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

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

#531

Post by macintux »

bamboozled wrote: post #412
akiselev wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hear this one a lot, do you have a source to prove this? What kinds of source would be most convincing for such a broad question such as this? How about the fact that as many people have escaped extreme poverty since 1990 as there are human beings alive in Europe [1]? Average global purchasing power more than doubling [2]? Or maybe global agricultural output growing more than twice as fast as the world population…

If you're starving and working in a toxic garbage dump, how does a smart phone or cell phone improve the situation? Honest question. If the government is corrupt, and steal infact money from citizenss, is a cell phone going to put food on your table? It could actually be used against a population. Think mass surveillance, censorship or false news for example. Also, the OP said the "poorest", from my own observations…

> If you're starving and working in a toxic garbage dump, how does a smart phone or cell phone improve the situation?

It's worth remembering the incredulous responses to seeing photos of Syrian refugees with smartphones.

They rather missed the point: smartphones are a lifeline for many poor, desperate people. Internet access enables communications, enables research into fundamentals like "where can I find someone willing to save my life?"

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

#532

Post by davexunit »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #282
dllthomas wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S. Impeachment requires a crime. Lying isn't usually a crime, and as best I can tell hasn't been one any of the times Trump has done it (.. yet?). It also hasn't been a crime any of the times Obama has done it. Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal. When we come up with somethin…

"Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal." It is not "breaking precedent". George Washington kept his farm. It's entirely unreasonable to expect a regular citizen to give up his business simply because he's elected to public office. Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.

>Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.

This an outright lie.

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

#533

Post by davexunit »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #481
MagnumOpus wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dog-whistle term. Politically neutral persons think it is a typo, but it is recognised by the anonymous poster's fellow associates, and marks the poster as someone they should upvote, endorse and agree with.

It is very simply a spelling that reflects my opinion of 0bama. I normally spell it as "0" but I wasn't sure if it would be clear in context. The net effect of his presidency will surely be near zero. While I don't agree with everything on the Trump agenda, much of it is long overdue. Of most relevance to HN, I expect the economy to boom!

You are a fascist.

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

#534

Post by eli_gottlieb »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #365
zamalek wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More precisely, he aims to extend the powers of the TLAs to a very worrying degree. > [1] “And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” So it's not blame-laying, he's saying this stuff himself. [1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/…

At least he's honest . Any other potential president would have had their hand forced or led the charge too.

>At least he's honest.

Saying something true by chance doesn't make the man honest when his words are randomly generated.

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

#535

Post by dllthomas »

baddox wrote: post #482
rbanffy wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists because some states are very sparsely populated while others actively suppress the votes of a large portion of its population, first by slavery, then by other methods. It's fair to increase representation of underpopulated states because their interests would be underrepresented if not (and it's a good thing because it allows large areas to be dedicated to nature). Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in pl…

I still don't get it. Why would sparsely populated states' interests be underrepresented if every individual vote were equal? That only makes sense if you think land area or population density is a primary unit of relevance regarding political influence, which to me seems completely arbitrary.

One sq mile, one vote!

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

#536

Post by cryptarch »

RangerScience wrote: post #361
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'm down-voting you, here's why: This is a headline and an article about "alternative facts", relating them to a book about comprehensive "alternative fact" propaganda. Not about any of things that you listed. You didn't add any meaningful information to the discussion, but have added divisive and heavily argued opinions, in a way that only furthers their divisiveness. This is not a comment on your opinions. This is…

Why is voting disabled on the parent comment? Is it just me who has that or is it disabled for everyone?

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

#537

Post by MarkMc »

pmyjavec wrote: post #219
akiselev wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you honestly don't believe the world is unambiguously better now than it was 20-30 years ago, you've been living under a continental plate the entire time. The world has gotten better in almost every way including the rapid fall in poverty rates, more reliable sources of food and medicine, and better access to technology for even the poorest folk. All the problems that seem so overwhelming now like the threat of n…

"and better access to technology for even the poorest folk" I hear this one a lot, I don't think it matters or is relevant. I've spent time in third world countries I met people sleeping, working and eating in rubish dumps, and they're not even considered the poorest! I didn't see them running around with technology, nor do I see how that would change there situation much.

Perhaps these days people are less likely to be living and working in rubbish dumps.

What are your thoughts on these graphs?

https://twitter.com/Sheril_/status/821356927158484992?s=09

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

#538

Post by BasDirks »

TheGirondin wrote: post #513
zamalek wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. In addition to your points, Orwell has to do with both an overreaching left (thought crime) and right (surveillance state). The government even associates itself with socialism. That being said, it's not a stretch to imagine that it takes two successive and opposed politicians to set up and orwellian state. Trump would set up the surveillance state (as he threatens to do), and some future authoritative Democr…

>Trump would set up the surveillance state (as he threatens to do) These kind of comments really underscore how little credibility the anti-Trump crowd has, given the context of the last 8 years.

Kind of a blanket statement. The anti-Trump crowd is rather large.

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

#539

Post by celticninja »

forgetsusername wrote: post #453
celticninja wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So it's more acceptable for politicians to admit to their lies at a later date, that to stick to them? Hmm...

Is that what I said?

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

#540

Post by y04nn »

Fricken wrote: post #197
beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

He was voted in by the people, through a legitimate democratic process. Democracy works. Freedom of speech works. 1984 didn't get it right. It's not the government that needs to be feared. It isn't the big evil corporarions. It's the people. The mob. 4chan ran a more effective propaganda/misinformation campaign than any dark shadowy corporate entity. Our insitutions are less than stellar, but at least they are run by…

Hitler was also democratically elected, democracy can fail.
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