and similar hasn't it - my point being that the internet is so big now, without making it largely useless (which would kill business), it's almost impossible to actually regulate it effectively.
I think you're overly optimistic. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
Molgrips you have to look past the way governments behave, and look at what those behaviour patterns are trying to achieve IMO
I don't think anyone here is trying to compare 21st Britain to Stalinist Russia in the 40's and 50s, but there are scarily similar parallels to what they both try to achieve
Read a bit of Chomsky, really do
Read a bit of Chomsky, really do
I've always meant to.
Where would you start? Manufacturing Consent?
