In answer to the question: How do we avoid Orwellian-ism in our modern society? I think that we first need to analyze how we treat our own personal privacy. Privacy as we know it today is quickly fading into a very open existence. We share our personal information (location, interests, friends, political associations, etc) with corporations every day if we’re not actively avoiding doing so.
In my very first blog post about this book, I shared a video about Facebook’s targeted advertising system. One of the points the video made was about how by using information like your location and political associations, companies like Facebook can share this information with governmental law enforcement to allow them to track and find protests and rallies.
Essentially, there are a lot of things that had to have gone wrong for society to end up in the timeline presented in 1984. But one of the things that the individual has control over is their own personal privacy. But what do you think? Is our privacy still in our own hands, or have we already surrendered it to the powers that be?
Obviously we don't have telescreens in our houses yet, but we do have many smart devices and phones that track down a ton of information. The biggest difference I see between now and 1984 is that no one is passing judgement on the information we yield. 1984 has the thoughtpolice, but right now all that private info is going towards corporations making more money and such. Not sure if that's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI think we have less control over our own privacy than many people wish to realize. Particularly with things like Alexa that are constantly listening to your conversations, there is even a lack of privacy within your own home. I think a main reason why people still feel safe and private is because there isn't widespread invasive video surveillance. Video surveillance is widely seen as the ultimate invasion of privacy, and I don't think there will be widespread outrage from the public until such a system becomes commonplace.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have heard really creepy things about Alexa et al. Granted, for now they're just listening in for ways they can sell us stuff, but that's creepy (and annoying) all by itself.
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