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Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?
Posted by
Cliff
on Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:55 PM
from the his-words-are-still-precient dept.
from the his-words-are-still-precient dept.
gabec asks: "This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. Last week my girlfriend bought four peaches. An alert came up stating that peaches were a restricted item and she had to identify herself before being able to purchase such a decidedly high quantity of the dangerous fruit. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?" The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?
Am I just accustomed to old ways? Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia? What can I, a person with no political interests--a person that would really rather think that the people in office are there because they're looking out for us, our rights, and our freedoms and not because their short-sightedness is creating a police state--do to stem the tide?"
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Peaches? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they were underage?
Parent
SORRY, YOU ARE NOT CLEARED FOR THAT (Score:5, Funny)
And stop thinking about goats when you play with yourself.
Parent
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Interesting)
This document [globalsecurity.org], however, implies that the production method described in the patent results in a impure mixture of various denatured proteins.
Parent
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Informative)
"half -strength" may be an exceptionally optimistic yield. The patent doesn't address the efficiency of the process.
Parent
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Peaches? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I'm guessing it's one of two things (Score:5, Insightful)
2) He's making shit up to try and be dramatic.
I mean peaches certianly aren't globally restricted. We just bought some the other day, no problems, as I imagine millions of people did. You would hear about it if they were sending flags up all over.
As for check ID items, it's up to the store how far they go. Like with alcohol I've had the entire range. Some simply dismiss the warning assuming fomr appearnace I'm over 21. Some check my ID each time. At grocery and convience stores they are usually more carefuly. Some check the ID and enter the birthdate in the register, some have you scan it in a little machine that checks. The most extreme case I saw was at a Frys which is near the university and a couple of high schools, thus lots of underage purchaes. They check your ID, record it, and make you sign the book they recorded it in.
Basically it's the levle of CYA they feel necessary to not get fined/shut down. Fact of the matter is, someone will fool them and buy underage. Well if a fuss is made of it, the liquor board investigates. They then have to prove they took steps to stop that from happening. The liquor board deicded based on that if they were really trying and it was an honest mistake, or if they are being delibratly lax.
thus the response depends on the store, it's not government mandidated, the government just says "You can't sell to minors and you are responsable for taking steps to make sure you don't." Up to you to determine the kind of steps and the proof you keep of them so you can defend yorself if need be.
But ya, I am not seeing any federal peach crackdown here. If that's the case, we'd probably hear about it on CNN.
Parent
Just walk away (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just walk away (Score:5, Interesting)
The peaches incident was probably a register mistake. But in a number of states you need to be 18 or older to purchase a lighter by state law. I tried to purchase one once when I was 17 so I could burn the trash out back like I had done every week for nearly a decade, and I was denied. Apparently the law presumes that lighters will only be used for smoking, and couldn't be used for things like, you know, burning trash, or making smores. It's another classic example of lawmakers restricting a wide spectrum of basic freedoms to fight a single pet cause of self-endangerment.
This is the same mentality as occurs in sweeping laws to fight "child pornography", and sweeping laws to fight violence in video games, and sweeping laws to protect people from the internet, or the prevention of pseudophedrine purchases for fear of meth labs getting it. If we could get people to stop asininely voting for politicians on the basis of those pet causes, then freedom would not be encroached nearly as much as it currently is.
What we are living in is a culture war between people who want personal freedom, and people who are immersed in irrational emotional fear.
Parent
Re:Just walk away (Score:5, Funny)
Let me guess: the small, poor country you were in was the United States, and the store you went to was the local Radio Shack.
Parent
I have a better question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Vote for a party that values human freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
I would be if they were balls-out scrappers for freedom and liberty for all humans. But too often they stop at property rights, and assume that a good round of deregulation and tax cuts will fix everything else.
Freedom and rights have to be fought for. The enemy isn't just the government; it includes corporations.
Human rights must come before corporate rights. Too many Libertarians I know seem uncomfortable with that.
So, which party to turn to? Right now, there's no clear choice. But for now, the first step is denying Bush the convenience of a rubber stamp congress.
That means holding your nose and voting Democratic this fall.
And stop being afraid.
Parent
It's not just about privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, don't get me wrong, but I don't think we've come to that yet.
cough cough fake terror alerts hussein abu ghraib war on terrorism fox news wmd in iraq cough
Re:It's not just about privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
How will we recognize it when we do?
Parent
Listen closely (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there's a lot of censorship and surveillance going on. Yes, we have to be vigilant about everything we've heard.
My fear is, the fact that we find out about these domestic wiretaps, secret European prisons - means that the people put in charge of these things are morons. Most people in the position to be doing important secret 1984-type dealings are smart. The things we know about are pretty bad - how much worse are the things we don't know about?
Re:Listen closely (Score:5, Insightful)
So are you proposing that we should or should not keep electing morons? Your argument could go either way...
Parent
Bush and his cronies are to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Disagree.
Most of these things came from the Bush administration. The last 6 years has been a cancer eating away at the very fabric of what it used to mean to be american.
Phrases like 'truth, justice, and the american way' ring very hollow these days...especially to the rest of the world.
State v. private interests (Score:5, Insightful)
1984 was about the state controlling everything. In the current situation, the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of Islamic terrorists that they're willing to give the state more power. This may or may not be a temporary situation, but the state obviously hasn't reached the level of control that Big Brother did in 1984.
As for corporations watching what you do, the real question is whether Microsoft checking to see if you're using a pirated version of their software is somehow going to affect your political rights, or if it is just a stupid move on their part that will only push customers away from their products. After all, you only have one state. You can choose software vendors.
Re:State v. private interests (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to be careful to keep this technology from being used for ill. When something that's "kind of bad" is proposed, we need to react STRONGLY. Rights have a way of being chipped away and it's usually through violent conflict that these rights are regained. Better to protect them in the first place.
Further, it doesn't really matter who it is that's doing the surveillance. If Walmart has the information, it's only a subpoena from being in Uncle Sam's hands...
Parent
Admitting you have a problem is the first step (Score:5, Insightful)
Get some political interests
Sticking your head in the sand will not help. So pull it out, shake out the sand, and get involved. And I don't mean you should flip a coin, pick the red team or the blue team, and blindly follow them.
I mean that you should get active in holding your elected officials accountable for their actions, regardless of their party affiliation. Keep up on the issues and be vocal about them. Read and listen to opposing points of view and try to form and propagate valid opinions. Make sure your representatives know that someone is watching them, and follows what they do. If they lie, cheat, steal, or sell you down the river, nail them. Vote them out in the primary if you can, and in the general if you can't. Cross party lines if you need to, because you are far better off with an honest member of the opposing party than one of "your own party" who is willing to sell you to the devil for a few hookers.
And, for that matter, do the same with your news outlets. And your local ballot boxes. If we paid half the attention to keeping the system honest that we do American idol or celebrity babies, we wouldn't have this problem.
--MarkusQ
And for the second step... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're interested in reading the account of someone who started out pretty much where you are, except that he's an attorney specializing in constitutional law, you might want to check out How Would a Patriot Act [amazon.com]
From the back cover:
--MarkusQParent
Your Attention (Score:5, Funny)
DoublePlusYeeHaw!
We're at 1983 (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, as Benny hill once said in a sketch, "My dog likes to chase cars, but if he ever caught one, he wouldn't know what to do with the damn thing!"
Right now, the powers that be are dogs chasing cars, but they are close to figuing out what they'll do when they catch one.
Enjoy this moment while it lasts.
What privacy? (Score:5, Interesting)
eightyfour (Score:5, Insightful)
In the superficial sense, i.e. electronic surveillance, much of what you mentioned has fallen into place over the past ten to fifteen years. And most of it has been implemented by commercial interests. As for the mindset? I, and I’m sure a whole lot of others around here, would say that the overwhelming majority of it has sprung up in the body politic within the past 58 months.
May you live in interesting times, comrade.
Begin fighting back now (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying that this is happening now, though. We're getting closer, but the real danger comes from people who will welcome it when it comes. The single most important battle to be won is in the battle of ideas - that's politics these days.
The other thing you can do is begin securing all aspects of your life. Try and use encryption over the internet; encrypt your emails and messages. Start using cash to buy stuff - the Japanese do it all the time; paying with credit or debit at a store is pretty much rare in Japan. Refuse to buy from the grocery store if they require your drivers license to prove you won't make cyanide when you buy peaches (are peach trees illegal now??).
But important: if you DO make a fuss, DO NOT LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE. This is probably what most of you are capable of doing. If you do "fight the man," please do so in an orderly, respectful, and unannoying manner. If you get asked for your license at the grocer's, don't scream about it - people want to get through the line. Simply refuse to purchase from the store, and explain to those around you that you are being asked for your driver's license to buy peaches. The worst thing that can happen is for your ideals to be tied in with obnoxious behavior (this is what happened to liberals).
Re:Big "OH Brother" (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Big "OH Brother" (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
"OH Brother" ... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Big "OH Brother" (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is that people are totally happy with letting companies and goverment track them. Every purchase with your CC is tracked. Every purchase with an "awards card" is tracked, and people are totally fine with this type of tracking.
Personally I think it will get to the point where you no longer just punch in for a job. You punch in to leave your house, enter your house, enter buildings, ride public transit and so on. it will be so simple, we all ready have a trackable ID on us. It would be simple too since they all ready do it with people on house arrest (talk into the phone and a device).
But with RFID it will be even easier, and less noticable.
Parent
Probably doable right now (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing stopping them from doing it right now is allowing people to purchase with cash. Cash is a problem, because it's harder to trace cash than it is to trace credit cards.
I'll use for example the metro system near where I live, in Washington DC. It's an admittedly sophisticated system compared to a lot of other places, but it's nothing that futuristic. You can pay to use the metro (including buses) in one of two ways: you use either a credit card or cash, and you put the amount onto either a semi-reusable cardboard mag-stripe card, or a reusable RFID card. The RFID cards aren't (I don't think) stored value; they just chirp a serial number. So if you use one of those, it's fairly trivial to track you throughout the system, particularly if you load it with a credit card. Find the transaction where you added money to it, get the serial number of the card you put money on, and then follow that serial number around as you use it.
With cash the problem becomes one of identification. You can still track someone around the system using their stored-value mag-stripe card, but identifying someone as they come into the system if they pay with cash is still a significant problem. The way to get around this would be either by requiring everyone to use some non-anonymous form of payment to get in (which might mean scanning a government photo ID when paying with cash) or automated face recognition. Since most public transport is filled with cameras as is, the latter might be the way to go.
Of course none of this keeps you from buying a ticket (RFID or regular) and handing it to another person, so it wouldn't be foolproof, but I would be surprised if the police haven't used the electronic ticketing systems to figure out where suspects under pursuit enter and leave already. It's such an obvious use of the technology I can't imagine that they haven't, especially given the very high-crime areas that public-transport systems tend to run through.
Personally, I feel that it won't be very long in the future when using cash is the mark of someone suspicious. (It already is, in large quantities and in certain places -- bought an airline ticket with cash lately?) That is, anyone using cash to purchase anything from food to movie tickets will be forced through additional scrutiny, not to mention odd looks from "honest" people (using their Visa cards as God intended).
Parent
Re:Big "OH Brother" (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout". (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Something wrong with $5.15 an hour? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, that's too much. Well, how many lost jobs are acceptable? Can you give a number? If we raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour and lay off 15% of the workforce, is that good?
More money is great as long as YOU don't lose your job. Everybody, even those already on minimum wage, thinks it'll be the other guy who loses his job or that some rich guy won't be so rich. Sure, and pigs fly really well.
To pay the cleaning people their new minimum wage, we can get rid of one web developer. The other guys can work overtime to make up the loss. Then again, maybe it's just time for the company to go bankrupt and get rid of EVERYBODY.
It goes the other way too. A smelly drunk isn't likely to get hired at $5.15 an hour, but his value might be above zero. He deserves a chance to work. The same goes for the fat girl with acne that makes people feel ill, the guy who stares inappropriately, the lady who has conversations with her knuckles... They all deserve a chance to work.
Parent
Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour? (Score:5, Insightful)
These ideas are not communist. They're as democratic and American as mom and the flag and apple pie.
The CEOs that run the corporations decide what people get paid. In fact, the CEOs even decide their own level of compensation since they control the board of directors and who gets accepted on there. You want a raise? Ask your boss. He'll look at his budget, which was handed down to him from his boss, which was given to him from his boss, all the way up to the CEO. You have no control over this organization. You did not vote in your boss. The CEO takes the money that you earn and gives most of it to himself. The corporation is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship.
In fact, the corporation is so decidedly undemocratic since they decide what you can or can not say, even in your time off. They decide who you can or can not associate with, even in your time off. They decide what you can or can not do, even in your time off. The corporation is so undemocratic and so un-American that's it's completely laughable that anyone uses the "Communist" card to defend corporate policies of screwing the janitors making minimum wage in order to give the CEO another million dollars.
Parent
Re:It may be too late... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't lose something that you give away.
Most of those things he mentioned people think are great, because those things mean that they either get a bargain, or that they're protecting 'the children'. The rest of them people either don't notice or wouldn't care about even if you managed to successfully get them to understand why it is that you care about them.
Maybe there will be another American revolution some day to try and put back into place a government whose altruistic ideals can be effected indefinitely.
Yeah, right. Most of that stuff in the post didn't even have anything to do with state or federal govenrment. It was mostly corporate and people giving their privacy away under their own accord.
The best part was where he described journalists as 'the people who are supposed to be looking out for him'. What a hoot. Somebody needs a lesson in capatilism, and some friendly advice not to be so trusting lest he look in the mirror and find out he's one of the people giving away bits of himself for no good reason.
How come 30 million people have to try to live on $5.15 an hour? How are their voices not heard?
Here's a hint: More than half of them aren't even old enough to vote if they wanted to (and if they were, they'd be statistically unlikely to vote anyway). The minimum wage is a heart-string issue. The Democrats tote it out to get emotional votes out of the section of their base that hasn't engaged their brain. It's the Democrats' version of school prayer.
Not everybody needs to earn a living wage. Some people are dependents to other people, or are children. It is important that low wage jobs exist, or it would be difficult to get that first job that lets you start climbing the ladder. Stop and think, and read a bit. You will find that politicians and armchair economists are the biggest supporters of a minimum wage hike. It's never the people who are supposedly harmed by the low minimum wage crying for an increase, and most of the groups that advocate for those very same people think it's dumb too.... All those people want an expansion of the EITC [irs.gov] instead.
Parent
that leaves 15 million people there pal.. (Score:5, Insightful)
wow.. you just trod all over your own argument.
that leaves 15 million people who are earning below poverty wages who are NOT dependents of others... in other words they NEED a living wage and are not getting it.
I have news for you people who complain about welfare leeches... half the time these people are pushed into that because if they make above a certain level of income.. they will be denied welfare, but their jobs will make them less than welfare!
maybe if you raised the minimum wage, their jobs would make them more than welfare and they would not feel compelled to remain unemployed.
So no.. it's not "the democrat's version of school prayer", it's a valid issue of exploiters paying sub-poverty wages, then lobbying for a "free market" whenever there is a push to raise those wages to a point where people can.. i don't know.. buy food AND a pay rent at the same time?
Parent
Re:It may be too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'free market' ended in 1930's for the same reason 'anarchy' ended in the stone age: a single strongman will fuck up the playing field for everybody by assimilating, subjugating, and repressing everyone else (while getting even stronger in the process). To take it to extreme, in a 'free market' there is nothing to stop some asshole buying a nuclear weapon, then collecting 'protection' money from you and me. There is nothing to stop GSK from patenting antibiotics as a concept, then charging $10,000,000 per pill. So what that 50% of children will not survive to adulthood (a la 19th century America), that's because they are too lazy to do anything else.
Yes, the free market is the best possible scenario, except that human nature being what it is, the market will quickly degrade into something horrible if completely uncontrolled.
Parent
Re:It may be too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure there is: If they price themselves out of the mass market, they wouldn't make any money that way.
In any event, a patent is a government-enforced artificial monopoly. In a libertarian paradise (which you appear to be substituting for "free-market economy"), they wouldn't necessarily exist.
Parent
Re:It may be too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones... Strawberry picking, aspalt laying, etc aren't hard at all
You should visit some public high schools in poor areas some day. Hard work won't change that drugs are rampant, gangs rule the hallways, and you can't get a real education.
Maybe you should go talk to real people that are poor. Two parents working two full time minimum wage jobs have trouble supporting a family. It may open your eyes that even though hard work can often result in success, for those in impovershied areas, or for those who are born with disadvantages or into a disadvantageous situation, hard work is necessary for survival, and that is often barely achieved.
You're the one that needs to get real and realize that not everyone is born with a bevy of opportunities, and it's not easy to succeed, even with hard work.
Parent
Re:Chill out (Score:5, Insightful)
Second : "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." Thomas Paine
Third : "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions" --Samuel Adams, Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788
Fourth : "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
FYI, I am not a liberal. I did not like clinton, But I detest Bush. He has IMO clearly vioalted his oath of office
to preserve protect and defend the constitution.
Lastly,in response to your " I paraphrase the Administration spokesman here, I would rather the government collected my call records than my remains"
Patrick Henry was right, and americans today have become complete pussies to the point that most probably do not deserve freedom because they don't like the cost.
Parent
Re:Go Fig (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Go Fig (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither Ghandi or King masterbated in public.
Parent
Re:Go Fig (Score:5, Insightful)
Surveillance and control are intimately linked. Once you remove the barriers against observation, you also remove the barriers against control. This would be one of the main themes of that entire book.
It is very relevant because in our hyper-informational society, it is becoming easier to surveille people than ever, and information is being used *against* us as opposed to *for us*.
The government should not be able to leverage what you do in your private life, what you do with your property, what you do with your money, against you, as long as you're not harming anyone else with your actions - and even when we do harm other people, we have institutions in place to protect ourself against the government - habeas corpus, the right to not incriminate ourselves, etc. It's the government that should be transparent and open to surveillance - not the populace. This is, after all, a *democracy* where the people, not any autocratic police government, are in power.
If at any moment it is possible that you are being observed by someone - anyone - aren't you less inclined to exercise your freedoms? I certainly am.
Parent
Re:Go Fig (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are less inclined to exercise your freedoms when you are being observed, well, then you probably are confusing "excerise your freedoms" with "break the rules of good behavior". Please go back to kindergarten, I think you missed a few lessons on how to operate in civilzied society.
Spoken like someone for whom "civilized society" has always been synonymous with "my own cultural mores". Ironically, that culture only survived to become a mainstream belief by carefully protecting its privacy amidst a larger, often hostile society. The fish symbol which car owners and companies use to advertise their Christianity today was originally intended to do the opposite, as a passcode to help Christians keep their beliefs secret from observers who might do them harm.
Parent
Re:Wrong dystopia (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are comfortable living in a space 10' a side, then you'll never notice the 12' square cell that you're in. American statism has been so successful precisely because controls are hidden since overt controls foment discontent. People are indoctrinated with American exceptionalism from birth. It is a very powerful myth and the backbone of control. Conformity is constantly being reinforced by your employer, church, school, college, customers and the media. Commercial consumerism is the modern day soma, to borrow from another dystopia.
The main difference between 1984 and 2006 is that the state doesn't bother dealing with those who try to affect it rather than submit to its power because it only needs to neutralize effective dissidents. So, Noam Chomsky, for example, is allowed to do his thing because his message is neutralized by lack of access to mainstream media and the media's noise thrown up against it. Those who can't be reigned in by typical controls are incarcerated, disappeared or killed, "suicided" is the CIA term, as in any traditional authoritarian regime.
* WAR IS PEACE
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Parent
Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who recently got refused a job that I went to school for on the basis of my credit rating, I agree with you that things have gone too far.
Bork!
Parent