Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

openculture.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 648 posts

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#441

Post by toor2 »

juskrey wrote: post #8
banku_brougham wrote: post #4

This is amazing. The womens marches over the weekend and these seem to be an indicator of a very sudden awakening.

50 years ago: "We, women, are not sexual devices!" 2017: Putting on pink clit caps. I bet 1984 customers is way another set of people.

They are bennies with cat ears called pussy hats, not "clit hats". They were made in response to the "grab me by the pussy" remark The Donald made.

Also AFAB people have a right to destigmatize their reproductive organs. (Think about how many times a day middle school boys draw penises on things)

Now that being said, I think the pussy hats are problematic because they are trans exclusionary, which is totally unrelated to your imagined feminist hypocrisy.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#442

Post by SquareWheel »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #295

The most amazing thing to me is that the 0bama administration was very good at Orwellian manipulation, yet it was rarely remarked upon. I mean, the guy got a Nobel Peace Prize, then proceeded with eight years of undeclared war on many different countries. "Droning" became a verb...

"0bama"

Is this a typo or some snarky attack? That seems distasteful.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#443

Post by toor2 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #12
Trill-I-Am wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is referencing the natural female anatomy inherently sexual?

I don't think his point is that it IS inherently sexual. It's just somewhat ironic. And maybe that's the point?

It's only ironic if you sexualize female genitalia

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#444

Post by halomru »

joeguilmette wrote: post #355
soft_dev_person wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cynical among us have been saying that nothing presented by the White house (and any other government institutions) can be trusted at face value for years. I guess now is the time where everyone becomes a cynic. But is that such a bad thing? They say access journalism is dead, but access journalism is just repeating stuff said by people with power. Making them accountable is a good thing. Trump may have unintenti…

>> Trump may have unintentionally restored investigative journalism... This can happen if they can find a way to monetize text that costs 100x more to produce and has 100x less engagement than clickbait.

If there's 10000 times less competition in investigative journalism than in clickbaiting those numbers add up to being profitable

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#445

Post by megalomanu »

kylelibra wrote: post #31

Also highly relevant is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Thanks. Huxley is much more relevant than Orwell, today. 1984 is a masterpiece but describes a stalinian totalitarism, which probably belongs to the past. Today, the threat is more diffuse and hides in mass entertainment, consumerism, etc. The danger we face is the lose of our ability to think (not because of thinking would become forbidden, but because it would become unnecessary)

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#446

Post by soft_dev_person »

okket wrote: post #409
soft_dev_person wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cynical among us have been saying that nothing presented by the White house (and any other government institutions) can be trusted at face value for years. I guess now is the time where everyone becomes a cynic. But is that such a bad thing? They say access journalism is dead, but access journalism is just repeating stuff said by people with power. Making them accountable is a good thing. Trump may have unintenti…

> But is that such a bad thing? Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Your point may be valid, but I think the current (up until very recently, anyway) situation is just as bad.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#447

Post by toor2 »

flukus wrote: post #121
skylan_q wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why everyone assumes that you can only be a female if you have a vagina

I don't get why every single exception must be catered for every single time.

Maybe you don't get it because you are privileged and therefore adequately represented in society

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#448

Post by danbruc »

celticninja wrote: post #440
forgetsusername wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A new trend ? You think Trump is inventing Whitehouse lies, right before our eyes? Politicians have a looooong history of lying, big lies that get peole killed ("Iraq WMDs are a slam dunk!") . Where have you been?

Those lies were not immediately able to be proven wrong. This is different because not only did they lie about something that could be checked but the continued to lie even after being called out on it. Further the president repeated the lie and continues to repeat the lie. O bet both George W. Bush and Tony Blair would agree that there were no WMDs in Iraq if you asked them today, if you also Trump, today or in 10 y…

Those lies were not immediately able to be proven wrong.

But there was serious doubt even if it did not constitute a clear proof. And doesn't this actually make matters worse? An obvious lie about something without much if any consequences versus a somewhat convincing lie about something that affected the lives of millions? To me the former one seems more like a stupid thing to do, the later one seems ruthless, evil or what ever you want to call it.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#449

Post by ascorbic »

caseysoftware wrote: post #98
knz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've probably all seen the emoluments clause raised as one way he may be breaking the law. I'm not a legal expert but I would assume, if it's true, that breaking the Constitution would be illegal? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause "The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that ... restricts members of the government from r…

Except Congress already consented decades ago: > The financial conflict statute prohibits federal employees from participating in matters where they could enrich themselves. It applies to everyone in the executive branch, from the lowliest file clerk up to the White House chief of staff – except for the president and vice president. Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/07/can-congress... You could try to…

This is a different issue. Trump is correct that the conflict of interest laws don't apply to him. However the emoluments clause is something else, and most constitutional scholars say that it clearly does apply. This doesn't prohibit conflicts of interest; it prohibits federal employees and office holders from receiving gifts, titles or emoluments from foreign governments. Profits from business with foreign governments would certainly be covered by this, as would beneficial terms on loans and, arguably, things such as building permits. You'd struggle to find a single non-partisan expert who would say that he isn't violating this right now, and even plenty of Republican lawyers agree.

The trouble is that impeachment is the responsibility Congress, and it would be a brave Republican congressman who would vote to impeach a Republican president right now.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#450

Post by delegate »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #281

Kind of ironic given Bush and Obama were the ones to expand the surveillance state, Hillary demonised the shit out of Russia to try create an enemy/scapegoat, and here Trump is, only a few days in power, not having done anything particularly bad. Also, I should add - for Democrats out there who keep trying to compare Trump to Hitler, say he's fascist, etc... That weak rhetoric is what gave you guys your worst electio…

I also find it funny that people compare him to Hitler. As if Hitler was the only and the baddest of them all.

There were also: Stalin, Mao Zedong, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Francisco Franco, Pinochet, Ceausescu...

Just in the 20th century there were hundreds of what we call 'dictators'. So it's a relatively common phenomenon.

Some of the common traits that they shared: they got shit done, they were egomaniacs, extravagant, sometimes talked crazy and were obsessed with lies, deception and then spies and enemies.

Killing (or creating the conditions for the death of) lots of people wasn't necessarily in their plans, it was just a necessary means to a glorious end.

Post reply on HN