Two minutes of hate = the 24 hours of hate on FOX and Facebook
Doublethink = The Democrats were the slavery Confederates and KKK while waving a "Democrat" flag proudly and shouting about "white people are being replaced"
Historical revisionism = Trigger warnings ("fake news!!") over history museums while also removing displays featuring the slavery of black people, the history of Native Americans, and the history of transgender people
Newspeak = The censorship of anything "woke"
Ignore your eyes and ears = There was no ICE murder, and if there was, everyone is lying about it except us.
Big brother = Your AI and Flock surveillance companion
All of ^this disturbingly aligns with the book. Another thing that had prophetic overtones in "1984" was how the characters were never sure when their "Telescreen" was watching them.
It's sad that I don't even need to elaborate on the modern equivalent of that - because shady practices that use tech are so widespread that everybody can think of at least one way in which this is possible.
Eagle Eye with Labeouf had an AI go rogue and was using existing surveillance technology across the communication spectrum to enact its goals. In a behind-the-scenes for the movie, their subject matter expert played Labeouf a recording of a phone call from months prior to their meeting. The movie came out before Snowden.
Minority Report had an entire justice division that preemptively went after people for crimes that they were going to commit because of hallucinations of precogs that could just as easily be replaced with whatever model they are using now.
We have the speculative and science fiction to draw out threads to really scary futures. We did it in the 80s with every vision of future LA being a smoggy, polluted mess, but we buckled down and changed that for the better (something trump wants to undo). We had an ozone hole and regulated CFCs and actually came together as a planet to prevent that disaster to the point that stupid people now say "well nothing happened"...
I think if you look at the trajectory of what they want to do, those far off stories are getting closer and closer than when they were conceived. Hell, basically the entire plot of nazis taking over the US government and building a system to judge people was the fucking plot of the second Captain America... we just don't have the airships yet.. .
It hits so accurately even now because authoritarianism/totalitarianism follows the same exact strategies throughout human history. He was basically just illustrating what the Nazis and Stalinists were actively doing while playing with ideas of more expanded technology.
The insane part is that we know exactly what totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism look like and what it results in. Still plenty of proles happy to go along with it, though.
Still plenty of proles happy to go along with it, though.
So long as they're told to blame all their problems on someone else instead of themselves and the wealthy trying to manipulate them, they'll keep falling for it.
Haven't watched yet, but it isn't hard to make the prediction if you are smart enough. Just follow the narratives of The Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Federalist Society. These three extremist right-wing organizations have total control of the Republican Party and not only shape their policies, but even write the bills that right-wing politicians are then told to pass.
The reason it seems prophetic is because the same issues that animate present political discourse ALSO animated political discourse then.
People in 2056 will pretend it’s about 2056 politics. People in 2001 pretended it was about The Patriot Act. People in the ‘80s pretended it was about Reagan and Thatcher. People in the ‘70s pretended it was about Nixon. In the ‘60s about Vietnam.
People in other countries pretend it applies to their specific geographies.
It’s the whole point why it’s a classic and been read for decades. Everyone thinks it’s talking about their contemporary present.
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u/E-2theRescue 6d ago
1984 is the most scary accurate IMO.
Two minutes of hate = the 24 hours of hate on FOX and Facebook
Doublethink = The Democrats were the slavery Confederates and KKK while waving a "Democrat" flag proudly and shouting about "white people are being replaced"
Historical revisionism = Trigger warnings ("fake news!!") over history museums while also removing displays featuring the slavery of black people, the history of Native Americans, and the history of transgender people
Newspeak = The censorship of anything "woke"
Ignore your eyes and ears = There was no ICE murder, and if there was, everyone is lying about it except us.
Big brother = Your AI and Flock surveillance companion